Gulati - Please Get the Hint

Saw this article by Mark Zeigler and agree completely, being a youth soccer coach I see what he is talking about first hand. I have told my parents over and over again that their kids need to watch soccer on the tube and start playing as much as possible. We are too far behind other countries when it comes to the culture of soccer at home and focusing on the technical part of the game. And I also agree with hiring a foreign coach with playing experience, I am a good coach and will get better, but I have never played professionally and therefore do not have that experience to rely on. I think that a high level coach, in most cases, needs that experience. I have played semi pro and college and know my stuff, but put me in the locker room with a bunch of MLS guys and they might not respect me when they learn that I have never played at that level. The Most I can hope for in my career is to be either a Director of Coaching for a youth club or a Youth Director of an MLS Academy. Either way, I am living the dream and helping shape the next generation of American Soccer Players. Hats off to Bob for what he did, but it is time to take the next step and get better.

Six ways to fix American soccer

By Mark Zeigler

9:28 p.m., June 28, 2011

As preparations were being made for the trophy presentation at the Rose Bowl following Mexico’s 4-2 win against the United States on Saturday night, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati sat on the bench and stared blankly at the jubilant Mexican players.

He was alone, and alone with his thoughts.

Maybe he was merely disappointed with the U.S. performance, blowing a 2-0 lead after 23 minutes. Or maybe he was suddenly overcome with the realization that there are major problems in his empire, that an era of meteoric ascendancy in American soccer has reached an apex, that a cliff may await on the other side.

Here’s how to avoid falling off, or at least how to open a parachute.

1. Admit there is a problem

Before it can be fixed, there must be an admission that it is broken – something the power brokers of American soccer have been loath to do.

The national team also lost to Panama – Panama – in Gold Cup group play and was underwhelming in its victories. And before that, it won one of eight games since the 2010 World Cup.

The under-20 team failed to qualify for the U-20 World Cup out of arguably the planet’s weakest region.

The under-17 team just lost to Uzbekistan and tied New Zealand 0-0 in the U-17 World Cup in Mexico.

The U.S. women’s national team, with more high-level players than the rest of the world combined, nearly didn’t qualify for the World Cup and is at its most vulnerable point in the program’s history. The women’s U-20s were knocked out in the quarterfinals – their earliest exit ever – by Nigeria. The U-17s failed to qualify.

Yeah, there might be a problem.

2. Fire Bob Bradley

This is less about tactics or techniques than timing.

History has taught us that national coaches who hang around for a second World Cup cycle almost always fail, and of all countries, the United States should know that. Bruce Arena guided the 2002 team to the quarterfinals. He stuck around for 2006, and the Yanks didn’t win a game.

Everything that history told us would happen has happened: the team has gone stale, players lack motivation, Bradley has lost the locker room, inferior teams are beating now it. As one person close to the team put it: “The players are miserable.”

Another issue is Bradley’s son, Michael. He was a key piece of the 2010 World Cup team but clearly has lost something – a step, his composure, an edge, something. Yet he played 535 of a possible 540 minutes during the Gold Cup, and the whispers about nepotism, warranted or not, are growing.

The biggest problem, though, is what Bradley represents. He is an exponent of the very system that has delivered a roster of robots to his national team: the youth clubs, college soccer, Major League Soccer.

Having him at the top sends the message that the status quo is acceptable.

3. Hire a foreign national coach

Then tell him there’s no need to find a house in the States. Let him live in London, or Berlin, or Amsterdam, or some quaint European town with a train station.

This accomplishes two things. It brings a fresh, cosmopolitan perspective to a moldy product, and it positions him to place the most promising U.S. players with European clubs.

Because let’s face it. The best American players are based – and have blossomed – in the caldron of European soccer. MLS may one day be a fertile ground for developing and maintaining national-team talent, but it’s not right now. Over six Gold Cup games, just 15 percent of the U.S. minutes came from MLS players (and that includes the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Landon Donovan, who should still be playing in Europe).

