The name Tobey Bailey probably doesn't mean anything to you.
To me, back in 1995, I probably spent a week's worth of free periods in middle school writing how much I hated the UCLA shooting guard on my Trapper Keeper binder. Thinking about him now pisses me off -- only a little -- since he did his best to singlehandedly ruin my life that March.
Sixteen years on and two national titles later, the UCLA beating my beloved UConn Huskies 102-96 in the West Regional Final (Elite Eight) in Oakland, Calif. At the time it was so hard, since it felt like UConn would never win a basketball championship, let alone make a Final Four. Here was arguably my favorite team in any sport, featuring a spry Ray Allen and running one of the best fast breaks ever, only to be undone by a jerk-face like Bailey and the O'Bannon Bros.
I don't tend to write about UConn on this here slice of the Internets very often, if ever, but the Huskies were my first sporting true love. The team I lived and died ... and cried with for all of my formative years. It's why on Saturday night instead of watching the U.S. National Team take on Argentina in a high-profile friendly, I was locked in with a group of UConn fans again watching the Huskies play in the West Regional Final, this time against Arizona in Anaheim, Calif.
This couldn't have turned out better, not because UConn won to make its second Final Four in three seasons. No, it helped remind my cold, Grinch-like heart that sometimes it's okay to simply be a fan, root for you team and not worry about all the off-field, off-court machinations which make sports sometimes distasteful if you think about them too much.
Did any of the dozen UConn fans gathered in my friend's living room care that coach Jim Calhoun will miss three Big East games next season for NCAA violations stemming from the recruitment of a player -- Nate Miles -- who never played a minute for UConn? Absolutely not.
So with that in mind, again maybe my heart grew a size or two, but I'll forgive the U.S. Soccer Federation for the overt, blatant Nike showcase that was the eventual 1-1 draw with a very game Argentina squad. (Seriously, the second highlighted item in the official press release was the fact the U.S. played in new red shirts.) If people think it's more important to go to a game in a costume and or 45 pieces of U.S. soccer-approved flair, so be it.
As a rule, personally it's hard to watch a game on the DVR or when you know the result. A combination of flipping over to the second half of the U.S. game during the non-stop timeouts of a NCAA tournament game helped, so did the feed on Twitter, which seemed to range the gambit from, "USA A-Okay (#redallover)" to pure cynicism. Always fun.
Since I know somewhere in the range of four or five folks (non-family members anyway) like to read what I think of the U.S. I figured I could cobble together a couple thoughts. If I missed a point or a chance to make a joke, feel free to tell me.
Out with the Old, in with the Nucleus:
Juan Agudelo, all 18 years of him, probably -- no definitely -- got all the headlines in the wake of this game, scoring his second international goal in only his third cap.
It bookends well with the actual standout performance from the match for an American, keeper Tim Howard.
All the credit to Agudelo for being in the right place at the right time to slot in the ball after Argentina keeper Mariano Andujar fumbled Carlos Bocanegra's initial header from Landon Donovan's long free kick. In a way it was a very similar to the goal that Charlie Davies scored against Egypt in 2009 Confederations Cup. Credit, too, Bob Bradley for taking the plunge with a teenager and letting him play.
In a very small sample size, Agudelo is flashing a nose for goal with that poacher's instinct which some players are simply born with in their DNA. Remember, though, this isn't the first time we've seen a young U.S. forward impress in his first few matches. The label of "Next Big Thing" for U.S. soccer is almost as much of a blessing as it is a curse.
This is worth contrasting with steady play of Tim Howard in goal. His stop of Lionel Messi in the first minute of the second half was a game-changer on what seemed a sure goal to make it 2-0.
Goalkeeper and striker at the international level are all about what a player does in small moments or makes of half chances, or at least that's how we judge them.
At Everton Howard gives up plenty of goals. In the week-in, week-out nature of club soccer you can live with that. As we've seen more often than not, Howard rises to the occasion in the U.S. No. 1 shirt.
When you make a blunder like Andujar in international play, it costs your team. In a competitive match, you're out of tournaments for fumbling a ball like that. Compare to last week when Manuel Almunia lost his mind for Arsenal against West Brom, it cost the Gunners, but there's still a chance to recover in the Premier League title pursuit.
