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Feilhaber and Kljestan: new faces caught by a USSF photographer

US MNT 4, China 1. Game reports from Yanks Abroad and The Associate Press.

I’ve been saying for weeks: Feels Like Home. It’s summer, and US MNT is back with a full schedule of games that matter. Which is why their last tune-up before the Gold Cup commences later this week was like fantasy land. First CAPS all around! Over-the-Hill Bradley Alum: come on down! You’re the next contestant on Friendly International Soccer Against Lesser Opponents. It’s a reoccurring series. I think Versus is thinking of picking it up. Syndication is after the jump…

England played Brazil this weekend. We played China, the newest in a long line of mediocre squads that USSF schedules for the team to filet. Concacaf teams are one thing, such as those in our last two matches, but what with it being pretty much understood across the sporting landscape that playing better talent makes you better, why do we bother with these teams? Will no one else play us? Sure it’s better than nothing, but the US MNT program should be run as if it were the Green Berets. No matter how well Bradley might fit into that metaphor – hopefully he can change this focus - presently it looks more like training for mall security.

Why do we bother playing games on fields apparently so narrow that the announcers used it to excuse nearly every episode on the field that didn’t quite go our way? The Bay Area has a large Asian population. OK. San Jose has a solid soccer backing as proven by the MLS teams that have played there. Great! Is there not a field of regulation size in all of the Bay Area? High Schools are supposed to be the ones who complain about terrible fields, not National Teams. While FIFA is busy banning soccer on the Moon, why not force every game to be played on a 120-by-80 meter field? Besides baseball, which I believe is its own beast, no sport allows for such variation. Say what you will about how it teaches players different attributes or forces them to learn to play a certain way or learn certain skills, it’s indefensible.

As for the game, when I said fantasy land, I meant what I saw on the field and what I felt in my head. It was a fun game to watch, even with Stone, Wynalda, Foudy, and Hopkins doing their best to ruin it. It’s not that the broadcast team is horrible, just that they can’t have an error-free telecast. At various points it drifts off into never-never land, especially toward the end of the games when their adolescent experience levels usually mean a comical gaff leaving audiences to shake their heads in disbelief that this is the best the World Wide Leader In Sports can deliver. But I digress…

How could you not love seeing all those new and different faces on the field, replacing several of the usual mainstays. No Donovan? Love him or leave him, not having him out there is just weird, but how about Benny Feilhaber? How about three forwards? How about Dempsey and DaMarcus sling-shoting each other onto those through balls that the Chinese resided themselves to allowing? How nice was it to not have a statue forward, but instead guys who can run with the ball or after it instead of waiting in the box for a miracle?

Clint should have had a hat trick, which brings us to the only thing that we learned that really mattered heading into the Gold Cup and what is a major problem for the US MNT that doesn’t seem to go away: finishing. No where do you need to capitalize on your chances more than international games. And no one thing is harder to practice, harder to prepare for than finishing, but too, it’s the one thing that separates average attackers from all-stars. Maybe Eddie Johnson has finally figured it out?

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Random and Unrelated:

All Hail Didier Drogba!

Who knew Reuters had a soccer blog?

Not putting this game on televsion all over the world is like ignoring Darfur.