USMNT

USA: 30 For the May World Cup Try-Out Camp

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Joe Corona (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Joe Corona (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

 

By: COLIN REESE

 

The rumor is that 30 American soccer players will receive an invitation to the May Try-Out Camp for the 23-Man United States Men’s National Team roster.

 

After the 2-2 tie with Mexico, World Soccer Source looks at the American player pool and proposes a 30-man May World Cup Try-Out Camp roster for the USMNT.

 

DeAndre Yedlin, Julian Green, and Maurice Edu emerged as big winners after the 2-2 tie with Mexico.

 

By default, Michael Orozco’s stock skyrocketed after the play of the American center backs, and this USA side was clearly in need of Geoff Cameron (playing in England) to play as a center back or as a defensive midfielder.

 

Below is World Soccer Source’s list of 30 footballers who deserve the opportunity to try out for the USMNT’s World Cup roster:

 

GOALKEEPERS (3): Tim HOWARD, Brad GUZAN, Nick RIMANDO

 

CENTER BACKS (6): Geoff CAMERON, Michael OROZCO, Shane O’NEILL, Amobi OKUGO, Andrew FARRELL, Caleb STANKO

 

OUTSIDE BACKS (5): DeAndre YEDLIN, Chris KLUTE, Greg GARZA, Kofi SARKODIE, Fabian JOHNSON

 

DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDERS: (4): Michael BRADLEY, Jermaine JONES, Maurice EDU, Perry KITCHEN

 

ATTACKING MIDFIELDERS (7): Clint DEMPSEY, Landon DONOVAN, Benny FEILHABER, Joe CORONA, Mix DISKERUD, Benji JOYA, Julian GREEN

 

FORWARDS (5): Jozy ALTIDORE, Aron JÓHANNSSON, Juan AGUDELO,  Eddie JOHNSON, Terrence BOYD

 

 

 

Of those 30, World Soccer Source believes the following 23 are the most useful on the USA World Cup roster:

 

GOALKEEPERS (3): Tim HOWARD, Brad GUZAN, Nick RIMANDO

CENTER BACKS (4): Geoff CAMERON, Michael OROZCO, Shane O’NEILL, Andrew FARRELL

OUTSIDE BACKS (4): DeAndre YEDLIN, Chris KLUTE, Kofi SARKODIE, Greg GARZA

DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDERS: (2): Michael BRADLEY, Maurice EDU

ATTACKING MIDFIELDERS (6): Clint DEMPSEY, Landon DONOVAN, Benny FEILHABER, Joe CORONA, Benji JOYA, Julian GREEN

FORWARDS (4): Jozy ALTIDORE, Aron JÓHANNSSON, Juan AGUDELO, Eddie JOHNSON/Terrence BOYD

*Geoff Cameron, Maurice Edu, and Shane O’Neill are center backs AND defensive midfielders.

 

 

The World Soccer Source USA World Cup Starting XI:

 

HOWARD; YEDLIN, EDU, OROZCO, KLUTE/GARZA; CAMERON, BRADLEY; CORONA, FEILHABER, DEMPSEY; ALTIDORE/AGUDELO.

 

-BEST SUB OPTIONS: Donovan, O’Neill, Green, Jóhannsson, Joya

 

 

Here is a USA XI with Two Number 9s:

HOWARD; YEDLIN, OROZCO/EDU, CAMERON, KLUTE/GARZA; BRADLEY; CORONA, FEILHABER, DEMPSEY; ALTIDORE, AGUDELO.

 

 

Jozy Altidore Haterade

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Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey. (Source: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Europe)
Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey. (Source: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Europe)

 

By: COLIN REESE 

 

The American soccer media and American soccer fans have been heavily criticizing Jozy Altidore throughout the 2013-2014 EPL season.

 

As World Soccer Source covered last August after Jozy Altidore’s impressive hat trick against Bosnia and Herzegovina, Altidore’s technical ability, finishing, and movement off the ball have matched his athleticism and physique, and the criticism of Altidore’s scoring drought with Sunderland fails to understand how a striker’s success and goal-scoring is dependent on the passing and quality of service of his teammates.

 

Certainly, strikers shouldn’t require all of their goals to be laid on a silver plater for them to score, but their teammates need to be able to maintain possession and provide enough service to the striker or strikers in the final third.

 

Despite, Sunderland’s poor quality of play, Altidore is still a striker that the United States is lucky to have because the United States didn’t have strikers like him in the past. Altidore is a two-footed, fast, strong, quick, and tall Number 9 that is also good with his head.

