Off the Ball

By Henry

June 28, 2007 8:41 AM | Link to this

Good comments. My guess USA 1,2,3 and out. Mexico played much better against Brasil than against us in the Gold Cup. If they can keep this up they may just win this one. It actually was a pleasure to watch the games in the Copa America so far than the Gold cup gamed, much less hacking. I think there was only one game that was fun to watch, USA vs Canada. Lets hope that our new coach knows more about the young ones than we, if not he just created another bunch of losers. Brasil looked and played just like in the last World Cup, like a bunch of millionaires that acted like Paris Hilton, superior, shallow and nose up their *. More tomorrow If I am right.

Lets hope that our new coach knows more about the young ones than we, if not he just created another bunch of losers. Brasil looked and played just like in the last World Cup, like a bunch of millionaires that acted like Paris Hilton, superior, shallow and nose up their *. More tomorrow If I am right.

By Nicholas Irwin

June 28, 2007 1:00 PM | Link to this

Not sure the problem you had with the U.S.-Mexico game, which was the best game we’ve been involved in in quite some time. It was also the best we’ve played since the ‘02 World Cup. I can’t remember the last time we came from behind to beat a World Cup-caliber team, if it’s ever even happened.

None of which has much bearing on how we do in Copa America, since we’re sending a B squad. I really don’t understand it, either. Yes, I understand the need to get our youth squad some experience, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to do that at the Gold Cup and let the big team, who doesn’t have any experience playing in big games other than the World Cup, play in some? I can see it now: we send a B squad to the Confederations Cup in two years and send the A squad to the Gold Cup to “defend our title.” Ridiculous, yes…but is it all that inconceivable? After all, the Confederations Cup itself doesn’t mean anything. It makes perfect sense to send a bunch of players who will never see the light of day in South Africa 2010 so that they can get “experience.” Then we’ll show up there the next year with a team that has no experience in anything other than freaking CONCACAF yet again! At least Bradley has been scheduling friendlies in Europe, so maybe it won’t be quite as bad this time.

By Henry

June 29, 2007 7:51 AM | Link to this

Hi Nicholas. I don’t think we played as good against Mexico as we did against Canada, but a win is a win. The Gold cup is a secondary tournament with a bunch of hackers trying to hurt world quality soccer playing teams. Sending a College type team to Venezuela is stupid. Just look how Mexico played against Brasil. They just about have the same squad there as they played against us in Chicago. My previous prediction 1,2,3 and they are out is pretty much confirmed. One does not change a team so suddenly. An experienced coach would have used 75% of his number one squad and build up his youngsters slowly. Getting beaten that bad is no learning experience. Psychologically they are now in the dumps and the two coaches that are managing our team are not very good at encouraging and showing an incentive to get over this. Our defense plainly stinks at the regular team and weakening it is not very smart. The guys played poorer than some of the pick-up games I played in. I always said as soon as our MNT played against teams that have some kind of an offence we are gone. I don’t know what the USSF is doing, but they are confirming what Klinsy wanted to avoid. Starting a bunch of green players and hoping that one of the best goalies in the world can save them is not very smart. The world cup experience is being repeated again, we did not learn anything. Hopefully Paraguay used up their goal scoring allocation and our boys can look a little better against them and Colombia is as bad as they looked like in their last game, but I will stick to my very safe prediction.

By Sam

June 29, 2007 11:09 AM | Link to this

Wait—we were a “laughingstock” at last year’s World Cup???

By Nicholas Irwin

June 29, 2007 1:00 PM | Link to this

I actually think it could have been much worse. Given the lame squad we had, we acquitted ourselves pretty well. Holding one of the best teams in the world to a draw for 60 minutes with a largely youth squad is pretty good, I think. I really don’t know what all the consternation is about. There isn’t a team in the world who would’ve beaten a full-strength Argentina with a C squad with several players getting their first caps. Hell, Jonathan Bornstein shut Lionel Messi down so completely that he had to switch to Wynne’s side.

It really would have been nice to see what we could have done with our main offensive weapons. Perhaps we would’ve gotten more than one chance on goal. That might’ve been good.

