Archive for category Bob Bradley
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO U.S. SOCCER FANDOM
Posted by Cyrus Philbrick in Bob Bradley, CONCACAF, US Soccer on September 3rd, 2009
To all those who rode their first wave of U.S. soccer fandom into the hot Mexican dust, welcome! Brush that dirt off your coat. Hang it up. Stay awhile. And chin up for god sakes. It’s not that bad. I’m here to help you through it. There are just a few things you should know so you don’t make rookie blunders like buying an Eddie Johnson jersey or dislexifying Onyewu’s name.
1. As you see, we get to trade hands-behind-our-back gut punches with Mexico. It’s only fair, except we take punches in Mexico with both hands behind our back, and they take punches with only one hand behind theirs. Therefore you should always complain that they hit us with dirtier and louder and more painful shots. Because they do.
2. No matter how easy it seems to qualify for the World Cup, remain skeptical when asked about the U.S.’s prospects of doing so. Play up underrated third world competition: “I dunno, I mean teams without stable governments just have more to play for, you know.” We don’t want too many other continental confederations catching onto the fact that qualification in CONCACAF is structured like those End-of-Camp-Prizes where even the kid who threw a flaming poop pie at another cabin gets an award for his attitude. As much as the U.S. would benefit from a more difficult road to qualification, imagine qualifying once every twelve years, like Ireland or Romania do. Screw that!
3. Whenever we lose or tie you should question Bob Bradley’s lineup decisions. This goes for being a fan of any soccer team, but especially a Bob Bradley team. To do this, simply pick a few players who aren’t Donovan, Dempsey, Onyewu, or Howard, and then ask why Bradley played them. Try it for the Mexico loss. “Man, I don’t understand why he started Clark or DeMerrit or _____ . They’re ok, but they’re just not international quality.”
4. Brian Ching starts because he’s a good “target man”. He’s kind of like an NBA player that sets a really good screen, plays solid defense, and maybe can throw an accurate entry pass. Fundamentals are very very important, especially when trying to compete at the international level. Got it?
5. One way to look like you know what you’re talking about is to say, win or lose, that the U.S. would be better off if it hired a renowned international coach.
6. Also, when watching games with friends, you should say at least once a game that U.S. soccer needs to change its development structure “from the ground up.” You don’t need to provide any details about how to accomplish this. The only evidence you need is that the U.S. never wins any big games and hasn’t produced its own Pele yet. People will be in awe of your deep knowledge of the system’s flaws.
7. Oh, and if you really want to be a true national team fan, you should make sure that you know all the players on the U.S. team but nobody on any other CONCACAF team that we play. Except it’s OK to know that Blanco guy, and that tricky Gio-something-or-other on Mexico, our arch-rivals. But you’re not allowed to know or praise anyone else because then you might look too sympathetic. Refer to these players by number or racial epithet. Anytime a player on some third world team appears one of the best players on the field then it’s obviously a result of the U.S. playing so shitty by comparison. It’s way easier to criticize the U.S. players’ performances than learn and praise new names.
8. You should probably buy a “Soccer Wave” for your kids. These are really handy, because they like totally launch the ball back to you! If you can’t afford one of these revelations then you should settle for those precisely angled nets that bounce the ball back to you in the air. Just don’t let your kids pass the ball against a wall! It’s like, “where do we live? Rio?”
9. Never watch any MLS games. You will mysteriously get dumber about soccer.◊
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WHAT? THE U.S. EMERGES OUT OF GROUP OF WORLD CUP CLASS
Posted by Cyrus Philbrick in Bob Bradley, Brazil, Confederations Cup, Hejduk, Style, US Soccer on June 22nd, 2009
No Heart? I’m All Heart Mother…
*As the U.S. National Team attempts to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, I will write a series of pieces concentrating on the style, or lack of it, of American soccer. See the other three here and here and here.
Lucky? Yeah. Holy shit, yeah. The U.S. got a waist-high boost from Brazil’s 3-0 thrashing of Italy to advance to the semifinal round of the Confederations Cup. But after the grit and determination it showed on Sunday, the team deserves some apologies, some reconsideration.
Before Sunday, most critics wrote the team off as over-classed and under-talented when compared with any good international team. Maybe this is true. But for me watching the U.S. was more disillusioning than revealing. Following the Brazil game, it looked like the tournament was a lost cause, both in determining a more consistent lineup and in spurring any team or individual confidence. While the U.S. showed that it could frustrate good teams, at least for spells, it looked incapable of producing anything like a functional attack. In one of the more hopeless throes of fandom in recent memory, I just hoped for a few linked passes – a shot on goal.
