AJC.com > Sports > Soccer blog > Archives > 2006 > May > 02 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USBruce’s picks, scattered, smothered and covered
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So it is a little after 6 p.m., at the appointed hour, and how does SportsCenter lead off its program that supposedly contains the ballyhooed announcement of the U.S. World Cup team?
With that super nerdy NFL guy tossing around after-the-fact draft scuttlebutt like the 3-day-old Waffle House hash that it is. This stuff has been scattered, smothered and covered to death already!
This is the kind of guy who could have passed for a soccer player at my high school, where the football players used to stuff footy types into lockers with room to spare. Now it simply purloins whatever basketball players it feels it needs to win state championships.
Now we get Kornheiser. We get him every day! Ditto for Wilbon, who asks which team is the best in baseball. It’s May 2! Who cares!
Here comes Schwarzenegger, who wants two professional football teams in Los Angeles. Actually, Tinseltown has four — Galaxy and Chivas, and USC and UCLA.
Mel Kiper Jr. gives us his top 10 seniors for 2006 — somebody send him back to the place that spawned him and put a muzzle on for the next 12 months. This is the fifth time in the last four days (at least) that he’s takin’ a shinin’ to the Brady Quinn lad at Notre Dame. Me thinks that’s a wee too much.
It’s 6:23, and what’s on? The bane of Bruce Arena’s existence, the endless reel of baseball highlights, followed by worse yet, Peter Gammons extrapolating on Bonds hitting No. 712 and Johnny Damon’s warm welcome back to Fenway. Last night. Tonight it’s supposed to be in the 40s in The Hub. And hey, what do the boys in pinstripes think about it? The only forecast I’m interested is the one Glenn Burns doles out. Enough!
Can we get on with this? Nike has just sent an e-mail saying the new U.S. World Cup uniform will be debuted as well tonight. Yippee. Who’s going to be in them?
Here it comes, precisely at 6:32 p.m. In drips. The names, one by one. Dempsey. Reyna. O’Brien. Olsen. Then at once, Beasley, Donovan, Mastroeni, Convey. The midfielders. Bruce is in the studio, wearing a suit and tie. Wow!
Now the forwards. Wolff — Parkview High and Stone Mountain’s own — is on his second straight W.C. roster. McBride. Johnson. Ching? Yes, Brian Ching made the cut, after it wasn’t looking so hot for him.
The defenders: Onyewu, Hejduk, Pope, Cherundolo, Lewis, Bocanegra, Conrad, Gibbs.
The keepers: No surprises. Keller, Howard, Hahnemann.
Didn’t make it: Noonan, Klein, Ralston, Zavagnin, Armas, Albright, Casey, Berhalter and Twellman, among notables. The last one is a surprise. I thought he’d get a spot over Ching. But maybe Brian is the thing this spring. Here’s the official link, but it’s understandably running a bit slow.
To wrap it all up is Eric Wynalda, I guess to do some second-guessing. He says with a little luck, they could reach the semis. Yes, the answer seems ridiculous, but so does the question: Can the U.S. win the World Cup? Who came up with that? PTI’s stat boy?
Well, Waldo’s spell was brief, because a guy in a pink salmon suit is asking us to come back for more NFL draft news. It is now 6:43. OK, USA, you can go back to your same old, same old. Hope we didn’t send you into toxic culture shock. Besides, there’s film of an A’s-Angels brawl on now. All is right now in ‘Murkah.
And for you, footy hounds, what’s your take on this team?
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By Ace
May 2, 2006 7:33 PM | Link to this
Funny stuff on ESPN. I have grown to hate ESPN over the last couple of years. But what can you do?
Team looks about right to me. Should be fun!
By Michael
May 2, 2006 8:36 PM | Link to this
Wendy, can you do us a favor? Can you refer to them as EsPN since they’re trying to focus more on Entertainment than sports? I think most soccer fans are like “thanks for covering the sport but would it kill you to give the league 5 minutes during the season on the Saturday night SC?” It’s obvious through everything you pointed out and more (poker, spelling bees, big men with cut trees) that they are running out of things to cram onto the mothership. Throw a mention of MLS on SC as I said and I guarantee you ratings go up. Who knew Duke had a Lacrosse team last year?