On the other hand, I really don’t think this accomplishes anything. It’s the full squad that needs this kind of experience. The youth squad would’ve been better served by going to the Gold Cup.

And neither Mexico nor Brazil had their full squads either. It was basically Mexico’s B squad vs. Brazil’s C squad. All of Mexico’s major European players left except for Marquez, and Brazil had only one player who would have a prayer of playing for their normal starting team in the game (that would be Robinho). Which underscores to me how ridiculous it is for us to send our C squad, by the way. If Brazil can’t get away with sending theirs, how the hell did we think we could get away with sending ours?

By Nicholas Irwin

June 29, 2007 1:11 PM | Link to this

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Keller is pretty obviously done. If there was any doubt that Tim Howard is our No. 1 goalkeeper, the juxtaposition of Keller in the Canada and Argentina games with Howard in the Mexico game ought to leave none. It’s not that Keller’s bad, but he’s become tentative and just isn’t world class anymore (which Howard is) and makes too many little mistakes, and if nothing else, Howard never gets caught out of position, which Keller seems to have happen more and more frequently. There’s no way he gets on the 2010 squad.

I don’t follow MLS very much at all, so I have no idea how good this Brad Guzan is. Starting Keller against Argentina was probably a good idea, but if Guzan is any good, it might be a good idea to start him from here on out in this tournament, because starting Keller is somewhat pointless, especially considering we’re supposed to be blooding new talent.

By Colin (HornGuy1)

June 30, 2007 11:03 AM | Link to this

Guzan is the top goaltender in MLS this season and is the top young goalie in the U.S.

Rumor has it that he will start the next match in Copa America on Wednesday.

By Chris D' aka Pops94

July 1, 2007 1:43 PM | Link to this

In Bradley I trust.

So lets see two big issues widely discussed after the last World Cup for the US squad were why didn’t we get seeded when Mexico did and why don’t we have more US players playing at the highest levels at top European Clubs.

FYI, Mr Bradley is aware of these issues and he is handling the US competitions this summer in a manner to address these issues.

Mexico was in the last Confederations Cup they won the qualifying Gold Cup to get into the Confederations Cup and with their performance in that competition they were seeded and the US was not even though the US had just won a Gold Cup (Nicholas you seemed to take that seeding a bit personal). FIFA considers the Confederations Cup the second most important senior international competition second only to the World Cup. FIFA’s ranking system reflects this.

The US National Teams roster for the Copa America allowed some European players to rest prior to their upcoming seasons so that they could continue to make impacts in Europe and have 3 more years of first team football at the highest levels prior to the next World Cup (Beasley,Gooch,Onyewu,Spector to name a few in this category).

By being included on the the US roster for the Copa certain American players will have a great opportunity to increase their international value within the leagues they are currently playing or MLS players will have opportunities to move abroad. This exposure and possible upgrading of their competitive club football over the next 3 years will make them better players for the next World Cup (Johnson,DeMirit,Mapp,Feilhaber,Bornstein,Pearce to name a few in this category).

Landon Donovan was released because the LA Galaxy need to be competitive once Beckham arrives. The future of our domestic league and the future of soccer in this country would be greatly deterred if the Beckham experiment does not work so well. I strongly feel that if handled properly by the end of Mr Beckham’s career in the US the salary cap for MLS teams should double or triple. This would be a massive motivator for the future of soccer in this country. A strong domestic league in my opinion is the best way for the US to maintain a continual level of incremental player quality growth.

In conclusion, my compliments to Mr Bradley and the USSF for an excellent long term vision.

By Nicholas Irwin

July 1, 2007 11:15 PM | Link to this

Hi Chris. Let me say that I do approve of the long-term vision of U.S. soccer so far under Bob Bradley more than I ever did under Bruce Arena. We are now playing in Copa America and have been scheduling road friendlies in Europe (and possibly at Estadio Azteca…I’ve heard rumors of this but haven’t seen anything confirming it yet) for this fall, both of which are excellent steps that needed to happen.

Bradley is also looking at a far wider swath of players so far, whereas Arena was for some reason leaving youngsters playing in European leagues off his roster.

