This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS - Tackling the subject of Soccer in the US, and worldwide.

GET IN LINE EDITION

On Sunday I chose to watch the US MNT World Cup Qualifier live and follow it up with Spain-Italy from the European Championships on DVR-delay. Wild guess: I made the rare selection. The rest of the day’s decisions, unfortunately, were less unusual.

Preface this with the knowledge that we entered the second game of a home-and-home series with an 8-0 lead.

I love these games when new faces get a shot to don the jersey, not that anyone proved their worth. Maybe I just don’t understand these would-be friendly games. I will ask again: does any one involved for the U.S. care? The pregame pep talk appeared to consist of “don’t get hurt.”

I changed channels to Spain-Italy.

My brother stopped by my apartment. He’s not a huge soccer fan, but like many enjoys things like the Euros and World Cup. He asked me who the USA’s great young players are. I couldn’t answer him. We don’t have any, I said. Lots of OK guys, solid role players maybe on a great team. No superstars. We’ve got Landon, Dempsey, still, but they aren’t playing today. As for young guys, we have one kid who just got sold to a Spanish team, so he isn’t here, and we’ve got Freddy Adu. My brother laughed (that whole 14-year-old soccer phenom thing is going to be hard for Adu to ever get passed).

Needless observations: Unbelievably bad camera angles and picture quality on ESPN Classic. Narrow field. USL owners association sponsored the boards apparently. They grow big people in Barbados. Luca Toni is my arch enemy.

Painful to read from your favorite game reviewer: “unimpressive performance that induced a near-terminal case of boredom.”

And I thought ‘unspectacular’ was a negative.

Eddie Lewis played 90 minutes as the captain. Hard to think at this point that Coach Bradley isn’t going to keep him around for at least the whole of qualifying. I’m tired of fighting this fact, but there is no way he should have played in this game before some young buck who could use the experience. Lewis is a competent veteran at 34, but he is never going to be more than that. This is not a Ruud Van Nistelrooy–32 in a week and still killing it–situation. Why not let some youngster move closer to competent? Why not throw Brian McBride back in the mix if this is the way the team is going? I blame 2006-2008’s Claudio Reyna for making me feel so strongly about this.

Adu as forward? Whatever, at least he is starting–he deserves to start no matter the circumstances–and playing most of the game. He’s not exactly lighting it up, but he is just about the only player showing verve. His lack of playing time in the last few months is at least questionable given the performance of the nation’s other options. I can’t help but think though that when the A roster is available, Adu goes back to the bench amid the logjam of players in the midfield.

Beasley as forward? Bob Bradley might as well purchase an ad on BBC World News: “naturalization options for quality striker.” Kind of a surprise DMB played at all in this worthless game, but he needs a few games to just run around, so why not - stick him up top where you can guarantee that is all he will do.

This should have been one of those games you will be familiar with if you have ever played on a team that occasionally destroys opponents. “Just keep passing,” I remember a coach or two advising, “No going to goal unless it is just too obvious.” Instead, we saw the ball spend entirely too much time in the air with long balls, few passing strings, and players holding onto the ball for too long. Old habits repeated themselves yesterday, and this game should have been about creating new possibilities. This should have been a lovely game of keep-a-way. Safe to say Bob Bradley is not getting any offers to coach in Spain anytime soon; he is looking evermore the “american” coach, which scares me as much as our lack of forward.

Final self-hating hindsight: I love these games when new faces get a shot to don the jersey; now I am wanting the strongest 11 to play every game from here to the World Cup as if each was the Cup final. Why? because the next game is not until the US MNT face Guatemala on August 20th (nothing scheduled between now and then). We need our best players to improve. Let the Olympics sort the bench out.

—-

photo of Freddy Adu, Sacha Kljestan, Marvell Wynne, and Stuart Holden from the semi-finals of the 2008 CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualification tournament at LP Field in Nashville, Tennessee on March 20, 2008, courtesy of ISI PHOTOS. Captured by John Dorton.