Howard, as we've seen, has kept the U.S. in games and seems to rouse the troops from the backline. Over the course of a club season, I'd tend to think goal-keeping (non-Arsenal clubs) tends to level out. On the international stage you tend to see what a difference an elite player between the posts can makes since even the slightest gaffe tends to cost you.
With a striker, it's similar. You can afford to waste chances on the club level, not so much on the international level. You're simply getting more reps, more minutes at the club level and enough games against inferior competition to make an impact.
Judging Agudelo after three international games is a fool's errand, no matter how good he's looked so far. (Nice postgame interview, too.)
He's obviously not going to keep up his 66-percent international strike rate. We'll need to see more of what else he brings to the table over the course of a qualifying cycle or the upcoming Gold Cup tournament to get a better baseline assessment of where he stands. It's still hard to gauge what exactly Agudelo is beyond a poacher in the box at this point. If that's what he is, then there's certainly a value to it, but he has to keep producing on the scoreboard, which isn't easy internationally.
Still, there's something to be said for a player for a clear knack for goal and savvy inside the penalty area. It's early but Agudelo profiles a lot like a slightly taller Javier Hernandez.
If Agudelo develops a consistency at the international level even a little bit like Howard, his potential is limitless ... even if we've said this about other young U.S. strikers before.
Random Thoughts:
* Lionel Messi is sort of good on the ball, right?
He's almost on that level where he's critically bulletproof, or an accepted work of genius like "Sgt. Pepper's." Messi is poised, stress poised, to join that pantheon level of players like Maradona or Pele. This being soccer, you wonder if he'll be placed on the pedestal or eventually be torn down by the press like a Ronaldo?
At the moment, Messi is the undisputed genius of world soccer.
* You don't need to be Jonathan Wilson to realize the U.S. was actually able to get out of its own end, or at least break out of its own bunker when it went away from a 4-5-1 to the 4-4-2, when Agudelo came on. Argentina is obviously great on the ball and was flowing with Barcelona-style rhythm in the first half, so it's tough to say if the formations made all the difference.
* One thing that is clear, Jozy Altidore isolated alone up top isn't a path the U.S. should continue exploring. It's not his game. If Bob Bradley is committed to trying to play a five-man midfield, he needs to look for a target guy that isn't afraid to muscle around alone up top alone. That said, many teams in the past have failed trying to shoehorn all its best players onto the field at once at the international level. This isn't 1970 any more where you can be Brazil, put on your best players and roll through competition.
* Liked what Timmy Chandler brought to the table in the second half, since wide players in the U.S. set up are as rare as Republicans in San Francisco. You have to wonder how much of the U.S. reaching out to a player like Chandler and capping him is a response to the outcry of losing players like Giuseppe Rossi, Nevan Subotic and Vedad Ibisevic to other nations when they had U.S. ties that could have gotten them into the national team? More on this ahead of the Paraguay match.
* Strange choice for Bradley to play Jonathan Spector at right back, considering he hadn't played that position at West Ham in months, last playing there for the U.S. in their November friendly in South Africa. You could see what Bradley was trying to do, playing a familiar back line of Spector, Jay DeMerit, Oguchi Onyewu and Carlos Bocanegra.
* Did I actually hear John Harkes lay a criticism at Onyewu during the match? Didn't think USSF-approved media was allowed to do so publicly.
* Could you make a big deal about Bob Bradley playing his son Michael, despite the fact Michael has barely gotten off the bench since being loaned to Aston Villa? Sure, you could. The Younger was clearly rusty, but he's also a clear part of the U.S. core set-up, so it's not like nepotism alone got the Elder to break his unwritten selection rules, was it? Pinning the Younger into a purely holding/defensive role limits him somewhat. With Stuart Holden out for the immediate future, maybe a more advanced offensive role for Bradley isn't the worst idea, since he's not exactly Andres Iniesta or Xavi with the distribution in the midfield. Bradley is much more the disruptor-type, and how many of those does the U.S. need in CONCACAF play?
* Easy to tell that Maurice Edu is in great form at Rangers. He looked sharp. If not Bradley in a more offensive spot, maybe Edu?