Bradley’s in-game coaching has been a little bit inconsistent. That’s twice now he’s had back-to-back games in the timespan of less than a week where he pushed all the right buttons in one game and all the wrong ones in another (the other being the week of the Ecuador and Guatemala friendlies a few months ago), but he’s certainly no worse than Arena as an in-game coach, and I think his general strategy and way he approaches things suits us better than Arena’s. And if you add that to all the stuff that I mentioned above that he has done, I do think he is unfairly criticized quite a bit because he’s not Jurgen Klinsmann or Jose Pekerman or whoever else everyone thought we were getting. He’s a definite step up from his predecessor.

It’s possible that the way he handled the Gold Cup/Copa America thing was the best way to handle it. It just kind of bums me out that we send a team that has no chance of competing to the second-most prestigious competition we enter. And it seems like he could have at least found a way to get Donovan, Howard and Mastroeni there or something. Howard isn’t trying to find a new club or fight for a starting spot (he’s already got it) and there really isn’t much of an excuse at all for Mastroeni other than trying to not p** the Rapids off.

As far as Donovan goes, I don’t believe that Beckham is coming until mid-July and playing in a game until August (not 100 percent sure on that) so Donovan would still be back in time for the whole Beckham thing. And more than anybody on our squad, he needs to prove he can play against high-caliber competition. So even if we had left everyone else off, like we did, I still think we should have found a way to get Donovan on the roster.

I do recognize that in the long run MLS is important for U.S. soccer, but frankly I’m getting a little bit tired of it in the short term. Claiming that it’s better than the EPL, refusing to let players who really need to be playing in Europe go, continually clashing with the international schedule because it refuses to change to a normal schedule and then complaining when its players get taken for international duty, and the list goes on.

The second one on that list is by far the most damaging. It’s quite possible the MLS has succeeded in completely ruining Eddie Johnson and Freddy Adu at this point (hopefully Adu can get out before it’s too late, but I’m not optimistic), and not only that, but whenever a player (especially a young one) signs with a lesser European league, they are ridiculed for not playing in MLS, even though it’s probably better for their development if they get out as soon as possible.

On the other hand, if Beckham can open the league up and more higher caliber players want to come, it won’t be such a deathtrap for budding American stars, so you’re right that it’s very important that this happen, but in the meantime, there needs to be some middle ground where players aren’t forcibly held out of games with Argentina so that they can play against the Columbus Crew, and where they’re not forcibly kept from going to Europe for selfish reasons.

By r. lee

July 2, 2007 4:16 AM | Link to this

I’m still not sure why the US signed on to South America’s biggest tournament only to bring a “b” list of players. Let the bench warmers earn their much needed caps coming in for friendlies; but if the likes of Argentina and Brazil are bringing their best to the dance; then the US are sending lambs to the slaughter and should expect more of the same.

By Chris D'

July 3, 2007 11:20 PM | Link to this

The US kids know how to score and take care of business at the under 20 World Cup. Hey Poland I know the Brazilians couldn’t score on you, but please allow me to introduce Freddy Adu. Can he borrow your hat after he gets done with a little trick?

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/match?id=221114&cc=5901

Big game Friday night 7:45 against the Brazilians with a shot at going top of group D into the elimination rounds.

By Nicholas Irwin

July 4, 2007 1:24 AM | Link to this

Good to hear, Chris. Gives one hope that maybe we can get somebody up to the big team fairly soon who can score a freaking goal. By the way, I would like to thank ESPN for putting our U-20 World Cup games on ESPNU. I do hope they know it’s not a college sporting event. Seriously, I don’t expect it to be on ESPN, and I guess ESPN2 is busy with Wimbledon, but couldn’t they at least put it on ESPN Classic? Sheesh, it’s almost like they’re trying to hide it or something.

I really don’t know what to say about the Copa America team. I think it pretty much speaks for itself at this point. I will say that this hasn’t been as soul-crushingly terrible as I feared, given that we deserved to win that game the other day and played Argentina even through 60 minutes. On the other hand though, maybe it’s been even more soul-crushing, since we should be sitting on three points and in good shape for the quarterfinals right now.

