USA preview

I'm going to give a preview of the USA. As with anything that you're heavily invested in, it would be impossible to give on objective review of the team (another example of this would be if Jared previewed the Cougar football team's year - readers would likely come away expecting a minimum of 17 wins). Regardless, I do know the team extremely well, having lived and (mostly) died with the team for the past 10 years. Anyway, here are some things to know about this years team:

First, a little history. The USA rocks every sport, so we must be good at soccer, right? Wrong. The USA had the aforementioned upset of England in 1950, and then went into soccer Neverland for 40 years. The reasons are many, but basically, the system was not set up to create and promote great soccer players (and there weren't that many to choose from). Then a couple of things happened. Several foreign players (many of them, like German Thomas Dooley, were the sons of U.S. servicemen) joined the team. Also, the U.S. started to develope some great players fom the college ranks (Eric Wynalda, Claudio Reyna). Finally, the U.S. qualified out of the blue for the 1990 world cup finals (their first since 1950). They were outsiders that year, but Mexico was disqualified due to using ineligible players at a previous tournament. It came down the to the USA vs. Trinidad and Tobago for the final World Cup spot. The game was in Port-of-Spain where all of the school children were wearing red and black (one of my friends at Wazzu was one of those children), and all that T&T had to do was tie the USA to move on the the finals in Italy. The game was going according to play when, randomly, U.S. midfielder Paul Caliguiri booted the ball high in the air towards the T&T goal. In what became known as the "Shot heard round the world" for U.S. soccer afficianados, the ball found it's way into the back of the net. The T&T were heartbroken, but the U.S. moved on to World Cup in Italy, where they were crushed.



4 years later, the USA was back in the world cup as the hosts (you get an automatic bid when you host). Given little chance to advance from their group, they tied Switzerland, then beat heavily favored Colombia (in spite of the crappy pseudo-denim uniforms that they're wearing, which Bill Smith incidentally loves). Below you can see the video summary of the game - both the tragic own-goal by Colombian defender Andres Escobar (he was shot in Colombia shortly after the World Cup) and the memorable goal by Earnie Stewart that put us ahead for good. We went on to play Brazil in the second round, who beat us handily in spite of playing with only 10 men for most of the match.



In 1998 the U.S.A., back in the world cup, had somewhat higher expectations - in no small part due to the new 3-6-1 formation that coach Steve Sampson drew up on a cocktail napkin at a remote French chateau where the team were sequestered, and used to thrash Austria in a warm-up match. They then proceeded to get crushed by Germany, and beaten by Yugoslavia and even lowly Iran. Sampson was run out of town on a rail, though it has come to light recently that the debacle may not have been all his fault - team chemistry was terrible since Sampson had been forced to drop one of the U.S.A.'s star midfielders (John Harkes, who you will hear calling games next week) before the tournament because Harkes had had a daliance with the wife of then-striker Eric Wynalda (obviously he needed to read the story of King David). The USA finished last of the 32 teams, and the state of USA soccer had never been lower.

Fast forward to 2002, when the cup was held in Korea/Japan. The USA had somewhat less fanfare than before, and nobody gave them a chance against European giant Portugal. The result was this, which I watched in the pre-dawn hours in our little student appartment in Minneapolis:



Even after that impressive show-down, they squeeked into the second round, where they met their old arch-nemesis, Mexico. Mexico played better for large stretches of the game, but the U.S. took their chances better, and pulled off their greatest ever win (only to get eliminated in the quarter-finals by Germany - a game where the U.S. played better, but Germany finished their one chance).



2006 was embarassment time again. As Uncle Scotty likes to say, there were only 30seconds of happiness during the whole tournament for USA fans. That occured when ESPN mistakenly put a goal on the scoreboard when Damarcus Beasley appeared to have scored against Italy to put us ahead late in the game (it was taken off 30 seconds later when the ref belatedly, but correctly judged McBride to be offsides). The only highlight worth showing is Clint Dempsey's goal against Ghana, though there was minimal joy here - star Claudio Reyna had just gotten injured while giving the ball away in spectacular fashion so Ghana could breeze in and score their first goal, and we were only a couple of minutes from our defender Onyewu giving up a penalty on a totally bogus call.



Who should I watch: Here we'll go through a couple of different players. First, you can't really be a U.S. soccer fan without knowing Landon Donovan. He's more of a midfielder than a striker, but does equally well at both. He holds the record for most goals for the national team, and he also has made roughly 75% of the great passes on the team over the past 8 years. Below is his goal this year in the Confederations Cup against Brazil:



The other critical player to watch is Clint Dempsey. He too is part midfielder, part striker, though mostly he's a midfielder. He basically grew up in a Texas trailerpark, and eventually worked his way up to playing for Fulham in the English premier league. He's scored some spectacular goal's, though none bigger than this one (which JB has already seen):



Now to break down the team a little more. The team will likely start with 2 strikers. Everybody seems to agree that one of them will be 20 yr old Jozy Altidore. Altidore is certainly quite talented - both strong and accurate, as you can see from his goal against Spain in last years Confederations Cup - but he's also young, and a lot of people are worried that he won't be able to carry the scoring burden.



Other candidates to start at striker include an unlikely pair of guys whose names weren't even in the discussion 6 months ago - Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez. Buddle has been scoring all kinds of goals for the LA Galaxy, and managed 2 goals in last weeks warm-up match against Australia. Gomez is a Las Vegas native who led the Mexican league in scoring this year, earning him a call-up to the national team. Most people are guessing that Altidore and Buddle will start at striker, with Gomez coming on as a sub, though coach Bob Bradley is always hard to fathom.



The wings of the midfield will likely be held down by Dempsey and Donovan, while the middle will be manned by somebody Bradley knows very well - his son, Michael. Michael Bradley has shown that he's a fine player, but has also shown that, like Tom Mumford, he is prone to getting a red card every now and then, which he needs to absolutely avoid in the world cup. Below is Bradley scoring some critical goals against Mexico during qualifying (in a more informal format, which I think is fun to see):



Defense is where the U.S. now appears to be shakiest. We have only one genuine "star" defender - Oguchi Onyewu - who has been injured for the past 7 months, and is only now starting to play again. Our captain, my mission companion's old high-school buddy Carlos Bocanegra, has also not been playing super well of late. Jay DeMerit, though he has a very inspiring story, has also been battling an eye infection, and left more than his fair share of strikers open during our warm-up matches. Combine all of this with the fact that we're playing Wayne Rooney in 3 days, and it may spell disaster.

How will we do: Most people think we'll be better than Algeria and Slovenia, and pick us to get to the second round. This is uncharted territory for the USA, who have never before been favorites to advance. Beyond the second round, I don't think many would pick us to go far. We have a few good players, but most other teams have entire teams of great players. Still, if Donovan, Dempsey, and Altidore play the tournament of their lives, you never know.

What games should I watch: Unless you are part communist, you should try to watch them all. We can be maddening to watch, but hey - this is what we've waited around 4 years for....