World Cup Post Mortem: Taking Stock of the US Men's Soccer Team

On August 8th LA Galaxy played Real Madrid in a pre-La Liga friendly. Yes, a friendly, but you know every Galaxy player hoped to strut his stuff before 80,000 local fans.

Jose Mourinho--The Special One

All started well. Galaxy went up 2-0 in the 1st half. Then Jose Mourinho made eight 2nd half subs and maybe a halftime “score one for the Gipper” speech and everything changed. With Ronaldo, Higuain, Alonso, Marcelo, and new Spanish wunderkind Canales on the field it was suddenly men vs boys. Except desperately clearing the ball, or worse, pulling it from the back of net, Galaxy rarely had possession. Forty-five minutes later it was Madrid 3, Galaxy 2, and no question who was alpha dog.

So what does this have to do with the US Men’s Team…well nothing… except this match reminded me, if I needed reminding, that there’s a level of soccer that we still don’t see in the USA; and until we get a critical mass of players playing at this level, we’re unlikely to play in a World Cup final.  I note that there are no Amercan players on Real Madrid.

My actual reasoning went something like this:

Spain wins World Cup 2010
Spain plays like Barcelona FC
Barcelona and Real Madrid compete for La Liga title every year
Inter Milan beat Barcelona in 2010 UEFA Cup
Jose Mourinho coached Inter last season
Jose Mourinho now coaches Real Madrid
Real Madrid manhandled LA Galaxy
Landon Donovan and Edson Buddle play for Galaxy
Donovan and Buddle play on US Men’s Team
Real Madrid would likely kick the US Men’s Team’s metaphorical ass
Therefore the US Men’s Team needs to play like Spain in order to win World Cup 2012.

Perfectly clear?

This is not to say that the US Men don’t deserve accolades. Their World Cup matches were wide-open, attacking, and entertaining. Their glorious stoppage time counter against Algeria with Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Jozy Alditore, and Edson Buddle arrayed across the field like a cavalry charge brought me to my feet. Of course the US Men had to play attacking soccer—with the exception of the Algeria match, they were down a goal within the first 15 minutes.

Algeria v USA: Donovan Scores

This bespeaks a collective mental dullness that afflicted the US Men throughout tournament, perhaps the most egregious example being Ricardo Clark’s faux pas four minutes into Ghana match. With the US Team pushed forward Kwadwo Asamoah easily dispossessed Clarke at midfield and poked the ball to the feet of Kevin-Prince Boateng (the same Boateng who ruined Michael Ballack’s World Cup). Boateng attacked down the center, cut left at top of the box, and fired left footed a moment ahead of Jay DeMerit’s desperate slide. Tim Howard misread the developing play leaving a gap between his outstretched hand and near post. Wham! Bam! Ghana 1 USA 0, thank you very much. [You can almost read Clarke’s mind—“who’s open, who’s open?"—as he almost stumbles into Asamoah.]

It wasn’t just Clarke. Minutes after the goal Boateng caught Steve Cherundolo asleep with the ball at his feet and was off to the races. Cherundolo must foul Boateng at edge of box to prevent a 1 v 1 with the keeper and earned a yellow-card. Fortunately no goal this time, but don’t think Cherundolo wasn’t oh, shitting as he hightailed after Boateng.

Look, we’re the team that can afford the sports psychologists. Our soccer-brains shouldn’t shut down in front of 34,976 fans (attendance at Ghana v USA).

Besides the occasional mental lapses noted above the US Men tended to play a game that to my innocent eyes took the predictable form of 3 or 4 midfield passes and a flighted ball forward where a defender comfortably headed it out of danger. No slow build-up for this team. Was this Bob Bradley’s preferred tactic or the tactic he thought best fit this team’s skills? The US Men’s passing percentage was 67% as opposed to Spain’s 80% (here I use Spain as the benchmark for passing accuracy). Its long pass percentage was a mere 44% against Spain’s 63%. Over four matches the US covered more distance than any other team, the majority of which was without ball possession. All of which suggests a team that gives up possession easily and then expends a lot of energy recovering it.

Bob Bradley in Contemplation

I consider Bradley a good coach who made the decision early on that the US team didn't possess the technical skills to play possession ball against the likes of Spain and Brazil and settled on a more direct style that depended on speed and hustle, the two attributes frequently associated with the US.  It got the the US to the Round of 16, but no further, which, in the big picture, is right & just.

While Americans populate teams throughout Europe, they tend to play for the second-tier teams--Hanover, Everton, Rangers, Aston-Villa, Borussia, Hull City.  It's good soccer, just not great soccer. Among the elite--Barcelona, Inter, Bayern Munchen, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Aresenal, Man U--nary an American will you find (OK Oguchi Onyewu plays for AC Milan, but after his '09 knee injury he hasn't contributed much). Which pretty much tells the tale. 

We have 309 million people, scads of kids who start off in youth soccer, and yet we can't produce one player who is the soccer equivalent of a Michael Phelps or LeBron James.  To my mind there's a mystery here, and when we solve it, we'll have a team that can compete for a World Cup title.