Jozy’s Injury Adds to U.S. Roster Questions for Saturday

I was thinking that this  new post was going to be somewhat mundane, figuring everything that could possibly be said about Saturday’s  game had already been said and all the questions to be asked were fairly obvious. That’s still true, but we did get a piece of news today that makes Saturday’s game much more critical. Unfortunately, it’s not at all the kind of news that any American soccer  fan wants to hear. In case you haven’t  read/seen/heard, forward  Jozy Altidore (my personal favorite player on the team) suffered a minor ankle sprain today at training.

Over at Espn Soccernet, they’re already wondering what the  repercussions would be of losing Altidore and what Bob Bradley might do without him. This, of course, inspired a fairly strong backlash from the commenters who complained the writer was overreacting to a mild ankle sprain. I’m a pretty moderate guy, so naturally I tend to come  down somewhere in the middle here. I don’t think it’s  far-fetched to question what Bradley’s strategy would be without Altidore, considering there’s just over a week before the first game. I remember in high school I had what I originally thought was a mild ankle sprain. It hurt like hell at first, but by the  next day I fully expected to be playing again within a few days. It ended up taking two weeks. Does this have any bearing on how long it will take Altidore to get back. Absolutely not. Jozy is ten times the athlete I am (except when it comes to box-hockey  or ping-pong), and he has a world-class training staff at his disposal. I’m just saying, you never really know about injuries at first diagnosis, especially when we’re talking about such a short time frame. On the other hand, there’s not really much to be said about Jozy’s possible replacements, because we know so little about what we’re going to get out of them.

All eyes will be on Jozy (or his replacement) on Saturday

A much more interesting debate is where Jozy ranks in terms of value on the USMNT. In other words, if you’re making a list of players you’d least like to lose , what number is Jozy? Although I think there are several guys  right now who are better all around players, you have to take into account Jozy’s potential as well as the inexperience of the guys backing him him up. We all know Donovan and Dempsey are two of our best players, but the midfield is also the strongest part of our team. Also, how much confidence do you have in Howard’s back-ups? Here’s my ranks on the official Stars and Stripes Value Scale

1. Donovan (still the American team’s best player and the de facto captain, despite Bocanegra’s arm bling)

2. Howard (the glue that holds the U.S. defense together, another leader, plus the most successful American abroad)

3. Dempsey (To a slightly lesser extent than Donovan, this team kind of seems to go as Dempsey goes, see Confed. Cup)

4. Onyewu (U.S. just can’t replace his size, experience, and athletic ability on a thin back line)

5. Altidore (Huge upside. Probably operating at around 60% of what he’s capable of right now & could break out at WC)

6. Bradley (Great engine, and growing into a future captain, but perhaps more replaceable than some might think)

After that, a bit of a toss up.

I’m not going to waste any more time speculating how the U.S. would fare up top without Altidore. However, I will discuss Bradley’s possible strategy and formation without him, as part of my 3 main questions for Saturday’s game.

1. Does Onyewu play 90 minutes and is Steve Cherundolo on the right?

Okay, I know that’s two questions, but it allows me to knock out the whole defense in one section. First of all, if Onyewu (who I still refuse to call Gooch, no matter how annoying it is to type Onyewu fifteen times) doesn’t get 90 minutes on Saturday, I don’t think there can be any more doubt that the knee is still bothering him. I wasn’t nearly as worried by the fact that he didn’t start last Saturday as some were. The guys over at The Shin Guardian wondered why, if he was going to  get 45 minutes no matter what, he didn’t just play the other 45 minutes. I don’t see a major distinction, though, and I’m not 100% convinced  that the first 11 on Saturday were Bradley’s ideal, healthy starting  11. Even  if they were coming into the game, I don’t think Onyewu really missed out on playing with any of the starters other than Ricardo Clark by coming in at halftime. I don’t think Feilhaber’s starting against England, and, at this point, I’m not sure Spector does either.

