On The Future of US Soccer

Soccer formations vary, but teams generally follow variations on four templates. Listed by number of defenders-midfielders-strikers, there are the 4-4-2, the 4-3-3, the 4-5-1 and the 3-5-2. One will note that each of these involves somewhere between three and five midfielders, and at least one striker.

The United States, fielding just about their best possible team against Sweden, played four defenders and six midfielders. The scary thing is that it made almost perfect sense.

Right now, there are a lot of very good American midfielders and very few top-class strikers. In fact, with Brian McBride’s recent injury, there are exactly zero American strikers on the game-day rosters of major European clubs. Because of this, National Team coach Bob Bradley elected to play Landon Donovan, who is naturally an attacking midfielder, and Clint Dempsey, who is a right wing midfielder, up front. It was a worthy experiment.

But it didn’t work, and the question is what to do next. I think the first order of business is to extend Bradley’s contract through the 2010 World Cup. This is not because I have been impressed by his record so far (although he has done well), but because what is best in the short-term and long-term of US soccer is not the same. Trying to shoehorn Donovan and Dempsey into attack is dangerously short-sighted. It is also the correct move for Bradley to make, if he is interested getting results now and therefore keeping his job. Only once his job is ensured will he be able to get down to preparing his team for the National Team’s next important match, which is in 2010.

That’s right, the USA plays soccer games that matter exactly once every four years. Only European teams have a continental championship that truly counts. The Gold Cup doesn’t matter. The Copa America would be interesting if everyone took it seriously, but in general, they do not. Certainly we didn’t. Even the World Cup qualifiers don’t really matter, in the sense that there is not a significant probability we would not qualify. We could lose to Mexico 10-0, and all we would still need to do is finish ahead of Costa Rica, Jamaica, Canada, Trinidad, etc. In fact, one of them could beat us and we’d still go. Even if two of them beat us, we would get into a playoff with the fifth South American team, who we might still beat. The point is, we’re making it to South Africa.

And that tournament is going a huge opportunity for us. This is because much of old guard (McBride, Reyna, Pope, Keller) has retired from the national team since the World Cup, meaning our best team right now is almost completely made up of players who should still be in their primes in the summer of 2010. Soccer stars tend to peak earlier the further forward they play; strikers usually peak in their late teens or early to mid-twenties, midfielders anywhere in their twenties, depending on how much their game is speed-based, defenders in their mid or late twenties, and goalkeepers in their late twenties or early thirties.

Here is the approximate US roster now, along with the players’ ages and current league.

Goalkeepers:

Tim Howard (28)
Marcus Hahnemann (35)

Defenders

Jonathan Bornstein (22)
Carlos Bocanegra (28)
Oguchi Oneywu (25)
Steve Cherundolo (28)
Jonathan Spector (21)
Jay DeMerit (27)

Central Midfielders

DaMarcus Beasley (25)
Michael Bradley (20)
Ricardo Clark (24)
Clint Dempsey (24)
Landon Donovan (25)
Benny Feilhaber (22)
Pablo Mastroeni (29)

Strikers

Brian Ching (29)
Eddie Johnson (23)
Taylor Twellman (27)

As you can see, almost all of these players should have three more good years in them. Hahnemann may not, but Howard is definitely the top goalkeeper regardless. Oneywu, Bornstein and Spector, as inexperienced defenders, will almost certainly be better than they are now, and unless Bocanegra and DeMerit both suffer a drop-off in play, that will form a capable back line.

Six of the seven midfielders listed should be available. Mastroeni is the lone exception, and his red card against Italy last summer shows that he is likely to be a liability anyhow. He was put in the squad for his tackling, but by now either Bradley or Clark can perform that role just as well, and with better offensive skills.

Beasley, Dempsey and Feilhaber are especially encouraging. All play on top teams in the UK and all have played well recently. Along with Donovan, they are the heart of the team.

That leaves us with a big hole in attack. Ching and Twellman will be old, and they have never been world-class anyhow. Eddie Johnson has potential, but ranges constantly from brilliant to awful. In MLS, he followed a 12 goal season in 2004 with 7 in 2005 and 2006 combined, but has 12 again this year. It is worth mentioning that as a striker, at age 23, he has still not yet found a place in Europe.

This leaves us with a potential lineup as follows:

GK Howard
LB Bornstein
CB Bocanegra/DeMerit
CB Oneywu
RB Cherundolo/Spector
DM Bradley
DM Feilhaber
LW Beasley
AM Donovan
RW Dempsey
CF Johnson

We have gotten very close to the lineup that Coach Bradley used against Sweden. The only difference is that Mastroeni started as a defensive midfielder, pushing Feilhaber to the right and Dempsey up top. Since Donovan and Mastroeni were called from MLS, we can assume that Eddie Johnson’s absence was no coincidence. It was worth it, in the man whose opinion we pay for, to play more than one player out of position in order not to use any strikers at all. And that is not encouraging.

Luckily, we have one great hope. Let’s see if you can guess him. He first impressed on the U-17 team, before moving into the MLS. He starred at this summer’s U-20 World Cup; at least one of his goals there made SportsCenter. His parents weren’t born here. His last name starts with an “A.” Have a guess?

It’s Jozy Altidore.

Altidore, who is five months younger than Freddy Adu, is our best chance to have a world-class striker by 2010. He is listed at 6’1” and 175 pounds. He is fast. He scored his team’s only goal in his first MLS playoff series. He has scored or assisted 11 goals in 16 games this season. He has drawn European club interest, but was not eligible to be transferred overseas this summer, because he has yet to turn 18. Altidore is almost as good as Johnson already, and he, not Johnson, has to be the eleventh starter for the future US team.

