A look at the 2 new U.S. men’s national team assistant coaches

Lubos Kubik

Jesse Marsch and Lubos Kubik have recently joined the coaching staff of the US Full Men’s National Team under Bob Bradley. I have seen a few stories mentioning these appointments, but I thought I would take a closer look. My interest is how these choices will affect the performance of the team.

I thought that losing Piotr Nowak as an assistant was a major loss due to his experience and pedigree. He played in Poland, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, and MLS. He also captained the Polish National Team after the fall of Communism. He also had head coach experience at DC United, where he was fairly successful.

I wasn’t that worried about losing John Hackworth, but he was quite good with young players. He had experience coaching college soccer. He also headed up the Bradenton, FL US U-17 Residency Program. As a player he wasn’t that outstanding.

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Changing the US National Team formation

There has been some chatter this past week about the US changing its formation. Leander Schaerlaeckens over at Espnsoccernet wrote a pretty interesting article about why he thinks the US National Team ought to change its formation. I was intrigued, so I put together some thoughts of my own about this possibility.

Schaerlaeckens advocated changing the US National Team formation from a 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1. To summarize his thoughts, the idea is that the US does not have many quality strikers but has a surplus of quality midfielders. Why not take off a forward and put on an extra midfielder? While a 4-4-2 with Charlie Davies and Jozy Altidore worked well during the Confederations Cup, it hasn’t worked that well since losing Charlie Davies.

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US v. El Salvador Preview

The US plays El Salvador this Wednesday at 7pm Eastern Time. The game will be available on ESPN Classic and Galavision. This game will not feature many of the potential US World Cup squad, however, there are many bubble battlers who are looking to sneak onto the World Cup roster.  The game should be interesting from that point of view. In addition the US is heavily favored and the bookmakers are expecting the US to win by 3 to 4 goals.

This is close to a full strength El Salvador team, but some players are missing. For instance they are not bringing Eliseo Quintanilla. El Salvador is a decent team in CONCACAF and should put up a stiff challenge for the US. The Soccer Power Index (SPI) lists them as 64^th in the World, while the US is listed as 16^th in the World. The SPI also suggests that El Salvador neither concedes nor scores many goals.

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U.S. Men to take on Turkey in Philadelphia

The U.S. will take on Turkey at Lincoln Financial Field on May 29th in what will be their final tune up before the World Cup, according to the Associated Press.  An official announcement is due out tomorrow at a press conference with mayor Michael Nutter, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, and Eagles president Joe Banner.

Turkey is currently ranked 42nd in the world in the FIFA rankings. They were knocked out in the semifinals of Euro 2008 by Germany on a 90th minute goal by Philip Lahm after an impressive run through the tournament.  They missed out on qualifying for South Africa, failing to make it out of a tough group that included Spain.

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Donovan’s play in the EPL undercuts the naysayers, strengthens MLS’ ability to lure top talent

Clint Dempsey has certainly made great strides to raise the status of American forwards abroad to the heights of their goaltender counterparts (i.e. Friedel, Keller, Howard) during a solid three full seasons with Fulham. He’s been a mainstay of their attack since a supporting cast role in ’06-’07 that saw him come on late in the season to drop Liverpool 1-0 to keep the Cottagers in the Premiership and was on pace to add several notches to last season’s goal tally of 7 (he led the team with 6 in ’07-’08) before suffering a knee injury in mid-January. But, it’s the inspired play of Landon Donovan that speaks the most of MLS.

