Things wrong with the U.S. soccer team

Well, they're not going forward.

A few reasons why:

An attitude of mediocrity from the *important* players:

"Regardless of our ranking, which we all within the team think is a bit too high and not right, we're still a small footballing nation."--captain Claudio Reyna. How many other teams go out of their way to diminish expectations?

"There wasn't anything that he didn'’t do in this game,"” Arena said of Landon Donovan, after the Italy game. [Well, he didn't score (or create a goal), did he, Bruce?...Not in that game, not in the tournament.]

Reyna and Donovan made too many excuses. Beasley seemed fairly jerkish. These guys are all stars in their own heads, except when anyoe expects them to play to that caliber. Donovan is too lame to go play in a good league, Beasley goes but then acts stupid, and Reyna is happy to be one of those "so good he's practically invisible" kind of players. I imagine you could put Reyna on the Red Bulls and the impact would be that of Donadoni on the Metrostars.

Bruce Arena

From the roster, these players didn't see the field:

Albright, Berhalter, Ching, Hahnemann, Howard

Not surprising at all about the goalkeepers, and the defenders aren't too shocking, but it might have been nice to have had a sniper like Taylor Twellman available instead of Brian McBride's stunt double, Brian Ching, who apparently was not as useful fresh as was tired McBride.

Thinking about forwards, we only saw 13+ minutes of Josh Wolff and less than 90 minutes of Eddie Johnson. The U.S. team's athleticism is generally praised but we see mostly tired McBride wandering around by himself for all 3 games? There was all that space at the end of the Italy game and a sub to spare, but the quickest US players stayed on the bench.

Because:
The US played far too conservatively AKA scared. I made the mistake of checking in elsewhere while typing and here is a good summation from Brian Sinkoff:

"This effort reminded me of the 1994 USA World Cup team. You remember that team ... pack it in ... pray for a turnover and then counter-attack. Well, 12 years later ... we're much better than that--but that's still the way we played. Call it Bora-Ball 2006! Very few times in this tournament were we on the true attack."

Stupid Mistakes:

The MLS contingent didn't acquit themselves very well. The Pope and Mastroeni red cards were foolish. One can only hope that Onyewu never finds his way into MLS; he needs to be in an enviroment where he learns how to defend without being constantly whistled.

And what can anyone say about Reyna's gift today?

A General Point

Maybe the U.S. is really in the midst of the "real" soccer nations--they played like they'd rather not lose. This hasn't worked well for England recently, as England always manage to mess up the penalties. At least England usually manages to avoid the in-the-game mistakes made by the U.S. --the silly cards and fouls, the gift giveaways. But really, instead of claiming to have outplayed Italy, the U.S. should look at the Italian model of success and realize that if you're playing not to lose, it helps to have a technical side who can score a goal and know how to deal with the officials. Or I'd be happy for the U.S. to look to Ghana and realize that there are worse things than ambition, confidence and attack, in sport.


Bruce Arena's head and belly both became swollen after the 2002 fluke.