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The US MNT dropped its third straight game last night against Columbia in an uninspired performance against an uninspiring team. None of it comes as a surprise, but did you know this is the first time the team has lost three straight in six years? Most people in the U.S. don’t.

Outside of a certain one-game, hat trick resurgence (let’s hope it continues tonight as, what, the game is on ESPN, not some marginal spin-off no one gets? To what do we owe this honor?), there was not much to watch or read about this week, but somehow I did more of both… to the pain, in the words of a retired pirate Roberts. A team heads home after battle, with some gone for good. What remains after the carnage is after the jump…

Now that we’ve come through this summer’s MNT tournament season I figured I would try to answer my own questions. If you read my post-Gold Cup, pre-Copa America piece, you’ll see some of these same thoughts, which now has me questioning what if anything have we learned from Copa?

I presupposed it would be about two main things: the end of Keller’s international career, and players playing themselves off the team. Hard to argue the first didn’t happen (and we can likely add Ben Olsen and Frankie Hedjuk to that list), and as for the second, the following players should be done: Twellman, Gaven, Gomez, Beckerman, Wynne, Moor, Califf, Pearce.

It’s not that all of them played terribly – some of them barely played at all - but at present the other options for Bob Bradley are more proven, if not better. It should take ridiculous club performances for any of these guys – or horrendous performances/injuries from others on the national team - to get another call up.

The US MNT is chalk full of choices but few stand-outs, yet cuts have to be made. This is what I have for a 22-man roster; it’s time to begin thinking about a best 11:

Howard, Guzan, Onyewu, Bocanegra, Conrad, Bornstein, DeMerit, Spector, Simek, Bradley, Fielhaber, Clark, Mastroeni, Beasley, Mapp, Nguyen, Kljestan, Dempsey, Donovan, Ching, Johnson, Davies

A few of these names will never see much more than the bench, and so I’m interested to see your substitutions. Has the good ship Johnson sailed? Would you rather give Herculez or someone else another shot? Got someone else to throw on the bench besides Kljestan or Mapp - someone from the U20 squad? Which of the plentiful, if not exactly speedy, defending options do you like on the outside? Swap them in and out down at the comments section.

(FYI - there are 12 foreign-based players, 10 MLS players, on my list – remember that for later.)

And now a short commercial break…

the Beckham Circus pulls into Venice

Looking at Landon, thinking about Beckham. I only wish as much attention was paid to guys like Juan Pablo Angel than we do with Beckham. Given the business of soccer/football/futbol all over the world, there is no secret why Beckham is given more press than Angel, but it will be guys like Angel, and hopefully younger stars when MLS can afford to compete with the salaries in Europe, who will really improve the skill level of MLS. It doesn’t need saving, but it needs all the help it can get, Beckham or otherwise. (kind of like every team in the EPL that isn’t one of the top 4)

It says something when the most interesting Beckham articles are written by business writers, though I’ll withhold ultimate judgement until Grant Wahl drops his feature on us in the coming weeks. In the meantime CNN business brings us some interesting statistics and surveys.

And we’re back. Sticking with the numbers game…

6 + 5 = 11

the world? or a team from Scotland?

Eddie Johnson (USA), Juan Pablo Angel (Columbia), Jimmy Conrad (USA), Jonathan Bornstein (USA), Michael Parkhurst (USA), Matt Reis (USA), Shalrie Joseph (Grenada), Ricardo Clark (USA), Dwayne De Rosario (Canada), Christian Gomez (Argentina), Juan Toja (Columbian)

That’s your starting eleven for the MLS All-Star game. 6 Americans, 5 “internationals.” I guess there aren’t restrictions on the number of foreign players on the All-Star team. Am I looking too far into this?

Some questions now that you’ve just seen my US MNT roster (also split down the middle by where the Americans play their club ball) and your MLS all-stars:

Are we beginning to produce better U.S. players? Do we need more foreign-born players in MLS and foreign-based Americans elsewhere? Do these things have anything to do with one another?

Some potentially irrelevant data to help us think:

The 2006 MLS All-Star team had a 7 to 4 ratio in favor of Americans.
2005: 8 to 3
2004 (when there was an East v West set up): 13 to 9

From the MLS Player Rules and Regulations:

SENIOR INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS: Each team shall be allowed up to four (4) Senior International players on its roster - non-domestic players who turn 25 years or older during the season in question. Although these players can be traded by MLS teams, the Senior International slots themselves cannot be traded.

YOUTH INTERNATIONALS: A Youth International is a non-domestic player (i.e., non-U.S. citizen and non-green card holder) who is 24 years old or younger. At the beginning of the year in which the player is due to reach the age of 25, this player will be re-classified as a Senior International. Beginning with the 2005 MLS season, each MLS club was allotted three (3) Youth International spots. Unlike Senior International spots, all Youth International spots can be traded on a permanent or temporary basis (the slots revert to the original team in the latter case). Youth International players may be signed to Senior Roster contracts or Developmental Roster contracts.
So, 7 of your 28 roster spots, could potentially be non-Americans, a 4 to 1 ratio.

General diversity notes from MLS and US Soccer Players dot com:

“Of the 325 MLS players under contract as of April 5, 2007, roughly two thirds were born in the United States, while 48 different countries are represented in the birthplaces of the other third. The League has the widest breadth of birthplaces among major league sports in the US, and only the NHL, with a staggering 81 percent, employs a higher percentage of foreign-born players. MLB is 28 percent, NBA 19 percent, and NFL is 6 percent. After the US and Canada, the most from any one country are the eight Brazilian-born players. More than 30 percent of the players born abroad are from Latin America, while the League also boasts players from 12 different African countries and nine Caribbean.”