* Fast forwarded the tape of most of the first half. Did I miss anything noteworthy from Jermaine Jones?
* Not the most memorable night for either Donovan and Clint Dempsey, but Dempsey was once again Dempsey one of the first Americans who never plays scared, regardless of the opposition.
* God save Ian Darke.
Last thought:
For a friendly, this was a pretty entertaining display. It was a good day for the USSF suits to trumpet everything and anything U.S. soccer related. Too bad there weren't more days and nights like this.
Such is life as the big fish in the tiny backwater pond of CONCACAF.
It was also a fairly typical U.S. performance from the Bradley era: play to the level of the competition, look for a counter attack, use defensive muscle to weather the storm ... and fall behind on the scoreboard. Fortunately this was only a friendly since there are only so many times the U.S. is going to be able to come from behind against a quality opponent.
One of these days, in a big game, Bradley is going to get it right from the start.
Hey, maybe that can be the slogan for the U.S. jerseys for the Paraguay game on Tuesday.
To me, back in 1995, I probably spent a week's worth of free periods in middle school writing how much I hated the UCLA shooting guard on my Trapper Keeper binder. Thinking about him now pisses me off -- only a little -- since he did his best to singlehandedly ruin my life that March.
Sixteen years on and two national titles later, the UCLA beating my beloved UConn Huskies 102-96 in the West Regional Final (Elite Eight) in Oakland, Calif. At the time it was so hard, since it felt like UConn would never win a basketball championship, let alone make a Final Four. Here was arguably my favorite team in any sport, featuring a spry Ray Allen and running one of the best fast breaks ever, only to be undone by a jerk-face like Bailey and the O'Bannon Bros.
I don't tend to write about UConn on this here slice of the Internets very often, if ever, but the Huskies were my first sporting true love. The team I lived and died ... and cried with for all of my formative years. It's why on Saturday night instead of watching the U.S. National Team take on Argentina in a high-profile friendly, I was locked in with a group of UConn fans again watching the Huskies play in the West Regional Final, this time against Arizona in Anaheim, Calif.
This couldn't have turned out better, not because UConn won to make its second Final Four in three seasons. No, it helped remind my cold, Grinch-like heart that sometimes it's okay to simply be a fan, root for you team and not worry about all the off-field, off-court machinations which make sports sometimes distasteful if you think about them too much.
Did any of the dozen UConn fans gathered in my friend's living room care that coach Jim Calhoun will miss three Big East games next season for NCAA violations stemming from the recruitment of a player -- Nate Miles -- who never played a minute for UConn? Absolutely not.
So with that in mind, again maybe my heart grew a size or two, but I'll forgive the U.S. Soccer Federation for the overt, blatant Nike showcase that was the eventual 1-1 draw with a very game Argentina squad. (Seriously, the second highlighted item in the official press release was the fact the U.S. played in new red shirts.) If people think it's more important to go to a game in a costume and or 45 pieces of U.S. soccer-approved flair, so be it.
As a rule, personally it's hard to watch a game on the DVR or when you know the result. A combination of flipping over to the second half of the U.S. game during the non-stop timeouts of a NCAA tournament game helped, so did the feed on Twitter, which seemed to range the gambit from, "USA A-Okay (#redallover)" to pure cynicism. Always fun.
Since I know somewhere in the range of four or five folks (non-family members anyway) like to read what I think of the U.S. I figured I could cobble together a couple thoughts. If I missed a point or a chance to make a joke, feel free to tell me.
Out with the Old, in with the Nucleus:
Juan Agudelo, all 18 years of him, probably -- no definitely -- got all the headlines in the wake of this game, scoring his second international goal in only his third cap.
It bookends well with the actual standout performance from the match for an American, keeper Tim Howard.
All the credit to Agudelo for being in the right place at the right time to slot in the ball after Argentina keeper Mariano Andujar fumbled Carlos Bocanegra's initial header from Landon Donovan's long free kick. In a way it was a very similar to the goal that Charlie Davies scored against Egypt in 2009 Confederations Cup. Credit, too, Bob Bradley for taking the plunge with a teenager and letting him play.