Though Dempsey makes a strong case as the best U.S. player – his goal tally in World Cup qualifying matches Donovan and he notched huge goals against Egypt, Spain, and Brazil in the Confederations Cup to shine alongside his teammate – Donovan is as inextricably linked with the U.S. national team as he is with the MLS both in terms of  performance and general perception. The failures of the ’06 U.S. team in Germany were seen largely as a reflection of his own, while his masterful showing at the Confederations Cup has many hoping that he’ll now lead the team much deeper than the round of 8 reached in the ’02 World Cup. His near perennial designation as the top US player since ’02 is equaled by the many regular season and playoff accolades heaped upon him at the MLS level, which speaks to how he represents what the MSL – and the U.S. – can produce. This status was reaffirmed when his misgivings with Beckham over his fickle role with the Galaxy came to light ahead of the release of a book about the English footballer and his role with American soccer.

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National Team Story Lines

Altidore and Amr Zaki

Jozy Altidore

Hull City’s move for Egyptian striker, Amr Zaki, does not seem to have put Jozy Altidore in danger of losing significant minutes. Although Zaki has prior Premier League experience and is considered to be a quality striker, Altidore is playing well enough to keep Zaki from taking his place.

This week versus Manchester City, Altidore scored his first Premier League goal and continued his recent strong form. On February 2^nd, Altidore went 86 minutes versus Chelsea. In that game Zaki came on to replace Jan Venegoor of Hesselink. On January 30^th Altidore played well versus Wolverhampton Wanderers, but was substituted in the second half in favor of Amr Zaki.

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Soccer Affairs

After a week of rampant speculation in the British press, Fabio Capello announced today that John Terry is out as captain of England.

It all started over the past weekend when, after a super-injunction brought about by his lawyers was overturned by a  British high Court, the news broke that England The Brave captain John Terry, who has a wife and two children, had had an affair with the estranged partner of England teammate Wayne Bridge. The British press went into what at first seemed to be an all too predictable case of the vapors with an explosion of stories wondering if Terry was fit for the captaincy of either the England team or Chelsea. Scoring the winning goal against Burnley last Saturday, Terry stoically did not celebrate, barely acknowledging the congratulations of his teammates, some of whom must have been thinking, “If he’s on the pitch with me then he can’t be shagging my girlfriend.”

Which is of course the point: while some decried Terry’s promiscuity in the usual entirely ridiculous moral terms – “He’s supposed to be a role model, gasp! Blah, blah, blah . . . ” – the real concern was one of team unity. A team captain hopping into bed with his teammates ladies does not bode well for the kind of team spirit that wins World Cups, particularly when you remember that both Terry and Bridge are defenders. If you had just learned Terry had shagged the mother of your child, might you not be just a little bit slower to back him up when, say, Lionel Messi is on a run up the middle?

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Down, but not out

There is good news this week on the injury front for the US National Team. There are reports that Oguchi Onyewu is progressing well and should be back in Italy for the end of the Italian season. He is recuperating alongside Charlie Davies in Delaware under the supervision of head US National Team trainer, Jim Hashimoto.

Onyewu has made steady progress recovering from his torn patellar tendon. He is moving along faster than expected and hopes to be available for AC Milan sometime in April of this season. Onyewu might be available to join the training camp with the US National Team for the game against the Netherlands on March 3, but he has no intention of playing that early. Here’s hoping Gooch keeps progressing well and has time to play before the World Cup in June.

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US v. Honduras

The Full Men’s US National Team lost to Honduras 3 to 1 last night in an international friendly in Carson, California. Although the loss is sure to bring down American fans, the result was not very significant. Furthermore the match appeared even more meaningless as a tryout for particular positions. This was due to the fact that players had to compensate for going a man down after the 18^th minute when Jimmy Conrad was shown a second yellow card. The match was valuable, however, for Bob Bradley to test the determination of several World Cup bubble battlers and some future prospects.

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Stuart Holden has a Massive Decision to Make

It is easy to envy a guy like Stuart Holden. He’s young, good-looking, and possesses great talent for a sport that many of us are unhealthily obsessed with. He has just finished his contract with a team which plays in a league that his talents have outgrown. He is ready for a new challenge. He is one of the most promising young players in an improving USA squad. He is available on a free transfer. He is, in short, a hot commodity.

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