Bill Urban Finishes My Post

As much as I liked my earlier post on the reasonable, even considerable, progress the U.S. Men's program has made over the past decade, I want to flag Bill Urban's piece for USSoccerplayers.com as a(n accidentally) timely asterisk. The overall thrust of his piece is that the structure of Major League Soccer (MLS) - the glut of, effectively, meaningless mid-summer games in particular - possibly hinders the development of the American player. I say "possibly" because such things can't be quantified. But there's something in the gut that turns in agreement when Urban writes:

"Should [U.S. defender Drew] Moor find himself on the end of a corner against DC United in mid-July, with FC Dallas behind by a goal, and his header flies into Troy Perkins’ arms rather than the back of the RFK net, the adverse effect on FC Dallas’ play-off chances will be virtually nil. Disappointment for certain, even a derisive catcall from the Barra Brava to be endured perhaps, but a competition with too many teams qualifying for the play-offs does not put players into enough high-pressure situations where the consequences of failure are immediate."

Even if I don't buy into his construction of "need" versus "want," I buy Urban's general point wholesale. The example of a player like Taylor Twellman, who can find openings with the best of them only to repeatedly, maddeningly screw up the shot to follow, powerfully points to nerves as the culprit. His record in MLS tells us he can score - over 75 times now, in fact. But the number of times Twellman has successfully coped with pressure at the national level? I'm counting five (scroll down; you'll see it next to Twellman's name) and most of those came against one team.

MLS does a lot of good things for U.S. Soccer. But it tests players ability to beat the 'keeper while controlling their jitters only in the post-season - i.e. about five games out of 30. OK, and maybe the last five games at the end of the season...though that applies only to teams competing for spots...maybe it's not so surprising that Colorado Rapids tend to do well in the first round of the playoffs, while FC Dallas sucks.

On a related note, Twellman's record for composure even in MLS's version of pressure situations ain't all that hot either....paging Pat Noonan?

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Day Late Review: U.S. Tops T + T

U.S. 2 - 0 Trinidad + Tobago

I’ll begin by leveling with anyone who may read this. I watched this game while: first doing a bit of a home work-out, followed by a brief yoga routine - that also involved the further distraction of teaching one of my daughters a few poses. So...we’re not talking undivided attention.

With that in mind, here goes:

- Speaking of “undivided attention” - or, more appropriately - speaking of attention spans, what the hell is our collective problem? The U.S. Men are showing the concentration of three-year-olds on a Cocoa Puffs bender. The parade of defensive breakdowns with which the first half closed, not to mention how poorly we’re managing games/possession - again - don’t speak well of our chances of retaining the title.

- This was, after all, Trinidad + Tobago.

- No, scratch that. This was T + T’s B-team.

- For all that, I never got the sense the U.S. would lose this game, scrappy as it got.

- The coolest thing about that: we essentially fielded a second-team of our own. That we can do that in an international game of any kind is just flat-out great. Sure, the defense looked shaky from time to time and, sure, we had some trouble with possession. But we were still able to field a team that may not beat anyone on the world stage, but it wouldn’t get embarrassed either. That’s depth, baby.

- Turning to specifics, I’m not sold on Benny Feilhaber. What he did show against T + T is that, if you give him time on the ball - and T + T undoubtedly and stupidly did so - he will hurt you. He certainly has the playing skills for that. But, as with the Guatemala game, he gets pushed around when the going gets ugly. The way to stop Feilhaber is to get someone on him right away - and make sure that someone lets him know they’re there.

- Hell, Justin Mapp looked tougher. Moreover, for every time Mapp got caught on the dribble, he played the ball quickly and effectively.

- Brian Ching just seems to be the kind of forward who takes four chances to score one. As such, it’s just a matter of him positioning himself to get those five chances. It’s not ideal, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

- We all bitch about Landon Donovan, but, for my money, he showed how effective he can be. And it’s the little things, like checking his run just that little bit on the counter for the second U.S. goal. Like it or not, and his maddening ability to get occasionally overwhelmed aside, he's our best offensive player...period.

- You know who’s really on my mind, though? Eddie Johnson - and, specifically, what is lacking in his game. Here’s a short list: he doesn’t play the ball quickly enough; when he gets the ball in a forward position, he never gets his head up and looks forward, but instead seems to think about whether to run with the ball before dishing it backwards. More plays went to EJ to die yesterday than I can count.

- I like Jay DeMerit. I trust Jay DeMerit to keep the U.S. goal safe.

- Apart from some shaky moments, Michael Parkhurst showed a little of what makes him effective in defense; it’s kind of a judo thing. On the other hand, his lack of size certainly does show on occasion.

- Jonathan Spector was all right, but Frank Simeks’ side of the field felt safer.

- I know Ricardo Clark played, but can’t remember anything remarkable.

- All in all, I got to the disturbing piece of this game above: if we can’t manage the game better - e.g. blunt the opposition attack with some spells of game-throttling possession - we’re not going to improve much on the Bruce Arena era.