This has been done before, basing a non-European country’s national team in Europe. Dutch coach Guus Hiddink did it with Australia for the 2006 World Cup. African countries do it all the time. And imagine how much more productive training camps would be if players didn’t have to fly back and forth across the Atlantic.

4. Reinvent youth soccer

Assemble an international, and fully independent, committee to examine a dysfunctional youth development system and then provide it with sweeping powers to implement change -- not just issue mindless directives that merely perpetuate the problem.

The obsession with winning under-10 State Cups needs to be de-emphasized, along with the influence of parents and the premium placed on raw athleticism at the expense of technical skill. Youth teams are grouped strictly by age level, which gives those who mature early an inordinate advantage and leaves behind the late bloomer, no matter how good he or she is with the ball.

You have to wonder: Would Argentina’s Lionel Messi, a skinny tyke for most of his youth, have been passed over in America?

5. Tweak the college game

NCAA rules severely restrict practice and playing time for college teams, while kids everywhere else in the world are already on pro clubs that play year-round.

And what about eliminating college soccer’s idiotic multiple substitution rule? It creates a hectic, crazed, high-octane mess of kick ball – again, at the expense of technical skill – and players never learn how to properly manage the game and their aerobic resources like they would with the international three-sub limit.

That carries over to MLS, which consists largely of former college players who know only way to play: fast, furious, frenetic.

6. Embrace a soccer culture

It is the great equalizer, and the reason a country with the population of San Diego County (Slovenia) can tie a nation of 313 million in the World Cup.

Kids everywhere else grow up living, breathing, dreaming soccer. Here, kids in the suburbs go to regimented practice twice a week, play a game in front of screaming parents on the weekend and that’s it. No soccer on TV. No pickup games on the neighborhood vacant lot, honing their skills on a bumpy dirt field while dribbling around cinder blocks and tree roots.

Just trying stuff, without an overbearing coach in sight.

There are basically two choices here. Either suburban kids put down their Xboxes and start playing street soccer (probably not happening anytime soon), or U.S. Soccer embraces the ethnic communities that do.

It’s no coincidence that the most promising player on the under-17 national team, the most creative, the most inventive, is midfielder Alejandro Guido.

Who grew up in Tijuana and Chula Vista.

US, Can We Re-Build Now?

Found this article on line written by Bill Barnwell… it pretty much sums up my thought on the USMNT… it is time to re-build and it starts with a new coaching staff and getting the youth the necessary experience to compete. Let Edu, Adu, and M. Bradley lead the way. I am fed up with a Donovan who consistently avoids taking players on, if he is truly our best player he would be taking on defenders and wearing them down. Instead, he opts to pass the ball back and never sees that the 1-2 is on. The US is too one dimensional and easy to defend, just ask everyone we played in the Gold Cup. There was not a single team, until we played Mexico, we should have struggled with. And one last point before I give way to Bill, Bornstein is our worst player, but Bradley constantly goes to him, if that is not proof enough that he does not have what it takes to take the team to the next level I don’t what does.  

Losing 4-2 to Mexico in the Gold Cup final was the best thing that could have happened to the United States men's national soccer team. It's time for the USMNT and its fans to grow up and realize that progress

is not measured by narrow victories over Central American countries or avoiding embarrassment at the

World Cup. The solution to what's wrong with the team is bigger than putting Jonathan Bornstein on a slow

boat to Honduras. It's even bigger

than firing Bob Bradley.

What should the goal of the national team be? Should it be to win as many games as possible? To defend the country's honor and foster a sense of civic pride? To get Landon Donovan on late-night talk shows? The goal of the USMNT should be very simple: To win a World Cup. Every single decision Bob Bradley and U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati make should be considered with that idea in mind. Instead, the minds in charge of the USMNT have consistently employed a strategy based around quick fixes and short-term victories.