By Tee
May 2, 2006 8:57 PM | Link to this
I have no problems with Arena’s selections. As mentioned, the biggest surprise is Ching over Twellman. I actually agree with this. I think Ching’s physical presence as a target man is more inline with Arena’s World Cup strategy where he may only use 1 front runner. If anything were to happen to McBride, I think Ching is the better player for this role. Arena knows what he’s doing and I trust he will put the best possible lineup on the field come June 12th.
Also, congratulations to our own Josh Wolff for making his second World Cup team. I still have memories of playing with him up at “Mike Balson’s Soccer Academy” in Lilburn. My buddies and I were 12 and he was 7 and he still ran circles around us almost scoring at will. We knew he was special. Good luck to him next month. I hope he gets a start.
By patrick
May 3, 2006 9:11 AM | Link to this
I am glad to see that Wolff made the team. I think this years team could be really good, provided that they can beat the Checkq Republic. If they can beat or tie them they should have some momentum going into Italy, which is just as big a challenge in light of the fact that they are playing in Germany. I am anxious to see what happens with this team in preperation.
By Ace
May 3, 2006 12:31 PM | Link to this
Man the mention of Mike Balson’s Soccer Academy sure took me back….
By Edward Fajardo
May 3, 2006 2:00 PM | Link to this
The roster looks good, though i would have preferred Twellman over Wolff, who I think is overrated. Unfortunately, I don’t think the team survives the first round—and that’s no knock on the team. The group is just too tough, and the American forwards, as a group, aren’t a strong unit. The italian defense is fast and skillful enough to shut them down. Still, I hope for the best.
By Eric
May 3, 2006 2:26 PM | Link to this
I hate to say it, but ESPN did the smart thing…for them. By pushing the announcement all the way back to 6:30’ish, they forced all us Soccerniks to watch 30 minutes of their usual schlock (do we really need a live report from regular season baseball game?) while not roiling their usual fanbase.
Maybe, though, if they actually treated this event like it was a big deal…people wouldn’t be so oblivious.
I also wish they would treat it like we aren’t all ignorant. Instead of asking “Who are the players should we know on this team?”, Why not ask…why did you pick Ching over Twellman, Conrad over Berhalter, etc.?
At least there were now Adu references!
I will say that I agree that the reason Ching makes it is because he is the most physical presence between he and Twellman.
I also think, Edward F., that if Wolff didn’t make it, you might have seen Chris Rolfe (who would probably go if EJ or Wolff goes down). He is the replacement “speed” forward, while Twellmand and Casey are the replacement target forwards.
By Wendy Parker
May 3, 2006 6:27 PM | Link to this
Update:
Chris Albright has been added to the roster to replace Frankie Hejduk, who has a torn ACL. Albright will report to camp that starts May 10 in Cary, N.C.
By tbflowers
May 4, 2006 11:41 AM | Link to this
Yay for Wolff! Now score us some goals!
By Nicholas Irwin
May 4, 2006 1:02 PM | Link to this
Brian Ching sucks. I don’t care if he’s eight feet tall and made of concrete. Does any of that matter when he puts his shot over a wide-open goal by six feet? Granted, we’re talking about the fourth-string striker spot, but it’s still a stupid pick. I realize Twellman is a little bit overblown because of the crappy MLS competition, but at least he might be able to put the ball in the net. Ching is completely useless.
I don’t have a huge problem with any of the other picks, although I think I would’ve picked Ralston over Olsen. Ralston was quite effective in several qualifiers last year, including great performances against Guatemala and Mexico (a World Cup caliber team). On the other hand, Olsen didn’t play in a single qualifier. Although granted, I don’t know how injured Ralston is, so that may have not been a plausible option. However, he did put Ralston on the alternates list, so that makes me think he probably will be able to play.
By ryan
May 5, 2006 4:59 PM | Link to this
Wow! A forum for football fans. I cannot believe I have missed this one. Great insight and thanks for all the updates. Cannot wait for the Cup. Live here in Athens and found a place that will be playing all the games. Farm 255. One of the owners is a big football fan and says that it would be a sin not to show the games. I’ll be there and cheering. Congrats Wolff on another World Cup Team. One of the only professional sports that actually has a “World” Championship.