- The officiating wasn’t the best, but it was better than the Guatemala game. The worst thing? How many offside calls did the officiating crew blow in the first half? I remember three - and good job on the replays FSC.

- Finally, we won and that’s the important thing. We’ll probably beat El Salvador as well and win the group with a perfect record. So....why don’t I feel confident about what follows?

And, as everyone knows, the other Group B result of the day surprised no one: Guatemala beat El Salvador 1-0.

U.S. v. Guatemala: That Was What...Exactly?

In keeping with usual practice, what appears below comes before reading a single line of anyone else’s scribblings (the theory* behind this is explained below, in case you’re curious).

United States 1 - 0 Guatemala
Big Picture
Sloppy. Sloppy and ugly. Wait. Sloppy, anxious, and ugly. A few more adjectives probably apply, but those get at the meat of things. The CONCACAF rankings peg the U.S. Men (Yanquis) at #2 in the region and Guatemala at #10, but the proverbial Man from Mars wouldn’t have thought as much - at least not in the second half. We started strongly enough - and a few Yanquis had strong nights throughout - but we had surrendered the upper hand in this game well before Oguchi Onyewu received his marching orders. All in all, the players on the field looked nervous as I felt watching them.

Bottom line, though, we won. We played well enough, had just enough moments of brilliance, as well as the proper mix of share of timely interventions and lucky bounces, to win this important, opening game. The down side: at this point, we don’t look like a team that’s going to win this tournament.

Moving on to details:

- I friggin’ HATE watching the Yanquis play Guatemala. Just drives me nuts. They are U.S. Men’s Bolton Wanderers. Since it’s possible I’m not current on my EPL bogey-men, let me rephrase that: they are the team your guys really should beat, but against whom they always, always struggle. While the Guatemalans’ use of gamesmanship is both expert and maddening, the real rub is their prodigious ability to keep their shape combined with having just enough talent on hand to catch out a good team.

- That said, our defense pulled off the impressive trick of blocking my throat with my heart; they achieved the feat with a generally harried appearance. On a couple occasions, my heart even tried to make an escape - think the near-own goal by Carlos Bocanegra and the joint flubbing of a series of Guatemalan long-balls over the top early in the second half. Apparently, my heart had the good sense to try to leave the room rather than sit through those 25 minutes of torture.

- Speaking of, nearly everyone noted Onyewu’s unsettled performance. There was, of course, the red card, but that only slapped a big, red exclamation mark on a rocky evening. Regarding the card, it’s possible that Onyewu shouldn’t have picked up that first yellow, but, on the second, the ref simply had no choice. And it’s not like the man didn’t know he had the card...a detail that should have made that hip-check the last course of action.

- The subject of the officiating does, however, bear noting. I can’t dredge up the man’s name right now, in spite of hissing it to my wife late in the second half. While he didn’t have much choice with Onyewu, the ref did seem a little card-happy when it came to the Yanquis. This only grew upsetting after seeing U.S. players carded for the first offense, while DaMarcus Beasley endured three consecutive fouls without a single Guatemalan player getting so much as whistled.

- The officiating does, however, open a pathway to some praise for the commentary - I know...weird, right? Late in the game, Christopher “You’re From Where Now?” Sullivan offered an insight that might have made the officiating seem less bizarre. He noted that the ref seemed to be letting certain kinds of contact go unpunished; if memory serves, it involved using one’s arms a certain way and then getting the legs involved. I wasn’t watching the officiating on the same level so I can’t say whether he was on to something, but I appreciated commentary that spoke on that level of detail.

- For a spell in the first half and until the Guatemalans got hold of the game from the start of the second half till about the 80th minute, players started bypassing the midfield and sending high, hopeful balls over the top, or long, semi-desperate leading passes down the wings. Not surprisingly, we lost a good deal of possession through these tactics. Bad idea.

- We did look good for a couple stretches. For instance, we started strong (either that or the Guatemalans ceded too much of the ball) and closed the first half so strongly that the start of the second half felt a lot like a let-down.

- But the part of the game that most impressed me came with the end, when, perhaps, the Guatemalan side wore out. Still, we pushed into their half for much of the closing ten minutes and kept possession better than we had at any point during the rest of the second half...

U.S. Player Ratings
...y’know, in order to keep this from sprawling indefinitely, I’m just going to rate the U.S. field players and call it good (suddenly, I understand why people do this). By way of scale, it’s a 1-to-10 affair, with 5.0 signifying entirely adequate play that involved doing no harm, but also doing little in the way of noticeable good.

Tim Howard, 6.0: Didn’t have a lot to do, but did it well enough. I like that he’s a yeller. All ‘keepers should be yellers as far as I’m concerned (I’m looking at you, Troy Perkins).

Frankie Hejduk, 4.5: Nice headlock tackle, Frankie. Columbus is rubbing off on you. In all seriousness, his defending was tolerable (and would have yielded a “good enough” 5.0), but his passing and forays forward had me yelling, “NO!” at the screen.

Carlos Bocanegra, 4.5: Just too nervous, as evidenced by nearly slicing in an own-goal, and passed too long, too often.