That brings me to the second half of this question, and I have to admit I’m really torn on this one. I kind of thought Spector had that right back spot locked up, but it didn’t take long, after his very shaky performance against Turkey, for me to wonder whether Dolo should start. I also started wondering why I had so much confidence in Spector in the first place, and I realized that it’s primarily based on just two games (the two wins) at last summer’s Confederations Cup. I know he played during qualifying in late 2009 also, but really, the idea that Spector, Onyewu, Demerit, and Bocanegra are the closest thing we have to a lock-down defense really emerged during that tournament last July. Of course, Spector only secured his spot back then due to Cherundolo’s injury.

Injuries have kind of been the story of Dolo’s international career, most notably in 2006 when a late one (after he was added to the roster b/c of Armas’ injury) completely killed off any chance he had of seeing the field. All I’m saying is, it’s not really that far-fetched for Bradley to give Dolo the nod. It’s not like Spector and the other three backs have this long-built chemistry or something, and Dolo is still much more experienced than Spector (on an already  fairly young squad). I was shocked when a glance at Spector’s profile reminded me that he’s still only 24 years old. I’m a big fan of youth, but I think Spector at times plays youthful, and I think his psyche is a little more fragile than Dolo’s if something goes wrong (like when his run forward led to the counterattacking goal last Saturday). Ultimately, I don’t think either guy getting the start would be a huge shock.

2. Which of these guys that didn’t start last weekend is most likely to do so this weekend: Torres, Holden, or Edu?

I love how I phrased this question, because it lets me talk about almost the  whole midfield without copping out with a 2-parter like I did above. See, I’m improving.

Anyway, some might argue that it’s a long shot for any of these three to start, and it’s also highly dependent on Dempsey’s position (I’ll tackle that one in the next question). However, given the rather dismal (or at least invisible) play by both Clark and Feilhaber in the first half against Turkey, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch. I’ve already written at length on what I think of all three of these guys, and I’ve given special attention to how I think Edu, Clark, and Torres each perform in a pairing with Bradley. Just look at the posts below. To me, this  question is more about how Bradley wants to play on Saturday and, more importantly, against England next weekend.

Australia is considered a pretty stalwart defensive team, which will be a good test for the U.S., but unfortunately, they lack the attacking power the Americans will see against England. Everybody expects Bradley to play things pretty conservatively on June 12, but it’s unclear how aggressive he’ll want his team to be on Saturday. My thought is, if the Australian defense is tough, use that to test your offense. It’s not going to do the Americans any good to sit back the whole time and come away with a 0-0 draw. That, to me, would be a false victory for the U. S. defense. I’d love to see the U.S. come out strong (which they’ve struggled with, no matter who they’re playing) and get an early goal, then be forced to deal with the Australians actually playing attacking soccer. However, I can also see the merits in playing as they plan to play against England.

Regardless of tactics, though, isn’t Australia the  perfect warm up game for England? They look like English players, they’re big and physical (courtesy of many of the guys playing rugby growing up), and they even have funny accents. It gives all the U.S. guys the chance to practice accent jokes or accent imitations for when they talk  smack on the field during the game (I know they’re not the exact  same accent) Of course, that would only be applicable if any U.S. players actually did that or had any personality on the field at all. Lastly, do English and Australian people do funny imitations of American accents? Do they find American accents anywhere near as amusing as we find their accents? Like, what would an American version of the Geico ghecko sound like (Strong Boston accent, Southern drawl)?

So, what does all this have to do with the 3 guys above? Well, I think the perception is that starting Torres would lead to a much more aggressive, and possibly vulnerable, American squad, but I’m not sure that’s actually true. To me, it wasn’t so much that the U.S. was actually playing a much more attacking, or risky, game in the second half than they were in the first half against Turkey. They were winning the ball further up the pitch, and I do think that Torres steps forward to challenge the ball sooner than Clark, but it would  be simplistic to consider that a much more offensively oriented squad than one with Edu or Clark in it. If anything, Clark’s propensity for turning the ball over puts the Americans at a higher risk defensively.

