The Same Old Thing

Wednesday evening was a fansmanship rarity for the end of May: an evening full of at least three major national sporting events worthy of viewing.

In Miami, the Heat came back from a huge deficit to take a 2-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. In New Jersey, the Devils hosted the Kings in game one of the bicoastal Stanley Cup Finals.

But what I was really excited about was the United States Soccer team playing at home against Brazil. The Americans had reeled off five wins in a row including a road victory over Italy and a 5-1 drubbing of Scotland last week and I couldn’t wait to see how they would fare at home against a world-class team’s second unit. Full disclosure, I saw none of these games, but

With another great performance, coach Jurgen Kilnsmann could have put the world on-notice that the new ball-control style the team has adopted is a force to be reckoned with. There were 70,000 people on-hand dancing, making noise, and ready to be excited about a great United States performance.

Instead, the US team was outplayed, outshot, and outclassed by something resembling Brazil’s olympic team. In other words, Brazil’s B or C team dominated our best guys. 4-1 in soccer is like losing by 20 in the NBA. It’s like losing by 4 touchdowns in the NFL. It is not good.

This writer is no soccer genius. I played until I was 12 or 13 and only started watching the game on television in 2003 or 2004. But here are five observations about the US team I saw on Wednesday night.

1) There are some players who struggle every time I watch. It seemed as though nothing had changed from the poor performance I saw in the last World Cup from players like Ricardo Clark, Maurice Edu, and Jose Torres.

2) While Carlos Bocanegra has meant so much to the team, I think his time has come. Does the US not have a better alternative? The lack of up-and-comers at some of the midfield and defensive positions make me think that…

3) Maybe the system just doesn’t have better guys. While Clark, Edu, and Torres all seem to me like liabilities, perhaps the fact is that there just isn’t anyone better in the system. I know there have been American players who have had promise, but they have generally faded. What is Jonathan Spector doing these days? What about Freddy Adu? Are they even options?

4) New faces are really good to see. They give me hope for a truly different outcome. Twenty-four year-old Fabian Johnson was awesome. This is a player with some world class athleticism and poise. He is an upgrade over whatever the US had there before. He is young and is a defensive player to put around Onyewu for the next few years. A defender who can get up the pitch and help offensively is always a good thing too. Johnson and Cherundolo  are a fun pair of outside defenders.

5) Some of the players on the US squad are really, really good. Donovan still has it, Bradley is world-class, Howard is Howard, and Hurcules Gomez had an impressive performance. Altidore was still rehabbing and Dempsey was not 100 percent, but the US has a nice core.

The potential problem, though, is that, in soccer you have to have a “next” group to take the mantle. By the next World Cup, we will be talking about Donovan, Dempsey, Howard, Bradley, and even Altidore as getting old. In a country that has a good soccer program, there are not huge fluctuations generation to generation.

As a fan of the US Soccer team, I don’t need them to be Brazil. I don’t need 22 year olds on my second or third team to go out and put a licking on another country’s “A” team.

I won’t presume to have the answers. Honestly, I don’t really know what they can or should do. But I do know that performances like Wednesday night aren’t it.