Oguchi Onyewu, 3.5: Frankly, “Gooch” played unsteady, uncertain, barely controlled soccer. And going in for obstruction so clearly that he may as well waved the linesman's flag for him and while carrying a yellow, that was just a dumb play.

Jonathan Bornstein, 5.5: My comparative bright spot in the back line.

Benny Feilhaber, 5.0: Apart from a flash here or a decent, defense-upsetting pass there (few and far between), Benny seemed relatively anonymous out there. Came on stronger during the second half, but a pretty unremarkable outing.

Michael Bradley, 5.5: Roughly the same applied here as to Feilhaber, but I caught more of Bradley disrupting.

DaMarcus Beasley, 6.0: Take a good first half and add some useful things in the second on both sides of the ball and Beasley did pretty well for himself.

Landon Donovan, 6.5: He was the Yanqui’s man of the match for me. Yeah, a few free-kicks really sucked, but he did more than most to keep the Guatemalans honest in the back. Oh, and does anyone know what happened between him and Ruiz?

Clint Dempsey, 6.0: Great awareness on the goal in terms of separating from his marker; he did it so well he had one of the Guatemalan defenders jumping in frustration. Deuce had a decent day in general, though he held the ball too much on a few occasions.

Taylor Twellman, 5.5: Good day on the whole, not least on the assist to Dempsey’s goal (incredibly, he outran someone from behind to play that in). He would have ranked higher - by quite a bit - if it weren’t for boning that header on goal...after calling off Dempsey. But his worse habit was trying to pass with his head too often; it was great when it worked, but he also killed a lot of plays when he didn’t hit these little passes just right.

Eddie Johnson, 5.0: While he didn’t do much in terms of breaking down the Guatemalans, he made some smart plays in keeping possession toward the end.

Jay DeMerit, 6.0: I think he did very well in stabilizing the back-line when the U.S. went a man down; the overall picture felt more composed. He should start against Trinidad and, if he performs well there, he should get the start till he loses it.

Did we have another sub? We must have, right? Can’t recall who right now, which probably means they did OK. All for now. Looking forward to Saturday - enough so that I’ll probably post over the weekend.

- Crap. Credit to Jeff Carlisle for reminding me that Steve Ralston came on as a sub. Moreover, he did fairly well - call it a 5.0. But he gains at 0.1 on that ranking for corralling Bocanegra late in the game.

(* OK, here’s the theory behind the commenting before reading. If I write down what I think I saw, it teaches me something about what I’m seeing and not seeing when I watch a game. That way when I do go back and read everyone else’s stuff, I get a stronger sense of what I’m not catching in games.)

USMNT: 9 A.M.!!! WHAT!!!

Just came across this one: this weekend's friendly between the U.S. Men's Natoinal Team (USMNT) and Ecuador kicks off at 9-friggin'-A.M. MST (My Standard Time - e.g. Pacific).

As big a believer as I am in expansive happy hours, that's pushing it.

P.S. I think yesterday's ramblings got all the angst out of my system. I think someone from the Agency slipped sodium pentathol into my morning coffee.

P.P.S. Hey, USSoccerplayers.com, where's the "Tell Me About Ecuador" feature? Don't tell me I have to look into this myself...

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USMNT Dish Round-Up

With a game on Sunday and next Wednesday, people are starting to pick at the U.S. Men's National Team (USMNT) roster and guess about who we'll see where and when.

Before getting to that, though, there are a couple changes to note: as reported all over the place (but here too), Brian Mullan and Wade Barrett replaced late scratches Chris Rolfe and Ricardo Clark. It's far from a straight swap positionally, but I'm content with the replacements, though I'm not sure Wade Barrett will get a sniff at left-back given everyone else on the roster; as for Mullan, I just think he's handy, kinda like a younger Cobi Jones. We could do a hell of a lot worse for backup.

The rest of what I've got is all Galarcep, as in Ives. He has not only dedicated himself to a project of analyzing the players called up by position, but he also turned in a nice primer on some of the new guys who answered USMNT Coach Bob Bradley's call from across the pond. The position-by-position previews offer some more grist for debate and, as noted above, he's doing these by position: goalkeepers, defenders, and midfielders.

I don't know enough about the Euro-boys to provide meaningful commentary and, rather than quibble with every last detail in Galarcep's posts (and I don't quibble with much), I'll briefly mention what strikes me in two of them.

1) If you look at his guesses on the defenders for both the Ecuador and Guatemala game, you'll see one name on both: Jimmy Conrad. All I've got to say there is, "hmm." As in, "you don't say?" I don't know why that surprises me, not just the call but the very real potential for it to happen, but it does.

2) Regarding Mullan, Galarcep states his call-up "doesn't excite" him, which, I know isn't the same as saying it isn't justified; he adds that "I just feel like we've seen what we're going to see out of him." I think this is true as well. But I still think it's a good call. The reasons go back to the comments about Cobi; I think Mullan has the same, late-game, fresh-legs upside.

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