Does that mean Bradley should have Altidore starting right now? No. We need look no further than Adu to question the wisdom of christening a player the savior of American soccer too early. But it does mean that Bradley should stop experimenting with Dempsey in attack, and let him play in the wider position in which he starred—and scored—at the World Cup. There is no use in teaching Dempsey to play Altidore’s spot.

In the meantime, Bradley should just play an Altidore proxy. Since none of the potential starters are really effective, pick the one whose game is closest stylistically to Altidore. That probably is Johnson, who is about the same size, but I suppose could also be Ching or Ante Razov. Bradley has been reluctant to use these players because they are not up to standards in the present, and they are certainly not the future. That’s okay. If someone comes out of nowhere, you can see it at club level and give them a shot. Unless that Player X falls from the blue, the right guy for the attacking job now is the one who can best keep Jozy’s spot warm for a year or so. I know that’s putting all our eggs in one basket, but what else can we do?

Besides, of course, getting Brian McBride’s agent back on the phone.

On the Greatest Game in MLS History (Soccer)

The MLS couldn’t have scripted it any better. New York. Los Angeles. Sixty-six thousand fans. Nine goals. Starring performances from both “Designated Players” and high-profile Americans. A full game out of a fairly healthy looking David Beckham. And a dramatic finish.

First and foremost, Becks looks ready to be the star the MLS needs him to be. His strengths really are perfectly suited to engage the casual fan. Since free kicks are his forte, there is a built-in stoppage of play for announcers to explain what he’s about to do. Otherwise, his long passes from play are roughly equivalent to long bombs in football or outlet passes in basketball, a skill that is easily understood. Most importantly of all, his competitive nature is unmistakable. During Saturday’s game, he was encouraging his teammates. He was trash-talking with opponents. He was yelling at referees. He was ecstatic when his team scored. He was disgusted when his team gave up the winning goal. He refused to come out. If there is one thing American sports fans expect from sports icons, from Lombardi to Jordan, it is a strong, frankly psychotic dedication to winning. And Beckham’s got it.

But against New York, he was foiled by the combined effort of three opposing stars. Juan Pablo Angel, a Columbian player brought in from the English league, scored the first and last goals of the match. The Red Bulls’ second goal came from Clint Mathis, who was a much-hyped American striker at the 2002 World Cup, and the third and fourth from 17-year-old Jozy Altidore, who is going to be our much-hyped striker in 2010. Landon Donovan, our much-hyped player of 2006, also scored for LA.

One reason for the high-scoring nature of the affair is the enforcement of the offside rule. In the European leagues and international play, it often seems that on close calls, the benefit of the doubt goes to the defense. In this match, the offense was getting those calls, which made for an entertaining style of play.

While Beckham certainly brought forward an exciting debut, in the end he walked out with a loss. Eight of thirteen MLS teams make the playoffs, a ratio that would embarrass even the NBA, but still the Galaxy are not sure of a place in it, especially considering that Beckham will have to miss some of the remaining games while on national team duty in Europe. A win would have gone a long way toward ensuring Beckham’s place in the postseason, and thus the MLS’ continued relevance in public consciousness.

OK, I guess it could have been scripted a little better.

On Not Making Mistakes (EPL)

In sports, great offense is about brilliance. Steve Nash creating passing lanes. Peyton Manning audibling at the line. Sidney Crosby, as I understand it, doing pretty much anything.

Defense, on the other hand, is not so glamorous. It pretty much consists of not making any mistakes. This makes it difficult for casual fans to appreciate defenders who are not on their own team; the MVP of any given game is probably going to be an attacking player, for a moment of brilliance. Only over the course of the season does the defender’s ability to avoid mistakes look as good.

In soccer, which does not have the wealth of statistics available in most American sports, it is even harder to tell.

Sometimes, then, the best way to observe the quality of defensive players is to see what happens when they’re gone. Manchester United and Chelsea, teams with an embarrassingly large number of attacking options, were derailed last season with injuries to defenders. In Nemanja Vidic’s absence, AC Milan’s Kaka sent the Red Devils crashing out of the Champions League. Man U’s second choice defenders were running into each other trying to stop him. Literally. You can see it on YouTube.

Meanwhile, Chelsea had the same problem in both league and European competitions. When John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho are both playing, Petr Cech becomes the best goalkeeper in the world, Frank Lampard becomes a European Footballer of the Year finalist, and Chelsea becomes unstoppable. When they’re not, things are different.

That’s what happened this week. Although they escaped both games with Ws, they looked vulnerable. They gave up two goals to newly-promoted Birmingham at home. They were a post’s width away from being run off the field in the first half at Reading. Unless Terry and Carvalho make miraculous recoveries, Chelsea will be in serious trouble this weekend at Liverpool.

Liverpool, incidentally, was great. The team’s depth was on display, with new signings Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel looking especially good. The Reds’ goal didn’t look threatened at any point; the game-tying goal they did concede was a freak PK on a play that wasn’t really even dangerous. And when that happened, local superman Steven Gerrard cleaned it up by drawing a foul and then dropping the ensuing free kick in between the post, crossbar and keeper’s hand, a space approximately the size of an envelope.

The other team to impress was Manchester City. They got a good bit of offensive creativity from midfielder Elano of Brazil, and wingers Martin Petrov of Bulgaria and Stephen Ireland of Ireland. They have Peter Schmeichel’s son in goal. Most importantly of all, at the back, Richard Dunne and Micah Richards look like a pair that isn’t going to be making a lot of mistakes.