Three more things: 1)Twellman does know he’s allowed to put it clear on goal, right? Maybe somebody should tell him he’s not required to ricochet it off a defender first just to make sure, because I’m starting to wonder; 2)Johnson did look much better yesterday, given that the entire offense basically ran through him, but why can’t he turn and run at defenders? It’s so freaking infuriating. When you have a defender beat, you don’t have to wheel back and play a square ball. You’re a striker, not the holding midfielder, for God’s sake! Reminds me of Donovan in and leading up to the World Cup (although at least he was/is a midfielder, albeit an attacking one); 3)What I said about Keller goes double now. He has the reaction time of an 80-year-old at this point. That’s at least four goals this tournament where he reacted correctly but way late. For the love of God, get him out of there and let him retire in dignity! If Guzan doesn’t start against Colombia, whoever his MLS team is should be wondering aloud why the hell they were without his services all summer long.

By Henry

July 4, 2007 9:05 AM | Link to this

Well guys. As a fanatic I enjoyed the shellacking our young adult team gave the Poles. But, and there is always a but, the defense is still very suspect. The midfield was completely controlled by Bradley and I will apologize to his father because I accused him of favoring, nepotism if you know what I mean, his son. But he showed that he belongs. Adu, I expected to be great. No major European team would have been interested in him at the age of 16 unless he had great potential. Sadly he is going to suffer at the MNT because the fellow that coached Washington is now the assistant national coach. So Freddy start looking to Europe for your future. There is too much jealousy on the national organization level. Our national team is coached and managed like a good college team and it shows on the field. The Under 20 team is managed by a player that I watched in Ft Lauderdale, he was a very awkward player and he coaches the team like that. It showed against the Koreans. I look at the second half against the Poles that they just gave up. But until the 2 to 1 score they showed the weakness in the U20 defense. Lets see how the game against Brasil goes. They have shaken the debacle against Poland. Why is it we cannot get the American defenders play their positions properly? As far as Copa America goes for the MNT I hope that I am wrong with the 1.2.3 and out but they will come home what ever the score unless they can winn by 10 goals. Highly unlikely. In this tournament the US has shown the worst performance ever and it will show at the next FIFA standings, back down to the 30th or so place. The US Soccer and the local state organization have only one interest and that is their own family and friends will be given chances to excel and the many other less fortunate players that cannot afford or have no chance to play on the national level are ignored. Until that nepotism is eliminated, there is no hope for our future. We will see again and again the disaster now clearly apparent in Venezuela. They don’t even have to show any anti Americanism we are embarrassing ourselves there. Like I said before one does not change a team so drastically that it shows no incentive to play on a major national stage. The hacker continent, CONCACAF, is no major competition to a World Cup.

By Chris D'

July 6, 2007 4:14 PM | Link to this

Henry, What if Mexico wins the Copa America?

By Nicholas Irwin

July 7, 2007 3:30 AM | Link to this

Do we really want Mexico to win Copa America? Wouldn’t that make them pretty insufferable to deal with for the next….forever? As it stands now, they’ve never won anything at the senior national team level that we haven’t. We’ve both won Gold Cups, the quarterfinals is the farthest we’ve both been in a modern World Cup (and we did it away from our borders)… They basically are this close to admitting that maybe we’re the best team in CONCACAF. There was a sense of resignation that hadn’t been there before after the Gold Cup. And now we want them to win a major tournament they’ve never won before? No thanks.

It wouldn’t really help our standing at all, either. I doubt them winning Copa America would do anything for us as far as seeding or anything goes. And I really doubt it would make people respect CONCACAF as a region very much more. Mexico’s been competing in South American competitions for awhile now.

But I don’t think there’s much of a chance they beat Argentina anyway, so it’s probably a moot point.

