US National Team Roster for Cuba and T&T Qualifiers

September 6 at Cuba
September 10 vs. Trinidad and Tobago in Chicago
October 11 vs. Cuba in Washington DC
October 15 at Trinidad and Tobago

GK: Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Everton)

D: Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes), Danny Califf (FC Midjtylland), Steven Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Frankie Hejduk (Columbus), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard de Liege), Michael Orozco (San Luis), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock), Marvell Wynne (FC Toronto)

M: DaMarcus Beasley (Rangers), Michael Bradley (Heerenveen), Ricardo Clark (Houston), Maurice Edu (Rangers), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Eddie Lewis (Los Angeles)

F: Brian Ching (Houston), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles), Clint Dempsey (Fulham), Eddie Johnson (Cardiff City)

Bob Bradley is mostly sticking with the squad that gritted out a victory over Guatemala two weeks ago.  Jay DeMerit and Pablo Mastroeni are gone with Ricardo Clark and uncapped Olympian Michael Orozco taking their places.  Clark has looked shaky at times, but mostly solid for Houston, while Orozco was exposed by Robbie Rogers’ lack of zeal for defense in Beijing, mostly up to the challenge.

Howard looked great against Guatemala, and Guzan is a quality second option.  The Aston Villa ‘keeper looked good in the Olympics.

Bocanegra and Onyewu are good enough for the backline, but I’m not sold on any of the other defensive options.  Wynne combines great pace with poor crossing and a tendency to gamble too much.  Orozco and Pearce can be solid or spotty, Hejduk and Cherundolo are on the decline.  Hejduk has not been tested as much as you would expect in Columbus with teams attacking the revolving door of players on the left side instead.  When he has been tested, he has a tendency to gamble on going to the ground instead of staying on his feet and staying in front of his man.  Cherundolo has been up and down in National Team duty recently and Califf has impressed at Midjtylland.

The midfield remains the team’s greatest outfield strength.  Beasley sparked the victory over Guatemala, Kljestan is at times an outstanding link player in the middle, at times invisible.  Lewis and Bradley are solid, with Lewis providing valuable experience and a long-range scoring threat, and Edu is one of the nation’s top rising all-around talents (when he isn’t too fatigued from traveling around the world).  It does, however, seem strange that Bradley would dislodge Edu from Rangers so soon after his arrival in Glasgow.

The front line is where things get worrisome.  Donovan is good enough in one forward spot, but who is going to pair with him?  Ching is a poor man’s Brian McBride and probably not good enough as a target man for serious international competition.  Neither Johnson nor Dempsey are in form right now, as Johnson was so far down the list at Fulham that he got loaned to Cardiff City and Dempsey has been dropped from the Cottagers’ starting lineup and hasn’t seen time as a sub.  Edson Buddle and Kenny Cooper are both in good form right now, and would benefit from International experience at an early stage in the qualifying game, but neither seems to be on Bradley’s radar.

World Cup Qualifier: USA 1-Guatemala 0

It should have been the kind of match that makes international football great: an exotic locale, a raucous venue, an inspired underdog, and the World Cup barely visible in the distance on the CONCACAF landscape.  Instead, violent play from both sides, though most notably from Guatemala, tainted an otherwise sloppy, but exciting contest.

The United States recorded their first World Cup Qualifying victory in Guatemala on the backs of a 69th minute Carlos Bocanegra header.  Bocanegra guided in a corner kick from DaMarcus Beasley to give the United States the lead just minutes after both a Steve Cherundolo red card (second yellow) and a straight red to Guatemala D Gustavo Cabrera for a vicious diving elbow to the head of Eddie Lewis.  Although Guatemala would pressure American keeper Tim Howard the rest of the match, the USA managed to hang on for the first-leg victory.  The American players looked impacted by the hostile environment and jetlag from their international travels, often displaying poor touch and questionable passing (even stellar Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard’s kicking was off).  Furthermore, the lack of a quality attacking option remains blatant.  Brian Ching holds up play well and is decent in the air, but Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey provided few threats to the Guatemala goal.

Overshadowing the actual soccer was the shamefully dirty play.  While most of the late shoving and desperate atttempts from the US were retaliatory, Guatemala did whatever they could to intimidate or flatout injure the American players.  Cabrera’s flying elbow was simply the nadir of a display that included Carlos Ruiz kicking Tim Howard in the head, plenty of body checks and takedowns, a Guatemalan defender kicking at Carlos Bocanegra during his goal celebration and defender Yony Flores attempting to attack a US coach after the match.

