"Other" Lalas Eats Bait, Line, Fishing Rod

In his Sports Illustrated column, Greg Lalas divined a bold future for American soccer based on what he saw in last weekend's 3-1 U.S. win over Denmark: to wit, that America would "seriously challenge for the World Cup in 2014." Maybe a penchant for hyperbole is genetic, yeah?
Just so you know where he's coming from, here's a passage on what has him so jazzed:

"Because these kids -- the average age of 18-man roster was about 25 -- have confidence in their abilities, their first touch, their gumption, that has never existed in so many American players at the same time."

[SNIP]

"I never thought I'd say that. But then again, I never thought I'd see a player with the swagger of Mapp or the awareness of Bornstein or the Makalele-like work of Clark or the sheer linebackerish power of Kenny Cooper. All of these guys are all under 23, still on the upside."

My title reads a little harsher than I'd like (what can I say? I couldn't come up with anything else) because I genuinely admire people willing to walk on thin limbs. At the same time, with this argument Lalas walks directly into a particular piece of conventional wisdom about the United States' past two World Cups. How many times during the teeth-gnashing analysis of the 2006 Cup was the question of "what happened" to players like DaMarcus Beasley and Landon Donovan raised? The argument amounted to contending that the "fearlessness" and, yes, swagger these players displayed during the 2002 Cup seemed to evaporate in Germany. Assuming that to be the case, can we ignore the possibility it will happen again?

I'm somewhere between these two poles. The fact is, we played in a damned hard group and got weird results - e.g. drawing the world-champs-bound Italians while getting spanked by the Czechs, who would later fizzle. Sure, Donovan looked tentative, but he might have picked up shell-shock from that first game.

Regarding the future, I'm plenty happy with what I saw in some of the debuts. But as most people have pointed out - and as Luis Bueno repeated in another column - the real test will come against Mexico. If cats like Justin Mapp and Jonathan Bornstein do all right there, I'll get a bit more giddy - though I emphasize the "bit."

And, for the record, start Kenny Cooper. With our somewhat pressing needs at forward, I'm most anxious to see what he can do.

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