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From the series, The Dodo and Mauritius Island, Imaginary Encounters, 2004. Harri Kallio.

This post has taken me longer to put together than a lot of posts. And it’s just names on paper. And it’s exactly why I don’t do this stuff, almost ever. After the jump is my best 11, with just enough explanation to leave my words wavering in the wind. Get in your shots while the getting is good!

I’m not sure if I like the Dempsey as striker experiment, though I do think having his foot skills and killer instinct in the middle of the field is worth more than a crossing ball, which, let’s face it, probably has a nicer shape off the boot of a Michael Bradley or Justin Mapp. Bradley outside? It’s just one example of the packed midfield that I could go back and forth on for a few thousand words and never come closer to a decision. Someone is the odd man out in a group of solid performers but no real standouts.

I like Ching’s steady body and mind up front, but I’m nervous handing a striker the reigns when I like his distribution more than his attack. I guess I just like my strikers like I like my hippos: big, surprisingly agile, extremely adaptable, and most of all, deadly. Coach Bradley certainly is experimenting with our strike force, so maybe we give everyone a chance up top this summer to see if we can find something special. I nominate Ricardo Clark to be next, mainly because he is another lost cog in the midfield. Bradley has seen more time and thus probably impressed more, and if Donovan isn’t a striker, he’s filling one of those spots. So what to do? I like Clark. I like Mapp. How do you put together a puzzle when the pieces are going through constant metamorphosis?

It comes back to the one word that sums up this inexperienced national team: promise. But that is tempered with probability, and we’re still at a point where you can’t bet on anything working out as planned, kind of like this post. Which is why I decided to cut what was the next 1000 words of insecurities masquerading as an opinion that means anything.

I usually avoid getting into these discussions and rarely read columns like this, which is why you’ll usually find me focusing on things off the field here as much as on the field. For better or worse, I’m driven toward conclusion, and besides the final scoreboard, there is often very little to conclude, and even that is suspect, especially in the on-again-off-again lifespan of a national team. I want answers; there is a reason I majored in geology in college, and a reason why coaches get fired so often in elite sports. There are no clear answers; it’s the double-edge sword of sports as entertainment. It’s why the Soprano’s finale sucked. I am driven by doubt, but only to kill it. Blame Darwin.

Not that this or other such topics aren’t worth discussing, it’s only that I think they’re better fit for bar banter than broadcast and especially print. I’m a picky bastard. But this is the national team, the personification of American soccer (apologies to MLS), and we’ve seen so many different combinations in the last few games; I can’t avoid the puzzle. I arrange, erase, and rearrange the pieces on the white board in my mind. Could that work? I must be insane? That piece doesn’t fit there. But yet, here I am…

Ching, Dempsey, Beasley, Donovan, Clark, Feilhaber, Spector, DeMerit, Onyewu, Simek, Howard

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