After Sunday’s performance against Egypt, we can all take a breath from the thick criticism and humming African air. When it needs to, when it has all eleven players on the field at once, the U.S. can attack. As Paul Gardner said in his pro-attacking reaction to the game: “The straightforward lust for goals is something new for this team, a Bob Bradley team. The usual caution had to be abandoned, and many a risk had to be taken.” Risk produced goals.
In addition to risk, the U.S. showed some of the characteristics that have been most persistent and true to the team’s identity over the years – namely perseverance and energy and grit – all of which the U.S. left behind inexplicably in its first two games. These are some of the principles on which the good ole U.S.A was founded, or so I’ve heard. And in the sports realm they are obvious and unifying. In large part, they represent one reason why I like watching the U.S. play. Usually I know that whichever team the U.S. plays, it will play that opponent hard – maybe too hard – with so much feist and defensive spirit that its opponent won’t have the time or space to work any of its exotic magic. At its best, the U.S. energy creates a different game, one that must be played a faster-than-normal pace, which forces its opponent to raise the magic of its game to a higher level if it is to succeed.
At the very least, this is the legacy of U.S. players like Frankie Hejduk. While he might not be as talented as anyone he lines up against on the wing, he will grind them into the lime of the sidelines with his energy. And in his absence, I hope we can have more talented U.S. defenders play with half his spirit.
Although characteristics like energy and perseverance don’t always win games at the highest level, they don’t lose them either. And as the U.S. proved against Egypt, such characteristics can be as invaluable on attack as on defense. For example, Charlie Davies produced the game’s first goal with more grit than talent. And his effort was emblematic of the U.S. style as a whole. Although it lacked guile, it had a straightforward urgency and speed that necessarily put Egypt under pressure. The other two goals came from purposeful offensive surges. Although hardly flowing or dazzling, they came from clean and efficient attacks that put Egypt at the mercy of American strengths – speed and power.
It was also encouraging to see the personalities of American stars come through their shells in this game. Oguchi Onweyu dominated the air and the box. Landon Donovan attacked with tireless pace and pointed guile. And Michael Bradley put in another performance that worked towards cementing his place in the center of the midfield. A refreshing American talent, he is as gritty as he is technical. The second goal, a quick and precise combination with Donovan that ended with Bradley tucking a sliding pass into the corner of the goal, presented these attributes in one fluid play.
Lastly, Clint Dempsey. For all his too-cool-for-school-and-defense attitude, he often appeared the most creative player in white, unlocking Egypt with a few incisive passes in the first half. And after all the criticism Dempsey endured from commentator John Harkes, some of which was deserved but much of which got comically egregious in the second half as Harkes vented biases about individual players instead of watching the game, Dempsey won the game for the U.S.. His snapping header in traffic displayed exactly the leftover determination that Harkes criticized him for lacking. It left Harkes and all the other critics struggling to capture their surprise and the improbability of the result, to revise the harshness of their reactions to the first two games.
The critics, however (including myself) weren’t necessarily wrong. This is only one win. Many questions about players and tactics persist.
But this game served to remind the critics, and the team itself, that grit or passion (or whatever other cliche you want to use) represents the one fundamental trait that the team needs to survive. All the team’s best players have it. Some could use more of it. It can serve as a baseline from which everything good springs.
Maybe all good teams need such a baseline. But somehow effort seems more crucial to the U.S., maybe because we have little else to rely on. It’s sewn into the fabric of American sports lore. It’s “Miracle” and “Rocky.” It’s a lot of elbow-grease, or maybe knee-grease in soccer’s case, and it’s lung-bursting sprints after the ball. Of course we crave flare and fluidity, more touch and guile, but as long as we have effort we know that other teams will still fear and respect us. And this is crucial to forging any sort of meaningful identity.
As Micheal Bradley said after the game:
“All the f—— experts in America, everybody who thinks they know about soccer, they can all look at the score tonight and let’s see what they have to say now. Nobody has any respect for what we do, for what goes on on the inside, so let them all talk now.” ◊
THE U.S. NATIONAL TEAM: THE ‘MAGIC ELEVEN BALL’
Posted by Cyrus Philbrick in Bob Bradley, Confederations Cup, US Soccer on June 18th, 2009
How do you rate a team that hasn’t really played so far? Bob Bradley is probably dealing with this himself after two hopeless games against Italy and Brazil. Touted as a tournament that would provide answers to persistent lineup questions for the U.S., the Confederations Cup has provided more of the opposite: questions – some about tactics and most about individuals. I imagine that for Bob Bradley, who hasn’t impressed with his decisions, watching the Confederations Cup has been as unrevealing and unhelpful as shaking a magic eight ball.
