U.S. head coach Arena could shift winger to right side

	DaMarcus Beasley is used to playing on the right at the club level for PSV Eindhoven, but he's rarely done so for the national team. Simon Bruty/SI
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One important lesson to take from the choices made by Bruce Arena at the 2002 World Cup is this: The U.S. manager isn't afraid to try players in positions they haven't manned before for the national team.

In the '02 second round, Arena fooled Mexico by using captain Claudio Reyna, a central midfielder, as a touchline-to-touchline right winger. And against Portugal he inserted Frankie Hejduk, a natural right back, at left back for the first time.

"Last time I probably played five positions in five games," says Landon Donovan, one of four Yanks on this week's cover of Sports Illustrated. "That's the way Bruce is. You just do what you need to do that day, and as long as people understand their roles, then it's successful."

That brings us to the question du jour: Will left winger DaMarcus Beasley switch to the right side for the World Cup opener against the Czech Republic on June 12? Beasley played 90 minutes on the right in Sunday's 1-0 friendly win over Latvia in East Hartford, Conn. While Beasley regularly patrolled the right side this season for PSV Eindhoven, he told me he couldn't recall a previous occasion when he'd done so for the national team.

"It's no problem," Beasley said. "It's a little different system with our 4-4-2 [compared with PSV's 4-3-3], but it allowed me to come inside a little bit more. Stevie [Cherundolo, the right back] got a lot of room on the outside wing so he could cross the ball, and that's how we got our goal."

Beasley said all the right things about his willingness to move to the right if needed. But he was also candid when I asked him about the differences between playing on the right and left sides. "When you're on the left, you're kind of more comfortable, I guess," he admitted. "But at the same time I like to cut into my left. I'm a lefty. I don't use my right foot that often, and people know that."

Moving Beasley to the right might allow Arena to start, say, the in-form Bobby Convey on the left while making use of Beasley's excellent two-way play to help defend Czech midfielder Pavel Nedved. But it would also mean that most of the crosses on the right would come from Cherundolo moving up on the wing.

Beasley struggled on the ball during the three U.S. friendlies last week, but Donovan, for one, is convinced that his running mate is in no danger of losing his starting spot when the whistle blows on June 12.

"I don't worry about Beaz," Donovan says. "He's going to be on the field, and Bruce is going to put him where he needs him.... Wherever that may be, who knows? But Beaz is fine wherever he plays."

Through-balls

• For you history buffs, this week's SI cover (with Beasley, Donovan, Convey and Oguchi Onyewu) is the fourth time U.S. men's soccer has gotten the full-frontal treatment in the mag. The other three:

June 24, 2002: Donovan after the World Cup victory against Mexico
May 27, 2002: Clint Mathis in a World Cup preview issue
July 4, 1994: Earnie Stewart after the World Cup win over Colombia

Soccer has been on the cover 13 times in SI's 52-year history, but six of those have come since the start of 1999.

• I always laugh when I see the stock pre-World Cup story on how certain players (usually goalkeepers) are upset with the liveliness of the newly designed World Cup ball. For starters, is there anyone out there who wants to see a dead ball just so goalkeepers will be happy? Second, do you think it's any coincidence that the players doing the criticizing aren't sponsored by World Cup ball-maker Adidas? We don't either.

• I spent an inordinate amount of time recently tracking down this factoid regarding SI's four cover boys, who all played on the U.S.'s 1999 Under-17 World Cup side: No team in the '06 World Cup has as many players who've graduated to its roster from a single U-17 World Cup team as the U.S. and its class of '99 quartet. Here are the top five U-17 World Cup teams when it comes to providing players for '06 World Cup rosters:

United States, '99 (four): Beasley, Convey, Donovan, Onyewu
Costa Rica, '01 (three): Randall Azofeifa, Gabriel Badilla, Christian Bolanos
Poland, '99 (three): Pawel Brozek, Tomasz Kuszczak, Sebastian Mila
Japan, '95 (three): Junichi Inamoto, Shinji Ono, Naohiro Takahara
Australia, '89 U-16 (three): Keljko Kalac, Tony Popovic, Mark Schwarzer

• Point of clarification: Writers don't write headlines, and sometimes what appears doesn't reflect a writer's views. I bring this up because I didn't write "The Best Coach Ever?" headline that appeared on a recent column about Arena. My point in the piece was to provide new details about the successful U.S. manager. As for the phrase "Arena is deserving of the G-word" (meaning genius), my original wording was asking the question (Is Arena deserving of the G-word?), based on assertions by Donovan and Eddie Pope.

• You always see some new faces in the press box once World Cup time rolls around, and this year is the same story. Making an appearance in East Hartford: famed New Yorker scribe/O.J. sleuth Jeffrey Toobin.

• U.S. manager Arena is the longest-tenured national-team coach at the World Cup, but he doesn't appear to be the longest-serving national team coach in the world. Many thanks to reader Carl Archer of Camden, N.J., who provided a solid indication that San Marino's Giampaolo Mazza was hired in January 1998, nine months before Arena.

• U.S. superfan Drew Carey is soliciting nominations for a Yanks fight song, to which we say: It's about time. The fed's official Goals! Goals! Goals! song is an abomination. One suggestion: Bon Jovi. We don't know why it is that cheeseball rock anthems so often become rallying cries for sports teams, but we thought it was great that Livin' on a Prayer turned into George Mason's unofficial Final Four song. In doing so, Bon Jovi joined Journey's Don't Stop Believin' (the Chicago White Sox' playoff anthem) in a proud lineage of arena-rock tunes that have been adopted by teams around the world.

I'll never forget when I entered a bar in Seoul after South Korea's World Cup victory over Italy in '02 and encountered a few hundred patrons dancing on tables to It's My Life (Bon Jovi again!). And there are plenty of other examples: French soccer fans sang Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive during their '98 World Cup title run, and several European soccer teams have an unholy fascination with Tina Turner's Simply the Best. It's time for the U.S. to join the club.

• Now that we're getting this column fired up again, I'll try to answer some thoughtful reader submissions. (Just remember to keep the questions smart, and everyone will be happy!)

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