The World Cup has come and gone but it isn’t hard to beckon back a year and a half ago and remember that a man who ultimately was left off the World Cup roster was, for a brief respite in time, the toast of the proverbial town. Indeed, USMNT fans felt shaggy-haired Chivas USA attacking midfielder Sacha Kljestan was nearly a lock to be paired alongside Junior in the American midfield in South Africa. Kljestan had netted a hat trick against Sweden, been a force… Read more
As a few The Yanks Are Coming readers are aware, our Editor In Chief and fearless, visionary leader Daniel Seco does not have a favorite English Premier League Team. He’s dabbled a bit with the boys at Craven Cottage but never fully bought in. Same for the Billy Beane Sabermetrics club success story that plys its trade at the Emirates. So he’s not a Gunner, and he’s not a Cottager, but let’s call those two clubs the leaders in the clubhouse. As we… Read more
Six US Midfielders on the Radar For 2014 Alejandro Bedoya, Orebro–The Boston College product had such a promising season in Sweden, endearing himself to Orebro fans and USMNT fans alike– that he received a surprise call-up to the final USMNT World Cup camp and had a legitimate shot of making the roster for South Africa. To some, including this writer, it was curious given that all we saw of him in a national shirt was a pair of cameos in two friendlies a… Read more
This is the second of a four-part Series of Report Cards for the U.S. Men’s National Team’s Four Year World Cup Cycle, 2007-2010. While we are not issuing grades for all 92 players capped by Bob Bradley during the cycle, we will feature players not on the World Cup roster who figured prominently in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup. We will issue grades of A-F, rather than player-rankings style grades of 1-10. This edition is likely the longest, focusing on… Read more
This is the first of a four-part Series of Report Cards for the U.S. Men’s National Team’s Four Year World Cup Cycle, 2007-2010. While we are not issuing grades for all 92 players capped by Bob Bradley during the cycle, we will feature players not on the World Cup roster who either figured prominently in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup. We will issue grades of A-F, rather than player-rankings style grades of 1-10. We’ll also account for players who will… Read more
With the Go-Go-USA lovefest starting to fade into the rearview mirror, we’ve reached the one time of year tough for soccer fans—the dog days of July. It’s always tougher to deal with the dog days after the excitement of a major international tournament, and nearly impossible after a World Cup. A week removed from the World Cup Final, soccer junkies from Atlanta to Australia are stuck, for the moment, in soccer Siberia. Essentially soccer’s dog days of… Read more
Soccer is a passion. To me, soccer is an incredible game with which I grow more deeply connected nearly every passing day. It has something for everyone. Beauty and grace, physicality, athleticism, moments of wonder, moments of agony, political power and meaning, religious controversy. Lately it has shed, or is shedding slowly its traditional old-guard modes of player evaluation and tactical constancy, incorporating science and math into its unwritten guides to… Read more
French superstar Thierry Henry was introduced to the media as a member of the New York Red Bulls today, and already we’re dealing with the usual, tired arguments. From ESPN television sports talk shows such as PTI and Around the Horn to various sports talk radio outlets to mainstream sports and other writers; we’re hearing all the same questions we heard when David Beckham arrived in Los Angeles in 2007. Will Henry “save soccer” in the United States?… Read more
It’s Sunday in America, and World Cup Final Sunday at that. The Super Bowl of Soccer, only way more important. Come join us for a live chat as we discuss the game and more. Can Holland become the first side since Brazil in 1970 to win every game they play at the World Cup Finals? Can Spain capture the second Euro/World Cup double in history– and if they do– will they for small moments rue the defeat to the United States last summer that cost them a shot at the… Read more
One of the sadder realities of humanity is that a single human life rarely involves more than twenty World Cups. Without question, South Africa 2010 has been a memorable one, no matter how you feel about the hornet’s nest noise emanating from your television. As a blog, this is our first go round covering a World Cup, and we look forward to many more. A great reward that accompanied the hard work we’ve put into making this site a reliable, fun and… Read more
The compliment to my “Out of Miracles” piece, and a painful reminder of the U.S. exit as it stands to be my final player ratings piece of a competitive (non-friendly) match until next summer’s Gold Cup, which again becomes a point-of-emphasis for the U.S., as victory ensures qualification for the 2013 Confederations Cup in Brazil. Tim Howard, 5—His distribution was excellent again and led to a couple of counterattacking chances for the U.S. as… Read more
I can’t tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like, And right now it’s a steel knife to my windpipe… — Eminem Marshall Mathers describes the pain of this one pretty accurately. It hurt. It still hurts. And to a large extent, it is hard to believe the United States won’t take the field in South Africa again Friday afternoon. Certainly that is the feeling among the many new fans I’ve talked to—a feeling of disbelief and… Read more
A friend and colleague from law school wrote on my Facebook wall yesterday evening: Try putting that into words. He’s right. It’s been over twenty-four hours since Landon Donovan catapulted the United States to its first group win in the modern era, and I still don’t quite know what to make of what happened. I watched the replay and felt many of the same emotions I felt on first viewing, what I like to refer to as the “fan viewing.” The only ones I… Read more
This one is nothing but ropes and asses. The U.S. Men’s National Team, for the sixty-fifth time in this four year cycle, ninety minutes for everything. Ninety minutes for four years. Nothin’ but ropes and asses. Soccer, so much like life, is unfair sometimes. We learned a harsh lesson about that, together, last week in Johannesburg. Fail tomorrow and the lesson will be even crueler. Maybe it’s not fair that after winning more games, garnering… Read more