Does DeMarcus Beasley deserve another chance after one of worst performances of his career? Looks doubtful.
Will I give him another one if he promises to do better? Outlook good.
Does Sacha Kljestan deserve another chance after a completely ineffective first half and a rash challenge early in the second that saw him sent off and once again put added pressure on the U.S. to defend when that was the last thing the team needed? Maybe.
Ricardo Clarke? Maybe.
Jermaine Jones? No.
Jermaine Jones? Yes.
Why didn’t I play Jose Francisco Torres? Yes. Definitely.
Did Jonathan Bornstein play well enough to cement a place at left back, at least for a few more games? Concentrate, and try again.
Has Clint Dempsey really been bad enough to lose a starting position? My sources say no.
Do other players resent me for playing my son without question? Doubtful.
Is that why they’re not trying anymore? Or is it because they don’t respect me? Or believe in me? We went over this Bob. You can only ask yes or no questions so that I can give you a meaningless answer.
Is Jozy Altidore really the 19-year-old phenom that can solve our striker problems? Nice one. Try again.
Has the U.S been bad enough on the attack to warrant giving other young Americans like Freddy Adu and Robbie Rogers and even Stewart Holden a chance? Bubbles fizzing around. Indicator stuck.
Bradley stares in shock and confusion, pretending like he doesn’t want to break the thing against a wall, like he he’s seen this before, like he knows what the answers and he’s not afraid.
Alright, enough, before I get sick. What does this U.S. team look like when it plays well? Aside from solid spells against Mexico in the first qualifying leg, I have no freakin idea.
USA VS ITALY: SO PREDICTABLY PAINFUL IT DIDN’T HURT
Posted by Cyrus Philbrick in Bob Bradley, Confederations Cup, Italy, Style, US Soccer on June 16th, 2009
Part Three of a Series on American Style
*As the U.S. National Team attempts to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, I will write a series of pieces concentrating on the style, or lack of it, of American soccer. See the other two here and here.
Watching the U.S. play Italy in the Confederations Cup made glaring all the differences we already knew existed between the two teams. Where Italian touches were deft and calm, the Americans’ were heavy and hurried. The U.S. booted the ball out of the back to nobody. It coughed the ball up in midfield. It couldn’t hold it on attack for long enough to get any meaningful numbers going forward.
Italy is style incarnate. Describing the nature of this style seems redundant because it plays with a style so pure that it’s self-evident. It’s obsidian glass, as natural and clear as it is mysterious, as delicate as it is lethal when sharpened.
Andrea Pirlo gave a snapshot of Italy’s class when he created its third and final goal. A pirouette along the sideline eluded Jay DeMerit before Pirlo glided to the endline and floated a left-footed chip over the American defense to an onrushing Guiseppe Rossi, who spiked the ball into the net.
The U.S. showed flashes of its ability, making a few penetrating counterattacks while frustrating Italy with defensive pressure when the two teams played with equal men. And it had a good excuse for playing defensively after losing Ricardo Clarke to a red card. But too much of the team’s play seemed forced and desperate, squirming underneath the approaching shadow of Italy’s refined point. For fans of U.S. soccer, all of this is expected. We swallow it like we do our morning medications, out of habit and necessity. What else can we do?
The U.S. is a “build-it-yourself” rocket dad ordered for us when we were eight. Despite what we imagine, the parts don’t have the right hinges and bends to fit together like they do in the pamphlet. We have too many of one screw, not enough of another. Plastic snaps under pressure. Still, we hold out hope that this rocket will fly before the summer’s out, no matter how many replacement parts we need to order and how much duct tape we need. It’d better, goddammit. But when? How? How much can we guard our hope before it crumbles along with our expectations?
What’s getting better – not just with the current crop of American players but in the last twenty years? We can attribute much of the team’s stagnation to Bob Bradley’s experimenting with personnel and tactics. He’s still looking for the right mixture. This takes time to sort out; there are lots of combinations to try. But I’m starting to worry that the team is too volatile, with too many question marks and too much repair required, for it to turn into anything solid and functional a year from now.
Meantime, the South African vuvuzelas make the stadiums sound fuller than they really are. They create a hum like a giant hornet’s nest, the gathering pressure of frustration and nervousness and fear. These are the last motivators that the U.S. team needs, the last emotions that create a useful and powerful style. But the team is right in the middle of it. What is it made of?◊
STYLE ON THE ROAD
Posted by Cyrus Philbrick in Bob Bradley, CONCACAF, Hejduk, Music, Style, US Soccer, World Cup on March 31st, 2009
Part Two of a Series on Style in American Soccer
*As the U.S. National Team attempts to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, I will write a series of pieces concentrating on the style, or lack of it, of American soccer.
