Doing just enough to advance, but not much more

Admittedly, I only watched the entire first half and bits and pieces of the second half last night (What?! Lost was on!) so this list might be incomplete, or even incorrect entirely.


1.Nathan Sturgis - Wait wasn't he in the Rail list on Tuesday? There was a definitive improvement in the backline against Panama over the backline against Cuba. A lot of that probably had to do with the additions of Wynn and Orozco, but Sturgis played noticeably better too.
2.Stuart Holden - Provided the enthusiasm and agressiveness that was really missing in the first match from Findley and Davies. This is the first time I'd seen him play with the national team, and now I've taken to thinking that he could be a contributor with the senior squad in some qualifying matches later this year.


1.Sasha Kljestan - He's certainly got some skill, but I just don't get the obsession with him by a lot of fans. He was absolutely an improvement over Findley, and is good enough to start for the U23s, but I just don't see him replacing DMB (or even Convey) on the full national team yet.


1.Dax McCarty - How many times did he give the ball away and then immediately foul the opposing player? He had a poor game in possession, but still did an adequate job of breaking up some plays. You could argue that Dax might be too small to play the "bruiser" role, but this guy would disagree.

The US team has certainly not been impressive, but it looks like they're doing enough to be able to advance out of this group. But can this team beat Mexico? Because that do-or-die matchup in the semifinals feels inevitable. I personally think we have the talent to match Mexico (Dos Santos and Adu pretty much cancel each other out). So far, we've played down to the level of our competition. The question is whether or not we will be able to play up to the level of our competition against Mexico and/or Guatemala. Honduras will be a good test.

A rivalry refreshed

Some good and some bad from the "Friendly" match last night.

Despite all the criticism, and all the emergence of new talent, Landon Donovan proved again in the first half that he was still the best player on the field. And actually, for the first time in a long time, I'm pretty satisfied with the offense on the USMNT. Between Donovan, Dempsey, Altidore, and super-sub Adu, we were definitely the better team in the attacking third.

The defense was a bit more troubling. Boca and Gooch still have a steady hold on the two center defensive positions, but it appears that there's still a big dropoff on the flanks whenever Cherundolo is out. Moor and Corrales got the start this week, but neither were impressive, and they should both probably be behind Bornstein, Spector, Simek, and Pearce on the depth chart.

Actually, Drew Moor is kind of hard to assess. Last night he was almost Heydudesque. He gets an assist with a beautiful cross to Altidore, and would have had another assist if Dempsey wasn't offside on his goal. But then Moor was responsible for BOTH of the Mexico goals as he let his man get in front of him.

But I'm the most confused about our central midfield. I feel like it was so much easier before when Reyna and Mastroeni's names were seemingly carved in stone as our starters. Now we've actually got options, but it's not apparent who our BEST options are. We've got Ricardo Clark as a bruiser, Benny Feilhaber as a holding midfielder, Michael Bradley as some sort of combination of the two, and Freddy Adu as an attacking midfielder. It's certainly nice to have options, but I have no idea which of them I'd start in a World Cup right now. My sense is Feilhaber and Bradley, with Clark or Adu coming off the bench depending on the situation. Luckily, we have a couple years of qualifiers to let this thing shake itself out.