By Henry

July 7, 2007 8:20 AM | Link to this

I agree, however it will show that if we would have send a more competitive team to Venezuela the story would have been different. Lets face it what we send was stupid to be nice. If that is the future of US Soccer we are in big trouble. Is it the coach’s fault to send a bunch of juniors to Venezuela or has the Federation interfered again. No European team will support us, so why are these guys not available to our National Team? We must stop to being nice to countries that could care less about us. Even when the best we have in the MNT play, the defense is always questionable. Stupid give always and bunching up to one side, leaving one flank most of the time vulnerable is the norm. The coaching staff is incapable to organize the defense. Maybe we should promote the WNT coach to the national mens team. He did it correctly in juvenizing the team slowly. He brought the ladies back to be number one by a large margin. Or they should use him to instruct the mens coaches in how to do it. Sad. The U20 team showed the same problem. It was a great game against Brasil. Sadly the Brasiliens will be eliminated due to the goal difference. 3 x 8 is very poor. If they had played the previous games like that they could by the champions. But like most Brasiliens players they thought they were invincible. It was frightening how our defense played. If it was not for our goalie, great remembrance of my playing days, we should have lost this one by a large margin. I always said that soccer is 50% skill and 50% luck. Brasil had all the skill and we had all the luck. The futures of the player on this team are by far ADU and than Bradley and Seitz. ADU was sensational giving the Brasiliens the taste that most Brasilien forward show them. Sadly the American coaching staff is dead set to ruin him. Eddy go to Europe ASAP! He was the only one that could match play by play the Brasiliens. Bradley was not as effective in the midfield as against Poland but good enough to take the midfield away from the South Americans. So getting those three players to the National team will improve the offence for sure. One other rule I follow when coaching is that the best defense is a good offence. Therefore the coaches must teach defenders to play their position and have the defensive midfielders always come back to help out rather than have the defender move to one side of the field. I always played my team 1-5-5-5. You figure that out how it works but I always had a winning team despite how poor the players were. It would work wonders with the National Teams.

By Henry

July 7, 2007 8:24 AM | Link to this

Oh I forgot my predictions since I was on the mark with our team in The Copa America. Brasil, Argentina or Mexico will be crowned.

By Nicholas Irwin

July 8, 2007 11:51 PM | Link to this

When one beats Brazil, one generally doesn’t try to find holes in the performance. The goalkeeper is part of the defense, as far as I’m concerned, and they were pushing all-out for a goal, it wasn’t that bad. Certainly not bad enough to find fault in a win over Brazil and a first-place group finish. Plus, since our senior team’s most glaring weakness is the inability to put the ball in the net and not its defense (although you may disagree), I’m not sure how we can be anything but heartened by the play of the U-20s in this tournament so far. We have discovered that we potentially have two strikers who are capable of actually scoring goals and that Freddy Adu may yet not be ruined by MLS if we can get him the hell out of here now. And incidentally, England isn’t a very good place for him, either. Spain or Italy would be much better for his style of play. Or if we can’t get him there, Portugal or Netherlands or even Germany would be alright. But even England would be better for him than the MLS at this point. Just please get him out before it’s too late!

By Henry

July 9, 2007 8:05 AM | Link to this

Touché Nicholas! Copa America, I now see as Brasil vs Mexico final. So far I am batting 1000 in my predictions. As I said Adu should go to Europe, Preferably Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus, yes they will be back and have a ton of money, Manchester United, owned by an American, Chelsea, and may be Bayern Munich. Good luck Adu. Let see how our U20 will do against Uruguay, Austria and again Brasil. One victory over a great team will get you attention but beating Brasil, if either make it that far will give a lot of players world class attention. Well good luck youngsters.

By Henry

July 9, 2007 8:10 AM | Link to this

Hay Wendy this blog is getting to long. What is your observation of the two world-class events? The AJC ignored both of them. Are the 30 Million illegalls, mostly Hispanics, not worth your attention?

By Chris D'

July 9, 2007 6:03 PM | Link to this

Freddy Adu the only player to ever score a hat trick in the u-17 and the u-20 World Cups. Can folks cut the fella a little slack now. Oh yah, and he was the best player on the field against Brazil.

