AJC.com > Sports > Soccer blog > Archives > 2006 > March > 24
Friday, March 24, 2006
Taking the 5th, and flopping with it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So much for that No. 5 FIFA World Ranking, eh?
I’m not alone in wondering what the U.S. was doing scheduling a game against Germany outside the FIFA calendar, thus denying Bruce Arena the use of Brian McBride, DaMarcus Beasley, Oguchi Onyewu and other top European-based players.
Only Germany-based Kasey Keller and Steve Cherundolo figured in Dortmund Wednesday against a German team feeling extreme pressure for a good result. And they got one, a 4-1 thumping that turned German fans’ halftime jeers into cheers and made it just a bit easier for Juergen Klinsmann to breathe.
A German friend living in Vegas chimes in, sarcastically: “Ole, ole, ole, Super Deutschland!” He and many of his countrymen would rather Klinsmann stay in southern California permanently.
If this friendly was a chance for Arena to see how his supposedly vaunted efforts at creating a deep playing pool are faring, it was a startling reminder that American depth is out of its depth. And in front of a sizable American media contingent, which must be wondering why they got their bosses to cough up the cash to go across the pond for this debacle.
Most interesting from the ESPN2 telecast: A typically emotion-laden essay from Jim McKay, the godfather of Olympic television melodrama, declaring this the best U.S. team ever. That could still be the case, but having witnessed all that they did in 2002 with my own eyes, I’m not yet convinced of that. And I felt that way before that terrible second half.
At least Keller is hot enough to say what he thinks — he’s never been shy about that. But here the Yanks are playing in a big-time environment in Europe, in the fabulous Westfalenstadion, and the Americans flopped mightily. Arena says later he won’t schedule a game in a World Cup host’s nation a few months before the fact, but that’s side-stepping the real issue: He doesn’t have much beyond his core group of players, and he knows it. Heaven forbid any of them come up lame in three months’ time, although Claudio Reyna is once again laid up for a spell.
Josh Wolff had to leave the game in the 18th minute with a concussion and some stitches. But injuries around this fixture — including the unavailability of Landon Donovan and Eddie Pope — aren’t an excuse any longer.
I was going to blog that it’s amazing that the U.S. can routinely beat Mexico in soccer but not in baseball. But I think the fairly easy ride American soccer gets in CONCACAF is an unrealistic barometer of where the U.S. program really stands. Certainly the Czechs, Italians and Ghanaians noticed that, perhaps more keenly than anyone.
