"Ich wünsche nicht eine Bluttransfusion." -- Lonely Planet: Germany
If you sit in front of a computer with Internet access for your job, or have been bored in your leisure time, chances are you've been sucked into a "Wikipedia-hole," or a "YouTube-hole." One minute you're looking up who the starting five was on the 1997 North Carolina basketball team and two hours later you're humming the theme song of the Richmond Tigers of Aussie Football League. It happens.
Monday morning a quick Google search of Edson Buddle's German club team -- Igolstadt 04 -- led to a solid 25 minutes of 2.Bundesliga research.
Fun. Nay, vitally useful stuff for my day-to-day life. What better way to make small talk with a person you've just met than over 2.Bundeliga's leading scorer, Nils Petersen of Energie Cottbus. (It's beats talking about the weather.)
Long story short, uncapped American goalkeeper David Yelldell plays in that division for MSV Duisburg.
Oh, also, he's 29 years old.
And we might see him make his international debut tonight when the U.S. plays Paraguay in Nashville, Tenn. (8 p.m., Fox Soccer.) It appears that the fairly widespread criticism -- at least by mainstream U.S. soccer media standards -- leveled at Sunil Gulati and Bob Bradley for letting players like Nevan Subotic, Giuseppe Rossi and Vedad Ibisevic slip through the figures of the USSF and to Serbia, Italy and Bosnia respectively, took some root. Considering the U.S. retained its braintrust from the 2010 World Cup major change in the upcoming Cup cycle is unlikely, but at least they'll use the extremely loose guidelines for International representation allowed by FIFA to the program's benefit.
Is it on par with places like Qatar, Croatia, Armenia or even powerhouses like Germany, Italy or Spain naturalizing Brazilians? Probably not.
Why else, though, would the U.S. deem a 29-year-old journeyman keeper toiling away in the second division in Germany worth inviting into camp all of a sudden? (Yes, Brad Guzan getting married in June, missing the Gold Cup is probably a factor.)
Consider, though, Juan Agundelo was born in Columbia but the U.S. was proactive in handing him his first cap last November before it could become an issue from a competing FA. Young guys playing in MLS like Andy Najar (Honduras) and Daniel Mwaga (DR-Congo) are already getting overtures from the USSF. Take this grouping of players, which includes post-NCAA soccer internationals and the apparently abundant, fertile group of German-born(*) children of American serviceman like Jermaine Jones, Timmy Chandler and the uncapped Daniel Williams of SC Freiburg and the already large U.S. player pool continues to expand exponentially.
(*) Though some of these guys have probably never set foot in America or speak even basic English, this shouldn't be an issue, since nobody seemed to have a problem when Thomas Dooley played for the U.S. in the mid-90s. Again, FIFA law seems about as loose as the Articles of Confederation. U.S. should take advantage of it as best possible.
Certain segments of the U.S. soccer fanbase seem to fetishize the U.S. playing important games in Europe.
Suppose this is the next best thing, right?
Quick points:
* Surprised that multiple writers with large platforms have actually challenged the presumed automatic place in the starting XI of Oguchi Onyewu, who seems to be firmly one of "Bob's Guys." Guess it would be up to a guy like Tim Ream to really shine for Onyewu's spot in the starting XI to be threatened, unless a slow-footed pairing of Jay DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra suits you.
Onyewu had a great run in the U.S. shirt, but there's no room for sentimentality in international soccer. Playing good in 2005 doesn't give you a lifetime pass, or at least until the 2014 World Cup. Hopefully more competition fosters out the ennui that sometimes overtakes the U.S. starting roster.
* One thing I didn't much read into from the post-Argentina discussion was the 4-5-1 vs. 4-4-2 debate. Few seemed to point out that trying that particular three-man central midfield unit of Maurice Edu, Michael Bradley and Jermaine Jones came, in fact, against Argentina, which we can agree is kind of decent at this game we call soccer, especially at possessing the ball. Think the outcome of that starting trio would be a little difference against, say, Guadeloupe in the upcoming Gold Cup?