By Chris D'

July 9, 2007 7:18 PM | Link to this

And why can’t I see Freddy Adu playing this week? I would recommend contacting ESPN and asking them to move the rest of the US under 20 World Cup games to a network more folks can get. If they don’t want to show the games give them to a network that will. They will want revenue from future soccer games involving the players in the U20 World Cup but they won’t let fans see those players now, interesting long term marketing concept.

By Chris D'

July 9, 2007 7:40 PM | Link to this

http://www.fifa.com/u20worldcup/matches/index.html

Looks like another Mexico vs Argentina match up in the U20’s. The US has a great shot at getting to the final 4.

By Nicholas Irwin

July 10, 2007 3:46 AM | Link to this

I agree, Chris. I cannot really overstate how heartened I have been by Adu’s performance in this tournament. You have to understand, coming into this tournament I had given up all but the faintest of hopes that he would ever fulfill even half his potential because he’s been getting bled dry by moronic MLS coaches who don’t want him because he doesn’t fit into their precious system. I was beginning to actually think it was too late.

Now that apparently I’m wrong and there is something left, I really want him out of the country so that he has the chance to develop his skills and be of service to the national team, because frankly, I couldn’t care less about MLS, and Adu’s plight illustrates exactly why. I don’t blame him for more than 10% of his MLS problems. As far as I’m concerned, it’s pretty much all MLS’ fault in that they have no idea whatsoever how to develop a player with actual talent. The fact that he’s benched on Real freaking Salt Lake right now is testament to how incredibly, mind-numbingly tone deaf MLS clubs are when it comes to a player like Adu.

He’s doing that in an international competition and he’s on the bench of the worst team in the league back home??? You’ve absolutely got to be kidding me. The problem with the MLS isn’t necessarily the quality of play (although that isn’t great, either) but it’s situations like this. They’re holding him hostage because they don’t want to lose out on the potential cash flow, but guess what jackasses, if you don’t have a coach in the damn league who will use him right, there is no potential cash flow for you, is there? I could really go on all night about this, but suffice it to say that I am very heartened by what I’ve seen by him in this tournament, if we can get him to Europe now.

Also, couldn’t agree more on the television coverage. At least ESPN2? ESPN Classic would even be better. It’s pretty much a joke, but given what happens when your sport isn’t televised on an ESPN network in this country, especially when they view it as a niche sport (see NHL for Exhibit A), I’m not sure there’s much choice but to get kicked around by them and hope it gets better at some point. I will say that it is better now than when I first started intently following soccer (about four or five years ago), so if it’s improved noticeably in that relatively short amount of time, I would call that a good sign.

By Henry

July 10, 2007 8:19 AM | Link to this

Finally some of you are coming my way. I always blamed top management and personal interests by the executives, elected or appointed, for our stalling in the game of soccer. That is in the Soccer Federation, Federal, State and Local, newspapers and television. After all they must protect their millions invested in other less interesting sports for the world. Soccer does not fit into their scheme. We had lost the first World Cup because we had the NASL geniuses deciding what was good for the worlds soccer, American bullying you know, perpetrated by naturalized American, mostly from England. I know of some here in Georgia that are involved in the State association that openly told me that they are only doing the work because they want to insure of their son’s inclusion to the Regional Select team, Olympic trial team and other position that supposedly are open for competition. Our coaching is are passetic starting from the bottom up. Becoming MLS Champion once, lucky stroke, does not qualifies one to become National Coach or even an assistant. When a coach openly hates a goly says everything about his ability. There are very few successful international players that became successful national team coaches. A few come to mind, Dunga, Klinsmann, Beckenbauer. But most of all we cannot allow politicians decide which players the coach can use, FIFA frowns on this, they even suspended countries for that fault. I consider the leaders of the Federations and Association politicians of the worst kind. However I have no solution on how to correct this since like everything else we here in America only care for ourselves and don’t want to be involved in protesting or helping change the system. Oh yea it works just look at the Amnesty bill that finally was defeated, by the people. As far as soccer on TV is concerned Thanks to the Spanish Network I can see most of the games I am interested in. Having lived in South America, I even can understand the announcers. ESPN should send their announcers for instructions on how to report on the games.