If the United States had beaten Mexico and won the Gold Cup, that mentality would have been rewarded. It was plain to see on Saturday night that the American team was making superheroes of Giovanni dos Santos and Andres Guardado. The USMNT was overmatched on Friday, but the team's deficiencies stretch far beyond Saturday's results and have bearings on the future of U.S. soccer.

In naming his roster and setting his starting lineup, Bradley blooded two relatively new 29-year-olds into the side, center back Clarence Goodson and midfielder Jermaine Jones. Goodson had 18 caps before this tournament; if he was really a player of international quality, he would have shown it before now. Jones is unquestionably talented, but he's a German transplant who's never played with any other members of the national team at any level. Talent trumps chemistry, but by the time Brazil 2014 rolls around, Goodson will be 33 and Jones will be 32. By then, they will be past-their-prime question marks, not lynchpins of a great team.

Bradley's decision to include Carlos Bocanegra and Steve Cherundolo as regular starters was also questionable. Both Bocanegra and Cherundolo will be 35 by the time the next World Cup rolls around. Only one defender older than 35 started all of his team's games at the World Cup in South Africa, and that was 2006 FIFA Player of the Year Fabio Cannavaro. Neither Bocanegra nor Cherundolo are anywhere near as talented as Cannavaro, and as we saw with Cherundolo on Saturday night, older players are at a higher risk of getting injured after a full season of club football in Europe.

Meanwhile, the core of what will likely be the 2014 World Cup team sits on the bench. Twenty-four-year-old center back Tim Ream is the next great American export to Europe, capable of turning defense into attack in a moment with his potentially brilliant distribution from the back. After Ream gave away a penalty in the Panama match, Bradley benched him for the rest of the tournament, even turning to Bornstein ahead of Ream in the final. Ream's partner in central defense will likely be mammoth L.A. Galaxy defender Omar Gonzalez, 22, but Bradley called up Goodson instead of Gonzalez for the Gold Cup. Jones played ahead of Maurice Edu, who was a regular contributor to Scottish power Rangers this past season at the age of 25. Those are players who will be peaking when 2014 comes around, but they need the experience of playing competitive international football together now to be ready for Brazil. That experience doesn't come from sitting on the bench.

Bradley the elder has brought in some youth, but only grudgingly. After Bocanegra took Ream's spot halfway through the Gold Cup, 22-year-old Eric Lichaj moved into the lineup at left back. He looked bad when he was moved to right back against Mexico on Saturday night, but those are the growing pains should be tolerated at this early stage. Bradley started the tournament with Jozy Altidore and 18-year-old Juan Agudelo at striker, but replaced Agudelo after two games with once-capped 28-year-old Chris Wondolowski, who, during the Panama match, miraculously punted the ball over the crossbar from three yards out. In the final, Bradley opted for a 4-6-0 alignment, with Landon Donovan and Freddy Adu as the players furthest forward. Adu was arguably the team's best player. Bradley needs to give Adu a few matches in a row to prove his worth, not pull him out of mothballs every two years like an old toy.

You might excuse Bradley's decisions if this was an isolated incident, but he's consistently struggled to keep the big picture in place as team manager. Back in the 2007 Gold Cup final, the U.S. roster included Pablo Mastroeni, DaMarcus Beasley, and Brian Ching. None of those players made the World Cup squad. Bradley ran out older nonentities such as Eddie Lewis and John Thorrington in early World Cup qualifiers before narrowing down the player pool, but he never found a midfielder to work alongside his son Michael. This roster instability ultimately ended up tanking the team's chances in South Africa. Bradley started with Ricardo Clark against England, benched him after one game, and then went back to Clark for the Ghana match. Clark promptly gave the ball away for the first Ghanaian goal and was subbed out for tactical reasons after 31 minutes. You don't find a midfield partnership in the World Cup. You can find it in the Confederations Cup, but Bradley started seven different midfielders in five games there, too. The best place to forge a national team partnership is in the World Cup qualifiers and the friendlies and international tournaments that precede them. That includes the Gold Cup.

