Sunday, June 21, 2009

Let's not get carried away

The US soccer team advances, but one win and two losses is nothing to
be happy about. Competing with the likes of brazil and Italy is the
goal, not beating up on CONCACAF and Egypt. A few observations from
the two games that I watched (Italy and Egypt):

the US team still hasn't found an identity, by a long shot. The
reason there was excitement about the 2002 team was because the team
had potential... It was easy to get excited about guys like donovan,
beasley, and obrien because they had room to grow. In contrast, the
current side is a confusing mix of "just good enough" veterans
(bocanegra, cherundolo, ching), inconsistent youngsters (feilhaber,
edu, kleistjen, adu, bornstein, davies, rico clark, Spector), guys
that are frustratingly close to becoming very good but never get there
(gooch, donovan, Dempsey), and one burnout (beasley). Out of the
current player pool, only Howard, donovan, and Bradley can be counted
on for consistently good performances... The rest are still
experiments. So what's the right mix?I have no idea, but Id like to
see a bit of a youth movement. Torres, altidore, Spector, and
bornstein are all first teamers in my opinion. I'd like to see benny
get more playing time, bit until he gets more pt with his club team
then he deserves to be on the bench.

Apologies for spelling errors. I'm on my iPhone.

1 comment:

  1. To me it isn't a problem with talent, it's the management of the talent. Bradley has had some strange lineups and doesn't seem to get the players psychologically prepared.

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