The one concrete kneejerk reaction is that if the U.S. is going to embrace a non-4-4-2 formation, Jozy Altidore doesn't seem suited as the lone front man.
At this point, let's be less concerned with what a Jonathon Wilson or Zonal Marking-type would deduce by breaking down the U.S. formation. More important is finding a group of 11 guys with some kind of spacial cohesiveness who function well together, regardless of what the starting graphic says on the television before kickoff.
* When Benny Feilhaber plays well, it usually translate into a good result for the U.S. Problem is, he seems a bit of a tweener and is doubtful for the Paraguay match. Not quite good enough to start in the middle of the field, but not a pure wide-man either. Seems like the U.S. has a lot of these type guys, or at least that's the way it's developed under Bradley.
There doesn't seem to be a happy medium, yet, between a balanced spacial formation and getting the best U.S. talent onto the field at once. This is a quandary, but not a make-or-break type issue, since on raw ability alone the U.S. should be able to muscle its way into the Gold Cup final, the most important goal on the immediate horizon.
* The lack of wide players tends to get overlooked, but if the U.S. had a couple wing types, then you could move Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan into more advanced, forward roles ... which would help solve the current black hole that is the U.S. striker position. As it stands, perhaps the best "MacGyver" solution is moving Dempsey to the withdrawn secondary role and moving someone like a Timmy Chandler or Feilhaber or Mixx on the right.
* That is, unless you buy into the Juan Agudelo hype.
My biggest question vis-a-vis Agudelo is this: He clearly has some baseline of talent and massive potential. We can agree on that. At 18 how is that talented extracted and taken to the next level?
Is training alongside former great Thierry Henry in New York and getting major MLS playing time enough? Or does he risk following the path of Jozy Altidore and move to Europe, only to never see the field and bounce around the continent on loan?
Or is it possible Agudelo is just another teen star who burns brightly in flashes only to fade away as quickly as he arrived? Or will he break the mold and continue to get better and evolve into a decade-long, multi-World Cup cycle stalwart?
Nobody knows ... and if someone says they do, go steal the plutonium from the Delorean their piloting around through time.
Lineup guess:
GK -- Yelldell
DEF -- Lichaj -- Ream -- DeMerit -- Bornstein
MID -- Chandler -- Bradley -- Edu -- Donovan
FOR -- Dempsey -- Agudelo
Final thought:
Even if it was a bunch of propaganda by Nike to sell red jerseys ($75 a pop in stadium) and to a lesser extent adidas to sell the Lionel Messi mystique to Americans, last Saturday's U.S/Argentina game was an atypical friendly since it had an edge to it. Neither side used all six subs to try out players. The 90 minutes felt important.
Hard to see this game, with about 40,000 less people in the stands at LP Field in Nashville than the New Meadowlands Stadium against a far less illustrious opponent having the same bite, especially with only two recovery days and guys like Dempsey looking at a long flight back abroad. Paraguay didn't seem too motivated on Saturday, getting thrashed 3-1 by Mexico.
Long and short, it's a game. It's a chance to try some new things and not worry about the result.
Oh, and that opening quote is how to decline a blood transfusion in Germany, something the rest of the team can chat with Yelldell and Chandler about considering their lack of English vocabulary.
If you sit in front of a computer with Internet access for your job, or have been bored in your leisure time, chances are you've been sucked into a "Wikipedia-hole," or a "YouTube-hole." One minute you're looking up who the starting five was on the 1997 North Carolina basketball team and two hours later you're humming the theme song of the Richmond Tigers of Aussie Football League. It happens.
Monday morning a quick Google search of Edson Buddle's German club team -- Igolstadt 04 -- led to a solid 25 minutes of 2.Bundesliga research.
Fun. Nay, vitally useful stuff for my day-to-day life. What better way to make small talk with a person you've just met than over 2.Bundeliga's leading scorer, Nils Petersen of Energie Cottbus. (It's beats talking about the weather.)
Long story short, uncapped American goalkeeper David Yelldell plays in that division for MSV Duisburg.
Oh, also, he's 29 years old.