 

For the purposes of the USA national team, Altidore is a striker that can slip behind defenders with his speed and he can finish with both feet, in addition to being a more technical and creative player than he gets credit for, and this technical-skill, creativity, and combination play is more evident when Altidore is partnered with a second striker or when Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey are used as wings with the freedom to float behind him.

 

If Altidore is deployed up top with attacking midfielders that can keep possession, provide him with finals balls, and combine with him, then he won’t be stranded up top where he sees little of the ball.

 

Regardless of what happened at Sunderland this past season, the fact hasn’t changed that Altidore is a striker that not only has the physical gifts to stretch defenses and make them run and battle, but Altidore is also a striker with cultivated technical skills that allow him to score from the run of play or with him taking free kicks or being the target of balls played by other free kick and dead ball takers.

 

Unlike basketball where one player has more of an ability to take over a game due to the smaller size of the playing area, soccer is played on a very large field that demands quality team passing for strikers to really have any chance of getting in scoring positions. A striker can certainly create scoring chances by himself provided that he is within some reasonable distance from the goal, but a striker that doesn’t get enough touches on the ball or receive the ball in the final third is normally doomed to going scoreless.

 

The bigger problem with the United States Men’s National Team is the poor collective team passing and poor collective technical quality with the exception of about five players.

 

Altidore has strengthened the areas of his game which needed improvement, which were his technical ability, his movement off the ball, and his willingness to take on defenders and go straight to goal.

 

It’s the responsibility of Jürgen Klinsmann to field a Starting XI that can keep possession and provide Jozy Altidore with enough service and touches in the final third.

 

USA: 23 For the 2014 World Cup (April 2014)

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By: COLIN REESE

 

The United States Men’s National Team roster should be based on a first and second choice option for each of the 11 spots in the 4-2-3-1 formation (plus the goalkeeper), but a well-planned World Cup roster with this formation should also have three goalkeepers and three strikers.

 

One of the keys to the roster proposal below is that several of the center backs double as defensive midfielders and vice versa.

 

Identifying the clear best players for many of the Starting XI spots is a fairly easy and straight-forward task for a national team like the United States Men’s National Team that lacks the amount of depth of first and second-tier national teams.

 

Hypothetically, any current USMNT roster should at the very least have Geoff Cameron and Michael Bradley as the defensive midfielders with Landon Donovan, Benny Feilhaber, and Clint Dempsey as the line of three attacking midfielders. Jozy Altidore is the clear first-choice striker.

 

Beyond this, Tim Howard is the clear first-choice goalkeeper with Brad Guzan as the second-choice, and DeAndre Yedlin is the only plausible starting right back with Michael Orozco being one of the two starting center backs, as Orozco is a more complete and international-caliber center back than Omar Gonzalez and Matt Besler.

 

Below is World Soccer Source’s Preferred 23-man USA World Cup roster with explanations after the roster breakdown:

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9 USMNT Midfielders For the World Cup

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By: COLIN REESE

 

The United States Men’s National Team will need the right amount of defensive midfielders and attacking midfielders in the 2014 World Cup, plus there are midfielders who are hard to classify with just one label.

 

The USMNT will need attacking midfielders that can play out wide and those that can play centrally, plus there are those that can play wide and centrally.

 

Given Jürgen Klinsmann’s 4-2-3-1 formation preference and Landon Donovan’s and Clint Dempsey’s ability to play as second strikers, the United States has the roster space for nine midfielders on its 2014 World Cup roster.

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Who Should Start in a USMNT 4-1-3-2?

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By: COLIN REESE

 

The poor technical play of most of the American players for MLS sides (minus Landon Donovan and Benny Feilhaber) in the CONCACAF Champions League as well as the quality play of several Americans playing for Tijuana taught us a lot of lessons about which players had the capacity to play against technical and quick opponents in high-level games.

 

From a United States Men’s National Team perspective, Joe Corona (Tijuana), Greg Garza (Tijuana), Benny Feilhaber (Sporting Kansas City), and Landon Donovan (LA Galaxy) came out as clear winners as far as international-caliber skill goes.

 

On the other hand, Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy), Matt Besler (Sporting KC), and Graham Zusi (Sporting KC) were exposed as pedestrian in comparison to the skill and quickness of Mexican club sides.