Though I had heard about the hostility of Central American opponents, I had never seen the United States in a football streetfight until their match with Guatemala.  Poor CONCACAF officiating only compounded the needless aggression that Guatemala apparently felt they needed to utilize in order to have a chance against one of the federation’s juggernauts.  While I had been thinking about how weak qualifying competition gave the United States a disadvantage once they reached large tournaments like the World Cup and Olympics, I now know that at the very least, the Red, White, and Blue are mentally prepared to take on all comers.

LA Galaxy Hires Bruce Arena

After the end of the Alexi Lalas/Ruud Gullit fiasco, the LA Galaxy have hired former DC United, New York Red Bulls, and US Men’s National Team head coach Bruce Arena to fill both the vacated GM and Head Coach spots.

Arena had enough success with DC in the early days of MLS to warrant getting selected for the USMNT job, where he guided the squad to their highest World Cup finish ever (2002 semi-final). However, since his career reached its zenith in Korea/Japan, Arena has been in charge of the Germany 2006 squad which was a catastrophe on offense, and a stint in NY that saw him get fired after one season and change yielded a .500 record.

There are many positives to Arena’s hiring. He is a well-known and mostly well-respected name in the US soccer community, his signature sarcasm when dealing with the press will lend itself better to media coverage than most other MLS head men’s vanilla approach to public exposure, he has a good relationship with Landon Donovan from their USMNT days, and he has plenty of experience, both domestic and international. Finally, Arena has longtime right-hand man and former Chicago Fire head coach David Sarachan as his assistant (of whom Arena said “it will be nice to have a backup plan when I get assassinated”. Arena apparently plans on a few more public attacks like the ones he loosed in New York).

Unfortunately, the negatives surrounding Arena’s arrival are almost as plentiful as the positives. Arena hasn’t really enjoyed any success since 2002. His colorful media personality is accompanied by a notoriously large ego, which will have to share locker room real estate with David Beckham’s and Landon Donovan’s egos (unless a successful Premier League team that plays “free-flowing” football decides to buy Landycakes’). Finally, Arena inherits a woeful LA team that is well into a second half free fall. The Galaxy haven’t won since beating the old San Jose Earthquakes on June 14th, well before San Jose’s rejuvenation. The potent offense that recorded 10 goals in 4 June games has only scored 8 since then in 6 games (and that’s WITH Becks and Landycakes, who won’t be around during this week’s international friendly/World Cup Qualifying fiesta). The defense has been especially bad, even with experienced MLS defenders Greg Vanney and Chris Klein, and it doesn’t help that the old regime passed on their chance in the allocation lottery to sign former Feyenoord, Charlton, and USMNT defender Cory Gibbs in favor of chasing 34 year-old midfielder Eddie Lewis. Although Lewis has had more USMNT experience (80 caps to Gibbs’ 19), as well as quality experience in the English FA (Fulham, Preston, Leeds, Derby), when your team’s defensive struggles have underlined your lack of success and an internationally-capped defender comes along, the common sense move seems to be taking the defender (although maybe Gibbs made it known he didn’t want to play in LA; I wouldn’t blame him for that one).

It will be interesting to see if Arena can turn the Galaxy around fast enough for LA to make the MLS Playoffs. They currently reside in 5th out of 7 in the Western Conference, with Chivas USA a point behind in 6th with a game in hand. The West is going to be quite a dogfight at the end of the season, so Arena will need to be able to redevelop the team’s chemistry quickly. Houston is one of the hottest teams in the league right now, Salt Lake is unbeatable at home, Dallas is finally finding their groove under new boss Schellas Hyndman, Colorado has been almost as steady at home as Salt Lake (despite microscopic attendance figures), and San Jose has been hot since adding Francisco Lima, Scott Sealy, Arturo Alvarez, and Darren Huckerby.

Another intriguing feature in the landscape of Arena’s hiring is his dual role as both Head Coach and General Manager. Very few MLS Head Coaches are also in charge of personnel moves, although the league’s emerging power, the Houston Dynamo, employ Dominic Kinnear in both roles. I would like to see more MLS teams moving towards eliminating their General Manager positions. In the rest of the world, Managers assume all responsibilities in managing the team itself. The only reason I can think of that the MLS wouldn’t do the same is the coaches’ inability to do so. However, most MLS Head Coaches are former collegiate coaches, so they have experience in juggling the roles of recruiter and coach. Having a General Manager make personnel decisions seems to create a gap between the Head Coach’s desires for what his squad looks like and who actually joins the team. Perhaps the product on the field would improve, maybe only slightly, if Head Coaches were bringing in players for themselves.