There would have been no shame in losing to Mexico with a young, developing team that could take the experience into the World Cup qualifying phase next year. Instead, Bradley clearly believed that he could win the Gold Cup with another run from his team of veterans.

The fact that he failed at both is a catastrophe for the current USMNT and its future. Let's hope, though, this humiliating and counter-productive loss to Mexico will finally be the wake-up call U.S. Soccer has needed for years.

US vs Panama

I don’t know about you, but Adu’s performance last night was inspiring. He was the only one with the speed and creativity to give Panama trouble. At 22 years of age Adu he is still very young, it looks like he finally is starting to make an impact in his career and hopefully will be a part of the USMNT more often. I cannot wait till Adu and the young players become our regulars, I am so sick of players like Donovan and Bocanegra. Don’t get me wrong, these players have done a lot for US Soccer and are very good at what they do. But Donovan hardly ever runs at players with success anymore and is more likely to look to pass the ball off then to run it down the flank and try to get by a defender. You see players like Agudelo, Adu, Bunbury, Mix, Cruz (I like this player and think he will make an appearance for the Men’s team soon), and a lot of the younger players coming up through the US system with more confidence on the ball and willing to take on defenders and combine creatively to break down the defense. The US right now are to one dimensional and do not possess the creativity to break down the center of an organized defense with some 1-2 passing and moving. Watching the game last night was frustrating, you do not see the ball moving fast enough and you never see a 1-2 pass that penetrates the center of the defense. Everyone was standing around waiting for the cross, Agudelo was the only one willing to run and he had no help. Again, cannot wait for the old guard to fade away and the new to come into the mix.

here is a line-up I want to see in the future – and when they all come of age and have the necessary experience it just might happen

                                                              Guzan / Johnson / Hamid

Chandler/Lichaj/Alston    Reem/Gonzalez/Agbossoumonde   Opara/Kitchen    Wallace/Loyd/Sarkodie/Ashe

                        Cruz / Gyau / Gatt                       Holden / Edu                    Bradley / Mix / Lletget                  Okugo / Adu                           Shea / Molano / Gil

              Jerome / Bruin / Bunbury / Agudelo / Altidore / Salgado / Ruelas / Wood / McInerney / Rowe

I know there is a lot of guys here, but when all these players have the experience it is going to be a fun team to watch! And there are some that I have left off this list like; Zahavi, Doyle, Huerzeler etc. some of these guys have not made a decision on whether or not they are going to play for the US or another country so we will just have to wait and see.
Below is an article I pulled from mlssoccer.com about Adu’s performance last night…  enjoy.
HOUSTON — After a near two-year absence from the US national team, Freddy Adu made a shocking second-half substitute appearance Wednesday night against Panama at Reliant Stadium.
And arguably the most talked-about American player ever delivered in the most improbable way.
With his team needing energy, head coach Bob Bradley chose to insert Adu into a game that was starting to slip out of the US’ control.
“Bob said, ‘Go in the game, bring a lot of energy and make a difference,’” Adu said after the 1-0 win that saw the US advance to Saturday’s Gold Cup final. “That was my instructions and I tried to apply that.”
Adu’s impact was felt immediately with his creativity, passing and ability to find space behind a tiring Panama back line. His crowning moment came on a sublime outlet pass from the middle of the field that set fellow second-half sub Landon Donovan up to deliver the game-winning assist.
The playmaker finished the game with a few more positive sequences, holding the ball well to help kill off a semifinal victory. From the postgame comments, his performance caught the eye of his teammates and coach, but for Adu, it was a signal of a change in mentality.
“He didn’t start this camp well,” Bradley said of his young attacker. “There were days early on where he gained in confidence but there were days where it didn’t go so well. But over time, he started to get better and better. He came in with a good mentality and he’s matured along the way and he earned a good opportunity.”
That hard work and maturity paid off with Adu’s standout performance Wednesday. His play and composure show signs that the ballyhooed youngster is starting to turn the corner.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen, but mentally you always have to be prepared,” Adu said. “It’s been a long road back to playing with the national team again, and you really have to be prepared when you get that chance to be out on the field. This is where you want to be, representing your country at this level, which is where you want to play at.”

