G:
Marcus Hahnemann - Reading
Tim Howard - Everton
D:
Carlos Bocanegra - Fulham
Steve Cherundolo - Hannover 96
Jay DeMerit - Watford
Cory Gibbs - Charlton Athletic
Oguchi Onyewu - Standard de Liege
Heath Pearce - Hansa Rostock
Jonathan Spector - West Ham United
M:
Michael Bradley - Heerenveen
Ricardo Clark - Houston Dynamo
Landon Donovan - Los Angeles Galaxy
Benny Feilhaber - Derby County
Eddie Lewis - Derby County
F:
Brian Ching - Houston Dynamo
Clint Dempsey - Fulham
Eddie Johnson - Fulham
Josh Wolff - 1860 Munich
Howard and Hahnemann: Both great keepers. No arguments here.
No real surprises at Defender except for Gibbs. Hasn't he been injured for 2 years and just now back for his club side? He can't be in good form yet can he?
The midfield has always been my problem with Bob Bradley. There are so many good options for every spot in the midfield except maybe right wing. Bradley just never seems to get it right, always playing two defensive midfielders in the center with no floating attacker. Midfielders playing striker with no support. We never seem to have enough people to win balls in the center of the field. Michael Bradley scores goal after goal in Holland, but here his role is to do the grunt work in the center of the field, meanwhile our strikers can't score to save their lives and our best goal scorer of all time is lost out wide playing defense against our opponents wingers.
I'm actually ok with the striker selections this time around. Eddie Johnson still has potential and at one time was better than any other option we've seen since. I still think Dempsey is out of position up front. He needs to get the ball with some space so he can take people on and this never happens when he is our target man. Josh Wolf is decent, still pretty fast, but why not Chris Rolfe? Brian Ching has proven himself almost as useless as Twellman at the international level, but hasn't had a shot in a while.
I'm not surprised that the youngsters from olympic qualifying aren't around for this match. We know who will be getting chances in the future and Bradley can be excused somewhat for their absence this once.
Here is how I'd like to see the US start out against Poland:
Johnson
Donovan Dempsey
Lewis Wolf
Bradley Feilhaber
Onyewu Churundalo
Bocanegra
Howard
1 comment:
Well I'm just upset with Johnson right now after watching him play for Fulham. What you said about him is true but consider what I said about Bob Bradley. He hasn't played Johnson in the last few games, so why call him up now? Because maybe he believes in the osmosis theory of soccer development. But maybe not. The game is in Europe so I suppose it's not surprising that he called in mostly European based players. But I'm going to continue to remain critical of Bradley until I feel enough is done to prove otherwise. There is no benefit of the doubt where he is concerned.
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