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While the mainstream media serves up cliché this week - ESPN the Magazine shines a light into the darkness, letting the US MNT know what it needs to do in order to compete on the international level: “deal with pressure” “play to strengths” “nurse a lead” “own the back line” “adapt and adjust” and “play with style.” Genius. I thought we could use a little real world advice, a little comment on specifics that I can’t find anywhere. Over the last month, I’ve been chatting up everybody from the casual cup fan to professional soccer journalists, looking for a path out of the darkness. Is darkness too harsh a word? Given that I’ve not a single concrete answer for where US Soccer is heading, part of me wants to come up with something stronger than darkness, something in line with the gravitational power of a black hole. This is no alarmist philosophy, just down home realism about the mystery of the US MNT.

Catch or Release? Szetela, Wynne, Adu. Nguyen, Feilhaber, Gaven, Sanchez, Arvizu?

After unyielding pomp and circumstance lauded upon the team died a deflated death in group play, I set to fix the problems before they were being named. I set out a path for South Africa and let all the sharks out there feed the frenzy that is opinionated sports reporting. After trolling the vast seas for wisdom, here are my sure-fire changes. This all starts with the organization, from the suits down to the coaches and players. There needs to be a major attitude adjustment. Americans need to understand that they are all big fish in a small, and often-times dirty, pond. In any other country, we are throwbacks. Not throwbacks to a better time, but more like ‘not worth enough to keep’. Throw ‘em back as prey for the larger fish. Who doesn’t love chomping on a little guy who thinks he’s tough shit. Putting a team in their place is part of the inherent joy in sporting competition.

Here is what we need to agree on in order to climb up the food chain:

the strategy

We need more players in Europe. With all due respect to the MLS, if we enter South Africa with an equal distribution of MLS and European players, we will fail again. From Donovan all the way down, we need players in Europe. If our players aren’t good enough to make a first-tier team, then let them eat cake with the second and third-tier teams.

We need some goals. This is not for the nay-sayers who say soccer will never work in the States because of the lack of goals. That being said, we need some fucking goals. You still have to score to win (please don’t get me started with penalty kicks). We have no unabashed goal scorers. We have targets and speedsters, ball handlers and play makers, but not someone who can do it all. Clint, Landon, EJ, Ching, etc are all fine players. I’m of the camp where if a player is past his teen years and isn’t already full of noticeable stardom, unfortunately, he never will be. I’ll hold these cards, but I’m still looking for that card to make my hand.

We need an offense. We need an offense, so we can score goals. US Soccer always seems to fall back on its athleticism. Everyone loves to banter about how athletic we are. No one has athletes like the U.S. That’s great and in all likelihood true, but let’s move forward with an offensive-minded approach. It is not in our nature to sit and wait. Not as fans, not as sportsmen, not as a nation. A look to the NBA for rhythm lessons might be within reason here. We could use a full-court press, a fast break mitigated with a half-court offense. Lets risk a thin defense, count on our athleticism to get us back in time and yield some goals. Please, something besides run it down the flank and send a prayer into the box.

We need an international schedule. I’m fine with CONCACAF – who wouldn’t like to be in a shit league that basically guarantees U.S. qualification for the finals every go-round – but we need to play in every game we can get. US Soccer needs to take the list from this year’s final 32 teams and make sure we get a meaningful game with every one of them, preferably on foreign soil.

We need to accept MLS as a developmental league. If I can get excited for a miserable NCAA match, I can certainly do the same thing for an MLS game – especially in a beautiful soccer-specific stadium - made of phenom teenagers looking to sponge it up and elder statesman looking to pour it out. No one in between these points in their career should be in MLS. When Europe is turning away good talent, we can reorganize this, but right now, we need to accept it. Example: Freddy Adu. He should have been playing 90 minutes in the MLS from day one, and the second he turns 18, he should bolt for Europe. Tony Kornheiser, soccer savant he is not, even gets this one right.

the ammunition

Lee Nguyen for the U-20 US MNT. Courtesy of US Soccer

Besides trying to concoct an antidote to the regime failures of the past, I wanted to put together a list of the players that will be here to grow with the new system – and whatever else a new coaching staff brings with them. In addition to a new ethos, I was looking for those guys either forgotten by US Soccer or overlooked as too young, too raw, too… well, something must be wrong with them if we haven’t heard of them, right? Some intelligent people feel these guys should have seen some qualifying chances if not placement on the Germany selections. It took me a while to form an opinion. When I started, I had barely heard of most of these guys, and hunting down film or critiques of their play was almost impossible.

I was pulling together a list when Neal over at Yanks Abroad clued me into the fact that they had their 23 Tickets feature updated 45 months ahead of time with their 2010 picks. I added this to my list of expert witnesses in search of the next stars, which I then realized gets me into hypocritical waters. The problem is, I don’t see our one big star… yet. I see quality role players and glimmers of hope, but nowhere is there a Ronaldhino, a Rooney, a Christiano Ronaldo (when he is not fixated on a trick or rolling around in anguish on the pitch). Will the real Freddy Adu please stand up? There are more examples, but none of them (… yet) hold a US Passport.

Even as I write this, I question my opinions, but that is the nature of the business, trying to quantify the impossible. Until you put something out there, you can’t say what it all means. Nowhere is this more evident with choosing players for a national team. While there are always a few obvious picks, the vast majority of positions could fall to any number of players. Four years is a long time, a career for much of the NFL. So saying exactly who is going to give us our best team right now is not what I’ve tried to do. The list that follows are players I want to see a lot more of (if they are in the MLS they should be playing 90 minutes). Even with few to no caps under their belts, I dare say they could have produced a single goal and one point in Germany (and a hell of a lot more in MLS).

So why these guys? I was going to give my two cents for each guy, but when it was laid out, I couldn’t escape the fact that I hate the cliché of sports journalism. We can roll out the awards and statistics and then talk about the intangibles. I hate to read that crap, and don’t want to add to it – at least I’ve got to pick my battles here and there. It all boils down to skill and effort. The guys on the list have displayed both at present. Whether that will take them where they (where we) need to be, we’ll have to wait and see.

Goal Keepers:

Chris Seitz

Defenders:

Josh Gros , Heath Pearce, Drew Moor , Marvell Wynne , Jay DeMerit, Bobby Boswell

Midfielders:

Lee Nguyen, Justin Mapp,
Kyle Veris,
Benny Feilhaber, Brian Mullan

Forwards:

Chris Rolfe,
Nate Jaqua,
David Arvizu

Benny Feilhaber for U-20 US MNT; courtesy of US Soccer