In a very small sample size, Agudelo is flashing a nose for goal with that poacher's instinct which some players are simply born with in their DNA. Remember, though, this isn't the first time we've seen a young U.S. forward impress in his first few matches. The label of "Next Big Thing" for U.S. soccer is almost as much of a blessing as it is a curse.
This is worth contrasting with steady play of Tim Howard in goal. His stop of Lionel Messi in the first minute of the second half was a game-changer on what seemed a sure goal to make it 2-0.
Goalkeeper and striker at the international level are all about what a player does in small moments or makes of half chances, or at least that's how we judge them.
At Everton Howard gives up plenty of goals. In the week-in, week-out nature of club soccer you can live with that. As we've seen more often than not, Howard rises to the occasion in the U.S. No. 1 shirt.
When you make a blunder like Andujar in international play, it costs your team. In a competitive match, you're out of tournaments for fumbling a ball like that. Compare to last week when Manuel Almunia lost his mind for Arsenal against West Brom, it cost the Gunners, but there's still a chance to recover in the Premier League title pursuit.
Howard, as we've seen, has kept the U.S. in games and seems to rouse the troops from the backline. Over the course of a club season, I'd tend to think goal-keeping (non-Arsenal clubs) tends to level out. On the international stage you tend to see what a difference an elite player between the posts can makes since even the slightest gaffe tends to cost you.
With a striker, it's similar. You can afford to waste chances on the club level, not so much on the international level. You're simply getting more reps, more minutes at the club level and enough games against inferior competition to make an impact.
Judging Agudelo after three international games is a fool's errand, no matter how good he's looked so far. (Nice postgame interview, too.)
He's obviously not going to keep up his 66-percent international strike rate. We'll need to see more of what else he brings to the table over the course of a qualifying cycle or the upcoming Gold Cup tournament to get a better baseline assessment of where he stands. It's still hard to gauge what exactly Agudelo is beyond a poacher in the box at this point. If that's what he is, then there's certainly a value to it, but he has to keep producing on the scoreboard, which isn't easy internationally.
Still, there's something to be said for a player for a clear knack for goal and savvy inside the penalty area. It's early but Agudelo profiles a lot like a slightly taller Javier Hernandez.
If Agudelo develops a consistency at the international level even a little bit like Howard, his potential is limitless ... even if we've said this about other young U.S. strikers before.
Random Thoughts:
* Lionel Messi is sort of good on the ball, right?
He's almost on that level where he's critically bulletproof, or an accepted work of genius like "Sgt. Pepper's." Messi is poised, stress poised, to join that pantheon level of players like Maradona or Pele. This being soccer, you wonder if he'll be placed on the pedestal or eventually be torn down by the press like a Ronaldo?
At the moment, Messi is the undisputed genius of world soccer.
* You don't need to be Jonathan Wilson to realize the U.S. was actually able to get out of its own end, or at least break out of its own bunker when it went away from a 4-5-1 to the 4-4-2, when Agudelo came on. Argentina is obviously great on the ball and was flowing with Barcelona-style rhythm in the first half, so it's tough to say if the formations made all the difference.
* One thing that is clear, Jozy Altidore isolated alone up top isn't a path the U.S. should continue exploring. It's not his game. If Bob Bradley is committed to trying to play a five-man midfield, he needs to look for a target guy that isn't afraid to muscle around alone up top alone. That said, many teams in the past have failed trying to shoehorn all its best players onto the field at once at the international level. This isn't 1970 any more where you can be Brazil, put on your best players and roll through competition.
* Liked what Timmy Chandler brought to the table in the second half, since wide players in the U.S. set up are as rare as Republicans in San Francisco. You have to wonder how much of the U.S. reaching out to a player like Chandler and capping him is a response to the outcry of losing players like Giuseppe Rossi, Nevan Subotic and Vedad Ibisevic to other nations when they had U.S. ties that could have gotten them into the national team? More on this ahead of the Paraguay match.
* Strange choice for Bradley to play Jonathan Spector at right back, considering he hadn't played that position at West Ham in months, last playing there for the U.S. in their November friendly in South Africa. You could see what Bradley was trying to do, playing a familiar back line of Spector, Jay DeMerit, Oguchi Onyewu and Carlos Bocanegra.