And we might see him make his international debut tonight when the U.S. plays Paraguay in Nashville, Tenn. (8 p.m., Fox Soccer.) It appears that the fairly widespread criticism -- at least by mainstream U.S. soccer media standards -- leveled at Sunil Gulati and Bob Bradley for letting players like Nevan Subotic, Giuseppe Rossi and Vedad Ibisevic slip through the figures of the USSF and to Serbia, Italy and Bosnia respectively, took some root. Considering the U.S. retained its braintrust from the 2010 World Cup major change in the upcoming Cup cycle is unlikely, but at least they'll use the extremely loose guidelines for International representation allowed by FIFA to the program's benefit.
Is it on par with places like Qatar, Croatia, Armenia or even powerhouses like Germany, Italy or Spain naturalizing Brazilians? Probably not.
Why else, though, would the U.S. deem a 29-year-old journeyman keeper toiling away in the second division in Germany worth inviting into camp all of a sudden? (Yes, Brad Guzan getting married in June, missing the Gold Cup is probably a factor.)
Consider, though, Juan Agundelo was born in Columbia but the U.S. was proactive in handing him his first cap last November before it could become an issue from a competing FA. Young guys playing in MLS like Andy Najar (Honduras) and Daniel Mwaga (DR-Congo) are already getting overtures from the USSF. Take this grouping of players, which includes post-NCAA soccer internationals and the apparently abundant, fertile group of German-born(*) children of American serviceman like Jermaine Jones, Timmy Chandler and the uncapped Daniel Williams of SC Freiburg and the already large U.S. player pool continues to expand exponentially.
(*) Though some of these guys have probably never set foot in America or speak even basic English, this shouldn't be an issue, since nobody seemed to have a problem when Thomas Dooley played for the U.S. in the mid-90s. Again, FIFA law seems about as loose as the Articles of Confederation. U.S. should take advantage of it as best possible.
Certain segments of the U.S. soccer fanbase seem to fetishize the U.S. playing important games in Europe.
Suppose this is the next best thing, right?
Quick points:
* Surprised that multiple writers with large platforms have actually challenged the presumed automatic place in the starting XI of Oguchi Onyewu, who seems to be firmly one of "Bob's Guys." Guess it would be up to a guy like Tim Ream to really shine for Onyewu's spot in the starting XI to be threatened, unless a slow-footed pairing of Jay DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra suits you.
Onyewu had a great run in the U.S. shirt, but there's no room for sentimentality in international soccer. Playing good in 2005 doesn't give you a lifetime pass, or at least until the 2014 World Cup. Hopefully more competition fosters out the ennui that sometimes overtakes the U.S. starting roster.
* One thing I didn't much read into from the post-Argentina discussion was the 4-5-1 vs. 4-4-2 debate. Few seemed to point out that trying that particular three-man central midfield unit of Maurice Edu, Michael Bradley and Jermaine Jones came, in fact, against Argentina, which we can agree is kind of decent at this game we call soccer, especially at possessing the ball. Think the outcome of that starting trio would be a little difference against, say, Guadeloupe in the upcoming Gold Cup?
The one concrete kneejerk reaction is that if the U.S. is going to embrace a non-4-4-2 formation, Jozy Altidore doesn't seem suited as the lone front man.
At this point, let's be less concerned with what a Jonathon Wilson or Zonal Marking-type would deduce by breaking down the U.S. formation. More important is finding a group of 11 guys with some kind of spacial cohesiveness who function well together, regardless of what the starting graphic says on the television before kickoff.
* When Benny Feilhaber plays well, it usually translate into a good result for the U.S. Problem is, he seems a bit of a tweener and is doubtful for the Paraguay match. Not quite good enough to start in the middle of the field, but not a pure wide-man either. Seems like the U.S. has a lot of these type guys, or at least that's the way it's developed under Bradley.
There doesn't seem to be a happy medium, yet, between a balanced spacial formation and getting the best U.S. talent onto the field at once. This is a quandary, but not a make-or-break type issue, since on raw ability alone the U.S. should be able to muscle its way into the Gold Cup final, the most important goal on the immediate horizon.