I watched the U.S.A vs. El Salvador qualifying match at a trucker bar seventy miles North of Los Angeles. Called Rusty’s or Rocky’s, it was the type of place that moved in blissful ignorance of the world around it. A family and a few burly men watched a Monster Truck Jam, playing on every TV in the place, with the same rapture that they licked barbeque sauce off their fingers.
“Aw man. One wheel! … Aw shit. That guy just won’t flip. Don’t matter.”
All this while one of the best games of the NCAA Elite Eight, Pittsburgh vs. Villanova, was coming down to the wire. No one in there cared. This was comforting in a way. Mainstream sports news had as little bearing as any other news. “Don’t Stop Believing” blared over crunching cars. I asked the bartender to switch one of the TV’s to the soccer game, but not to worry about turning on the sound because one of the two burly guys was carrying a pretty good tune a few octaves below Steve Perry, and I didn’t want to throw him off.
So I watched the game to a familiar Classic Rock soundtrack. The two burly guys took turns picking tunes on the jukebox. The one with longer hair and rougher hands actually made some pretty good selections: A lot of Rolling Stones, Credence, Yes …
Quintanilla buries a stunning goal into the bottom corner.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
El Salvadorian fans bear their teeth and yell through a rocking fence.
The other burly guy, rounder and redder, picked a lot of glam rock and metal: Bowie, Poison, Guns n’ Roses. The soundtrack proved as predictable as any in any bar anywhere in America. But it was still an enjoyable way to watch the game. Instead of listening to Harkes wail on about all the mistakes the U.S. had to correct in the second half, I got Welcome to the Jungle!
It all got me thinking, could the U.S. National Team have a soundtrack, or a sound? Different games create different rhythms, but the instruments and spirit remain the same. I’m pretty sure Bill Simmons has proposed a similar game based on comparisons between sports teams and rock groups.
But by the time the first half ended, I didn’t think the U.S. had earned comparison to any of the bands that had played. Maybe Poison, I thought, for their predictable and straightforward songs. But even Poison has an underrated versatility, dipping into darker ballads and crunching through poppy rockers. And they play with such clear and piercing purpose that I thought the comparison would be doing them a disservice.
The U.S. didn’t play like Poison in the first half. Poison would have scored. The U.S. played scared, disjointed, devoid of ideas. Maybe like a late version of The Police, on the verge of breaking up.
More accurately, the band comparison didn’t work. Not just because I couldn’t describe the U.S. playing style with adjectives that would fit a good band, but mostly because the U.S. failed to impose its will, or its style, on the game at all, until about the 70th minute. At that point they started to possess the ball around the El Salvadorian 18-yard box. They played with more purpose, opening up the wings, and trying to combine their way to more shots on goal.
But for the majority of the game the U.S. were a will-less, punch-less group against one of the lower-rated teams in CONCACAF.
Yes, the U.S. showed their typical grit and determination to get back into the game. And they probably would have won if given ten more minutes. Also, El Salvador should be given credit for playing with so much determination, for surprising the American players with their speed and guile after so much talk about how they didn’t stand a chance.
Why does the U.S. so often fail to impose its will on weaker teams, especially away?
Many pundits have blamed Bradley.
Jamie Trecker writes in his blog on FoxSoccer.com: “You cannot blame [Bradley] for not being able to teach top-level tactics — because the guy clearly doesn’t know any. How would you, if the great majority of your time was spent in MLS? No slight on MLS or Bradley, but it’s unreasonable to expect someone to succeed when they don’t have the tools to do so … What the Americans need to progress is not a coach that ‘understands the American player,’ but a coach that understands what a team needs to do to succeed at the international level.”
I guess it would be nice to have an internationally qualified coach. But to blame Bradley for the performance against El Salvador seems short-sited and wrong.
I can’t come up with an apt musical comparison for the national team yet, but I do know that playing good soccer works via many of the same principles as making good music. To make good music takes talented musicians playing together, hitting the right notes at the right times. It takes individual creativity, and united purpose.
The coach can share some of the blame for any failure. Maybe he gave misguiding direction. Maybe he chose the wrong personnel. But simply blaming Bradley blinds us to the deeper problems of player talent and development in this country. Both suffer. And both hurt us, immensely.
But both are getting better. The players are out there, in the Los Angeles parks and the Mid-western suburbs. We simply need to find them and nurture their talents the right way.