* Did I actually hear John Harkes lay a criticism at Onyewu during the match? Didn't think USSF-approved media was allowed to do so publicly.
* Could you make a big deal about Bob Bradley playing his son Michael, despite the fact Michael has barely gotten off the bench since being loaned to Aston Villa? Sure, you could. The Younger was clearly rusty, but he's also a clear part of the U.S. core set-up, so it's not like nepotism alone got the Elder to break his unwritten selection rules, was it? Pinning the Younger into a purely holding/defensive role limits him somewhat. With Stuart Holden out for the immediate future, maybe a more advanced offensive role for Bradley isn't the worst idea, since he's not exactly Andres Iniesta or Xavi with the distribution in the midfield. Bradley is much more the disruptor-type, and how many of those does the U.S. need in CONCACAF play?
* Easy to tell that Maurice Edu is in great form at Rangers. He looked sharp. If not Bradley in a more offensive spot, maybe Edu?
* Fast forwarded the tape of most of the first half. Did I miss anything noteworthy from Jermaine Jones?
* Not the most memorable night for either Donovan and Clint Dempsey, but Dempsey was once again Dempsey one of the first Americans who never plays scared, regardless of the opposition.
* God save Ian Darke.
Last thought:
For a friendly, this was a pretty entertaining display. It was a good day for the USSF suits to trumpet everything and anything U.S. soccer related. Too bad there weren't more days and nights like this.
Such is life as the big fish in the tiny backwater pond of CONCACAF.
It was also a fairly typical U.S. performance from the Bradley era: play to the level of the competition, look for a counter attack, use defensive muscle to weather the storm ... and fall behind on the scoreboard. Fortunately this was only a friendly since there are only so many times the U.S. is going to be able to come from behind against a quality opponent.
One of these days, in a big game, Bradley is going to get it right from the start.
Hey, maybe that can be the slogan for the U.S. jerseys for the Paraguay game on Tuesday.
Labels: Argentina, bob bradley, Friendlies, juan agudelo, Lionel Messi, Michael Bradley, Soccer, USMNT
If Tim Howard gets hurt, we're screwed.
Let's embrace the 4-4-2 and stop trying to be like all the other top 10 teams in the world. With Bunbury, Altidore, Agudelo, Davies (he's back, he's got 3 goals in MLS already!!!!)... we're putting together a decent little crop of forwards.
@ Adam
The US is not putting together a decent crop of forwards. That statement can't be made when the US has zero goals from it's forwards in the last two world cups. All the guys you named play in the MLS. Argentina has 4 forwards that didn't play last night that start on 3 of the final 8 Champion League teams. The fourth is Carlos Tevez. That is a decent crop of forwards. Sorry to take my frustration with the forward position out on that statement but its really aimed at players like Alitodre who did nothing last night. Altidore is close to the same size and more athletic than Brian McBride, yet Mcbride could play the holding forward role perfectly because he tried his ass off.
I also don't like mentioning Agudelo and Chicirito in the same sentence. Agudelo does seem to have a nose for goal, but after watching Hernandez score 2 goals in the first 30 mins against Paraguay yesterday I realized something about his game. He may be one of the two or three in the world right now at making runs inside the 6 yard line. A lot of his goals on Man U and the two last afternoon are flick headers or tap-ins. He always seems to score those, and with 17ish goals scorred in all competitions since the World Cup thats not luck anymore.
I watched the Mexico-Paraguay game and Paraguay has sent it's B or C squad to the States for these games. They have a midfielder with the gut of Bartolo Colon.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Since when is Argentina the measuring stick for a "decent" offensive group?
I just meant we're getting players decent enough to build some depth and play a 4-4-2. I'm betting Bradley plays the lone forward out of necessity because we haven't had an adequate 3rd forward to bring off the bench.
Just because we don't have forwards playing for United doesn't mean they're shit. Two forwards helps everybody, including our best players like Dempsey and Donovan, be active in attack.
Hands down, Messi is a legend. He is great on the ball, he has skill and passion, dedication, motivation. He is a great player. One of my most favorite players.
Did Ian Darke tag Aguedelo (sp?) and Altidore with the "A Team" label in the second half of the match? I thought I caught that in passing.