 

If you can’t demonstrate quality play against top Liga MX clubs (that are much better than Americans give them credit for), then demonstrating international-caliber skill against Ghana, Portugal, and Germany is unlikely.

 

World Soccer Source recently looked at the benefits of the United States Men’s National Team switching from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-1-3-2, and the possession and attacking benefits of this formation changed caused this writer to come to the conclusion that Geoff Cameron is needed more as a center back than as a defensive midfielder because the United States needs more agile and more skilled center backs than Gonzalez and Besler.

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USA Player Outlook: Julian Green

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By: COLIN REESE

 

By all accounts, Julian Green is a fast and two-footed attacker that brings strong 1v1 skills, goal-scoring abilities, creativity, and trickery.

 

World Soccer Source mentioned Julian Green as an Editor’s Note in the last two Best American Footballers rankings because Green is an 18-year-old player who hasn’t played enough in televised games to gauge how he stacks up compared to guys like Clint Dempey or Landon Donovan and players like Joe Corona or Juan Agudelo.

 

The talent is definitely there, which is evidenced by how highly Green is regarded by Bayern Munich and its players and coaches.

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The Advantages of the USMNT using a 4-1-3-2 formation

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By: COLIN REESE 

 

Not enough possession and not enough technical ability have always been the primary weaknesses of the United States Men’s National Team, and certainly a lack of consistent goal-scoring and some shaky and porous Defensive Back Fours have also been weaknesses for Team USA in international soccer.

 

While starting two defensive midfielders has been the standard practice of the United States due to the logic that the center backs need a lot of defensive coverage and support in front of them, perhaps using quicker and more agile center backs with only one defensive midfielder should be one of the formation changes that Jürgen Klinsmann makes.

 

An inability to string enough passes together without conceding possession and an inability to creative enough scoring chances have both plagued the United States at the international level, particularly against first and second tier national teams.

 

The use of only one defensive midfielder as advocated above allows the United States to stuff the midfield with players who are comfortable and effective with the ball at their feet when facing quality competition; it also allows line-up space for an additional attacking midfielder so that Clint Dempsey can be moved closer to goal as a second striker to partner with Jozy Altidore in order to give him a player with whom he can combine and off whom he can play.

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World Cup: The USMNT Has Viable Modern Outside Backs

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By: COLIN REESE

 

Given the question marks about the ability of the United States Men’s National Team’s outside backs, DeAndre Yedlin (Seattle Sounders), Chris Klute (Colorado Rapids), and Greg Garza (Tijuana) have become legit outside back options for the United States.

 

The United States had other outside backs in contention, but they are retired or injured. Steve Cherundolo has retired, and both Eric Lichaj and Timothy Chandler are seriously injured just a few months before the 2014 World Cup.

 

DeAndre Yedlin and Chris Klute had outstanding 2013 seasons in MLS, and Greg Garza has been a known talent at left back for several years. Yedlin, Garza, and Klute are two-way outside backs, and Yedlin vastly improved his defending ability, which is an area where Klute was always solid.

 

Although Garza gained a lot of attention for two recent CONCACAF Champions League games against the LA Galaxy, Garza isn’t a left back who just deserves to be on the USMNT roster because of two games. In the two games against the Galaxy, Garza’s abilities were on display to more Americans than had watched him in the past.

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The Best USA XI (March 2014)

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By: COLIN REESE

 

The basic truth about the United States Men’s National Team is that Tim Howard, Michael Bradley, Landon Donovan, and Clint Dempsey are the best players.

 

If Geoff Cameron is started alongside Michael Bradley as the second defensive midfielder and Benny Feilhaber is started as the central attacking midfielder in between Donovan and Dempsey, then the United States has five midfielders that are all skilled on the ball and that allow the United States to win back possession, pass the ball well, and create scoring chances.

 

Jozy Altidore has proven that he can score when he is provided with enough service, so starting Altidore as the lone striker in the 4-2-3-1 formation is the strongest option at this point.

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American Soccer: Technical Progress Made, Easy Improvements At Hand

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By: COLIN REESE

 

The goal of American soccer has always been to close the gap with soccer’s giants by having more technically-skilled American players on the club and international level.

 

Americans have seen drastic improvement in Major League Soccer since it started, but MLS still displays not enough quality collective play from teams, which stems from a lack of a critical mass of technical and athletic players on each team that can allow MLS teams to really keep possession, display excellent skill on the ball, showcase quality passing, create enough scoring chances, and score.

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