I dream of the day when we can field a team of players that have personalities as rich and diverse as all our musical talents have. When we have players that spring from our many landscapes as organically as Blues or jazz or folk music did. When we have a Coltrane at right back. When we have a John Fogerty tying down the central defense. A Nas in central midfield controlling the tempo.
Thinking about my dream American musician lineup (Dylan and Stevie Ray Vaughn at outside midfield, B.B. King in net, Biggie and Miles Davis up front), I realize that we need to make it as easy for our soccer players to express themselves as our musicians.
Then we’ll see style. Then we’ll see willpower. Is this possible?
Then Hejduk scores the game-tying goal with a few minutes left to play. Hejduk, maybe the least talented guy on the field, is all willpower. Arms outstretched and pumping in celebration, hair flying, he’s somehow all style too. Some nineties grunge lead singer. Chris Cornell (Soundgarden)? Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains)?
FRANKIE AGAIN? I LOVE THE GUY, BUT PLEASE, THERE MUST BE SOMEONE ELSE. ANYONE? WORLD CUP COMING UP, AND NOBODY ELSE IS READY TO STEP IN YET? ARE WE SERIOUS HERE? I KNOW THIS IS A REAL GAME AND NOT CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER OR SIMULATED SOCCER, BUT…
Posted by Cyrus Philbrick in Bob Bradley, CONCACAF, Hejduk, Style, US Soccer, World Cup on March 26th, 2009
I don’t want to seem like a toffee-nosed hater who criticizes U.S. soccer from behind a cathode-ray-fortress. But when I feel so strongly about something that seems painfully obvious to me, and about which nobody else complains, I feel a civic duty to raise awareness about the issue.
The issue: Frankie Hejduk might start again at right back for this weekend’s qualifier against El Salvador.
Hejduk, maybe the chillest dude on the National Team, doesn't exactly play with the same style
“What’s the problem?” You might say. “Hejduk is a veteran defender. He’s played in two World Cups. As John Harkes says, ‘He’s one of those great locker room guys.’ He’s one of the best on-the-ball defenders we have. He has the best work rate on the team. He was nails against Mexico.”
All of these things are true. I recognize that Hejduk has played a valuable role as a glue-guy on the National team for years. He still runs his pants off. In a way, he represents the larger evolution of American soccer over the past decade – from a laughing stock on the world scene to one of the stingiest, hardest-working teams in the world. I like the guy. I like his gritty, yet surfer-chic style. I like his tenacious tackling. I was pumped for him when he scored a deserving, championship-sealing goal for the Crew in the MLS Cup by making a tireless run into the box from his own half. I was pumped for his tenacious performance against Mexico a few weeks ago in front of his home Columbus fans.
Hejduk has deserved his National Team starts in the past. He was the best, and right, man for the job. And I think he still has more to give Columbus fans. But how is Hejduk still our No. 1 choice for right back on the National Team? How?
Here’s my completely unbiased scouting report on Frankie. What he does well: Run, tackle. What he doesn’t do well: trap, pass, long balls, dribble, possess the ball, basically any skill that involves a ball at his feet.
Again, he really does seem like a pretty cool dude. I’d like to hang out with him and drink a few beers. Or, as this US Access Video suggests, maybe a latte…or ten.
On this note, Hejduk says he drinks “8-10” cups of coffee a day. I’m not sure if he’s kidding or not. Somehow I don’t think he is. He plays exactly like you would expect a player who just downed eight caffeine shots to play – flying all over the field, jittery, ball springing off his feet to send him diving after it with a slide tackle.
I’m no physiotherapist, but maybe all this coffee consumption does a lot to explain the U.S.’s, or at least Hejduk’s, chronic lack of touch, calmness on the ball, and attacking awareness.
The U.S. has extremely limited options on defense, and no youngster has stood out enough to replace Hejduk. But how long are we going to stick with Frankie? The Gold Cup? 2010? 2014? Where is Spector? How about the ever-versatile Bornstein at right back? Marvell Wynne might have a worse first touch than Frankie, but he is just as fast and tenacious on-the-ball.
Compared to most European and South American teams out there, the U.S. has the luxurious option to take some risks with personnel while still maintaining a high probability of qualifying.
Qualifying in CONCACAF isn’t a cakewalk. I’m just saying, U.S. soccer has had its caffeine injection. We’re awake. We’re trying. We’re serious. Thank you, Frankie.
How about we develop better soccer players now, even if we have to start playing our green horns in big games. Is there a better way?
Hejduk’s goal (2:20) was awesome. Was it also the luckiest goal scored in the MLS last year?
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