* The lack of wide players tends to get overlooked, but if the U.S. had a couple wing types, then you could move Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan into more advanced, forward roles ... which would help solve the current black hole that is the U.S. striker position. As it stands, perhaps the best "MacGyver" solution is moving Dempsey to the withdrawn secondary role and moving someone like a Timmy Chandler or Feilhaber or Mixx on the right.
* That is, unless you buy into the Juan Agudelo hype.
My biggest question vis-a-vis Agudelo is this: He clearly has some baseline of talent and massive potential. We can agree on that. At 18 how is that talented extracted and taken to the next level?
Is training alongside former great Thierry Henry in New York and getting major MLS playing time enough? Or does he risk following the path of Jozy Altidore and move to Europe, only to never see the field and bounce around the continent on loan?
Or is it possible Agudelo is just another teen star who burns brightly in flashes only to fade away as quickly as he arrived? Or will he break the mold and continue to get better and evolve into a decade-long, multi-World Cup cycle stalwart?
Nobody knows ... and if someone says they do, go steal the plutonium from the Delorean their piloting around through time.
Lineup guess:
GK -- Yelldell
DEF -- Lichaj -- Ream -- DeMerit -- Bornstein
MID -- Chandler -- Bradley -- Edu -- Donovan
FOR -- Dempsey -- Agudelo
Final thought:
Even if it was a bunch of propaganda by Nike to sell red jerseys ($75 a pop in stadium) and to a lesser extent adidas to sell the Lionel Messi mystique to Americans, last Saturday's U.S/Argentina game was an atypical friendly since it had an edge to it. Neither side used all six subs to try out players. The 90 minutes felt important.
Hard to see this game, with about 40,000 less people in the stands at LP Field in Nashville than the New Meadowlands Stadium against a far less illustrious opponent having the same bite, especially with only two recovery days and guys like Dempsey looking at a long flight back abroad. Paraguay didn't seem too motivated on Saturday, getting thrashed 3-1 by Mexico.
Long and short, it's a game. It's a chance to try some new things and not worry about the result.
Oh, and that opening quote is how to decline a blood transfusion in Germany, something the rest of the team can chat with Yelldell and Chandler about considering their lack of English vocabulary.
Labels: bob bradley, Friendlies, Jozy Altidore, juan agudelo, oguchi onyewu, Soccer, USMNT
I was pretty surprised by the level of commitment from both sides in the Argentina game. That Messi, with all he has at stake for Barçelona and his nation, played both halves in a FRIENDLY while Younger and Jermaine kicked the crap out of him was shocking. That little bastard sure likes to play, don't he?
I am with you, Cardillo, in pondering how much we can gather about the USMNT formation choices when the opposition changes but, more importantly, the players change around. Would the first half's 4-2-3-1 have looked better with Chandler on the field (and Spexx off it), or was the formation the motivation for the much improved second 45?
I agree that the USSF's recent recruiting trips to Germany were a response to the loss of Subotic, Rossi, et al. Is it mean to point out that Mix, Jermaine and Timmy2 are not a fair trade even for just Rossi who has been the best non-Big-Two player in La Liga this season?
I guess this might sound crueler but what is up with the German-kids-of-US-Servicemen gene pool that they seem to have 'old man face' syndrome. I mean, check these guys out and tell me they don't look older than 29 and 21. Is Germany the Taiwanese Little League of world soccer?
Agudelo scares me. Between Davies and Adu, we don't have a good history of managing phenoms and their budding egos. Fingers crossed for a level head on Juan.
The coverage of Holden's injury for Bolton has heaped compliments on his play, with British papers going on about how much he'll be missed. Most have even called Holden Bolton's man of the season. Now, maybe this is hyperbole to make their article about the injured American (Scotch-Americans don't have the 'old man face' curse) seem more significant, but that praise for Stu is not far off, IMO. This started me thinking. Have two Americans (Holden and Deuce) each been the 'best' players for their respective teams in the 'best league in the world' this season? Hmm.