As for  Edu, I really don’t know what to expect from him. I didn’t see much from him against the  Czechs, but I’m interested to see how he pairs with Bradley and whether they have the same sorts of problems that Bradley and Clark do. In the end, I’d rather see Edu or Torres start next weekend than Clark. As for Holden, I think it mostly comes down to where Dempsey plays. If Dempsey’s up top, or at least playing as a withdrawn striker, I’d love to see Holden get the start at outside opposite Donovan. I’ve been saying for a while that I thought Holden deserved serious minutes, and if there’s any possibility that Holden starts in S. Africa (which there should be), he needs to get serious minutes with the first team. To me, it’s extra impressive that he’s won me over playing almost exclusively with the USMNT subs.

Does Torres start on Saturday? Does he deserve to?

3. Who in the world will we see playing at forward?

Obviously, there’s two scenarios here. One in which Jozy is healthy (or at least semi-healthy) and playing and one where he’s not. Under the second scenario, U.S. fans reminisce on what it was like to have two healthy, promising forwards, repeatedly watch YouTube clips of last summer’s Confed. Cup, and then promptly launch themselves off  their roofs.

Actually, let’s save the jumping for next weekend, because Jozy’s absence on Saturday doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t play or that he wouldn’t if the World Cup started this weekend instead of next. I think Bob would rather rest Jozy and avoid any risk of aggravating the ankle even if it meant losing a game’s worth of seeing Jozy work with Dempsey or one of the other forwards.

If Jozy is in the game, though, there’s still a lot of questions about who he’ll be playing with. I’d love to see the Dempsey-Altidore pairing work out, to free up another position for the stacked midfield, but even I’m willing to admit that neither of them stretches the field like Findley did. The thing I don’t agree with, as I pointed out before, is the idea that moving Dempsey to midfield last weekend suddenly changed his game and caused him to start playing much better. He had a rough game overall apart from his goal.

I texted my roommate about 1 minute before Dempsey scored, saying that Dempsedy hadn’t looked strong. I got his reply, that he agreed, just as Dempsey snuck the ball past the Turkish keeper, mooting (that’s great new verb usage) my point . My point: Dempsey looked rather lethargic in both halves, not just when he was playing forward. I think I’d deploy Dempsey similarly to how he played in the last game. I’d still have him play a half at forward and a half in the midfield. I’d like to see if a different midfield could lead to some better distribution and whether Dempsey and Altidore could improve their  chemistry a little bit in their second outing. I just don’t think one half is enough to close the book on the Dempsey at forward scenario.

If Dempsey’s not at forward, all bets are off. I’m thinking Bradley still sees Findley as a substitute option, and if he’s going to start another forward, it’s most likely to be Buddle. Of course, I never even thought Findley would make the squad, so what do I know? It does seem a little far-fetched that Bradley would keep Buddle on the bench the whole game against Turkey, and then start him this week. Of course, that same scenario could occur for Maurice Edu. There’s simply a lot of questions for the U.S. squad right now, and Bradley’s got a lot of last-minute issues to figure out.

Okay, this is where things get really crazy. If Jozy’s not playing at forward, really anything could happen. I think, in that case, Dempsey probably at least starts up top. I just find it hard to imagine two guys out of Edson Buddle, Herculez Gomez, and Robbie Findley starting if it means leaving players like Stu Holden, Feilhaber, and even Damarcus Beasley on the bench (who could all see decreased minutes if Dempsey plays 90 in the midfield). So, who pairs best with Dempsey? I’m still leaning towards Buddle, but I’m also not entirely sure what kind of game Bradley sees him or Gomez playing for the U.S. squad. Neither of those guys is completely a hold-up, back -to-the-goal forward like Ching is or Altidore can be, but they’re also not speedy guys like Findley who open up spaces for Dempsey and Donovan to exploit. Bradley’s been watching them in training for three weeks, so he’s got a better idea than me.

Semi-off the wall thoughts I’ve had about Saturday

1. Donovan starting at forward or in Dempsey’s starting spot from last week.

2. Beasley starting on the left instead of Holden or Feilhaber if Dempsey starts up top.

3. Bob Bradley and Clint Dempsey having a contest to see who can look more depressed during a U.S. game.

A typical look from Deuce (much better nickname than Gooch) during a game

Hmmmm.....

 

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