United States Mens National Team Special: Edition 1

Well everybody today is the day. After a year and a month or so of Just Plain Football we finally get to a new and improved look. I hope all my readers that started out with me last summer are still here and that my new readers and new readers to come enjoy the new look. Yes today we start the series of National Team Specials. We have one National team special every month. During the third or fourth week of every month! The very first edition will about my home team's country! The good ole United States of America. The United States, a superpower and a country used to dominating the sports world. But in soccer, they have definalty not been near the top..... AT ALL! When people think of the United States soccer team they usually think of a team that's not really good. A team that needs to improve a lot. But how much have they improved over the past few years? Are more of their players actually getting better? The USA has gotten better. The question really is, how much better have they gotten.

"expert"

Firstly a team is made up of players (insert captain obvious blurt here). So without good players and even a great coach a team can only be so good. More and more 'Merican players are moving to Europe to showcase their skills. In my book, not near enough. Clint Dempseys recent move back to the US makes me really mad. I mean it was hard for me to root for him at Tottenham but when he was at Fulham it was cool cheering on a fellow American. Maybe his skills will stay the same but usually the players that stay in Europe and more specifically England, are better. Jozy Altidore, who of course I hate, transferred to Sunderland this summer. So even though he is Altidore, he should improve a lot in England's highest division. In terms of European play, our goalies are in good shape. Timmy Howard and Brad Guzan both have starting spots in their EPL team. Guzan just held Arsenal to 1 goal on his Aston Villa first match of the season on Saturday. More and more so called experts (some of these experts have the knowledge of a potato, and dumb potato at that) have said that the MLS is starting to create more players with National Team quality. Eddie Johnson and Brek Shea are two of my favorite examples. Oh and who could forget Landon Donovan. Eddie Johnson plays for the Seattle Sounders and is one of my favorite USA players. Brek Shea started off at Dallas and had a pretty good career there before moving to Stoke last season. Even though Shea is not the best physical presence on the National Squad, he knows were the good passes are. I would call him the David Beckham of the USA squad. But what about players like Graham Zusi and Kyle Beckerman. They have basically been created in the USA's MLS and Zusi has look very good of late. Unfortunately both of these guys would have a tough time in the Premier League. Especially Beckerman.... his play is just not quick enough. Bradley plays for AS Roma which is not the worst spot for any USA player. Plus in the Gold Cup we saw the United State's manager Jurgen Klinsman bring in some new young guys who have promising talent. Jose Torres really impressed me when I saw him play at Dallas against Honduras in the Gold Cup Semifinals! The final verdict on the players of the National team is: We have some good young players emerging and our older experienced players add a lot to the team. Its the guys in the middle that the United States need to worry about. We need to ship more players to Europe and let them gain experience. Also, we need to try to bring more old European players (like Cahill, Henry, and Keane) to the MLS so they can pass on their experience to MLS players trying out for the USA squad.

Lately the US National Squad have been on a very impressive streak and had a  pretty wonderful summer. Firstly, the match where they beat Germany did not impress me at all!!!! The only good players Germany brought to the US were Lukas Podolski and Per Mertesacker. It was like Germanys E team. No not B,C, or D, but E. All the fans were like "WOOHOO we beat those Germans.... They suck so bad". This is just not true. Germany probably has one of the best A-team squads in the world. Maybe even better than Spain. I see Germany as a giant favorite in the coming World Cup in Brazil. I would even bet all the Wiener Schnitzel I could eat on them. So that match means nothing to me and it really shouldn't to the National team squad. Let's take a look at the Gold Cup. We took our b-team to the Gold Cup and came out of the tournament with the trophy. So it shows 2 things: Our b-team is pretty good, but also that most other countries brought their b-team too. We are still probably better than all those teams if our A-Team's met up. Even though in our past World Cup qualifiers we only beat Costa Rica 1-0 in blizzard conditions. It may have just been because they were all distracted at the mounds of snow in Jermine Jone's hair. Then we actually lost to Honduras 2-1. But I am still pretty condfident in the chances of the United States boarding on a plane to Brazil for the World Cup. Lets face it, Mexico just isn't the North American super power in soccer than they used to be.

The USA starts World Cup qualifiers again in September. The USA has to travel to Costa Rica on September 6th in a match that might be difficult. We beat them just 1-0 in snowy conditions. I'm sure it will not be snowing in Costa Rica when the US comes into town to visit. But the biggest match is on September 10th. When Mexico travels North of the border to Columbus. The United States team has always played good at Columbus and if they beat Mexico there, they should have lots of momentum. We cant forget that the Mexico squad will be better than the one they brought to the
Gold Cup!

I hope you enjoyed one of the newest special editions of Just Plain Football! Come back and read more!