US vs. Guadeloupe

Last night when I got home from training my boys showered and ate, all I wanted to do was watch the US whoop up on Guadeloupe. Unfortunately this was one of the worst US performances I have ever watched, even worse than the game against Panama. If the US continue to play this way we will be knocked out of the tournament by Jamaica, and the Reggae Boys will make it look easy.

Things that I think the US need to change:

Jozy Altidore might have a boat load of potential, but he is not there yet. Yeah he has scored two great goals, but then he disappears for the rest of the game. The guy is one of the laziest players on the team, he consistently loses procession for the US because he either makes the wrong run or he does not go to the ball. Hello, defenders go to the ball, so should you! I would have taken him out of the game and put in Agudelo, at least he hustles and puts in the effort.

Clint Dempsey might be the best player the US has, but he too is lazy and thinks he is god. You are not god and you need to get the damn ball off of your foot! I cannot believe the sitters he missed last night, hopefully it is out of his system and he can move on to scoring great goals again. I would have subbed him off the second I saw him miss that tap in, set a standard for crying out loud!

It is time for Bob Bradley to go, he has played his part and done a good job with the team to this point, but his set-up is old and it is time for some fresh blood. When you have a team with this amount of talent and you cannot score goals there is a problem, and sorry to say that it is normally the coach’s fault. Bradley relies too much on the long ball and the US offense is too predictable. All they do is try to either have their forwards make that diagonal run into the corner to get a cross or out wide to the defender making the overlap. Everything they do is to the outside, all teams have to do is clog the middle. Panama clogged the middle and then countered on us and ended up winning, Guadeloupe did the same thing last night and the US struggled to get any open shots in front of goal (besides the shot from Altidore and Dempsey, which were taken from over 20 yards out). The US needs to vary their attack, work the give and go thru the middle with the late 3^rd man run, get the ball out wide for a cross, get the defense on their toes and don’t make it so one dimensional. I know they are trying to transition to a new system, but it still looks stagnant and one dimensional.

Here are some highlights...

US vs. Canada

US vs. Canada

So I was somewhat disappointed with the formation that Bradley chose to go with last night, he diverted back to the 4-4-2. I was hoping to see the 4-2-1-3 or a variation on this, but I know that the team has not been performing well in this formation and need more time to get used to it. Maybe against the other two teams in the group he will feel more comfortable with experimenting, but I could see him sticking with what works throughout the tournament and then getting back to the 4-2-1-3 later.

The US performed well and dominated the first 20 minutes of the game and got a goal for their efforts, it was nice to see the amount of procession that the US had. Canada is no Spain, but they are an athletic side that knows how to move the ball and create opportunities. They are also an arch rival of the US, and that makes this game an important one.

I hope that we get to see Freddy Adu sometime in the group stage; all I have seen are some highlights of him in Turkey and would like to see him play a full game. He must be playing pretty well to have Bradley call him in for this tournament. We will probably see a similar line-up against Panama, maybe Edu will come in for Jones because he came off with a little bit of an injury against Canada, but when they play Guadeloupe I would expect Bradley to change some things. You might see something like this….

                                                                      Rimando

                           Lichaj            Ream                        Onyewu                Bornstein

         

                        Rogers             Edu                      Bradley                 Kljestan

                                                Adu                  Agudelo          

But you will only see something like this if the US beat Panama and Bradley wants to rest his starters. I could see Spector starting in the place of Ream and moving Kljestan into the middle for Bradley and and Adu out to the wing to make way from Wondolowski, but that would mean a line-up void of any of the starters from the Canada game.

Do you think that Bradley would do something like this in the Gold Cup? He did last year, and if they beat Panama and have a lock on first in the group, this line-up would not surprise me at all.

Here are some highlights from the game…