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Stranger in a familiar place Crashing yet another friendly viewingPosted: Thursday February 13, 2003 1:32 PM
It's not often that I visit a complete stranger's house at 11:30 on a weeknight. But Wednesday's U.S.-Jamaica game was being shown tape-delayed on Telemundo, which we don't get at Chez Wahl, so I did what any right-thinking person would do: I finagled an invite to a private household owned by somebody I had never met before. To be precise, I posted a frantic request on BigSoccer.com, and 15 minutes later I had my plans set for the evening. You might recall that I tried this once before in East St. Paul, Minn., two years ago for the U.S.-Honduras World Cup qualifier. And, just as I did on that glorious night, I had an excellent experience with my gracious hosts. Many thanks to Seattleites Peter Stutheit, Tim Mahoney and Lorraine Sandiforth for proving once again that U.S. soccer fans are the most welcoming folks around. Here are three things we learned from the U.S.'s 2-1 win in Kingston: 1. Carlos Bocanegra needs to be on the field. Even with a full team, "Black Mouth" should be a no-brainer in the starting XI. The question is whether he's better at left back (where he had a goal and assist against Jamaica) or at center back (where he was solid against Argentina). Right now I'd lean -- barely -- toward center back, just because I think he's a rock and will work well with Eddie Pope, but it's nice for Bruce Arena to have the flexibility of putting Bocanegra at either spot. 2. Chris Armas or Pablo Mastroeni? The battle for holding midfielder will be among the team's tightest over the next three years, and both players have proved capable at the international level. We're splitting hairs here, but if Armas comes back healthy I think he'll have a tiny edge over Mastroeni, who strikes me as just a half-step slower to the ball on defense. On offense, though, it's a dead heat. 3. Clint Mathis needs to break out. Both Mathis and his coach may feel he is ready for a big year (see below), but there's something missing from his game of late. Much of it has to do with his unwillingness to take on defenders off the dribble. It may yet come, however, and Mathis is clearly not the only talented Yank suffering from the same problem. (See Beasley, DaMarcus.)
The curious Confederations CupAs the spouse of a French dual citizen, I'll refrain from taking any pot shots at our Gallic friends across the Atlantic, but the Confederations Cup draw in Paris on Wednesday was more than a little dubious. The gist: France gets the easiest possible path to the final, which should make the home folks proud (and boost FIFA's coffers with gate receipts in the process). The U.S.'s group for the tournament that begins on June 18 includes reigning world champion Brazil, World Cup semfinalist Turkey and Olympic champ Cameroon. Meanwhile, France drew (drum roll, please) Colombia, Japan and New Zealand. The results mystified at least one official in the U.S. Soccer Federation, who told me that the rules given to the USSF before the draw stated explicitly that the U.S. and Cameroon would be thrown into the same pot and could not be drawn into the same group. (Colombia had already been paired with France and Turkey with Brazil beforehand to prevent teams in the same confederation from meeting in the opening round.) What's more, the U.S. will have to play three games in five days between June 19 and 23, proving that FIFA hasn't learned anything from the scheduling fiasco at the last Confed Cup in 1999. One saving grace: The U.S. will have a chance to exorcise the ghosts at Lyon's Stade Gerland, site of the infamous World Cup '98 loss to Iran.
Sing it: Lanny, Cleetus and The BruceSoccer-starved readers will no doubt be happy to see a story in this week's SI on the divergent appeals of Landon Donovan and Mathis, the two most popular goal-scorers in the American men's game. But given the haiku-length demands of a 600-word article, I had plenty of good stuff left over for you hardcores that doesn't appear in the mag. For starters, my theory is that if a soccer fan buys a U.S. jersey over the next few years, chances are that the name MATHIS or DONOVAN will be on the back. Yet the two have remarkably different M.O.'s, with Donovan as the boy-band leader and Mathis as a sort of motorcycle gang member who's always living on the edge. I sat down with both of them (and Arena) in South Florida last week and came away with some distinct impressions:
On the field, however, Donovan is still adjusting to the increased attention. Against Argentina, he went out of his way to mix it up with defenders who had brought him down. "If you just sit around and let them do that to you, they're gonna do it," he told me on Saturday. "If you get in their face and let them know you're not going to take that crap, they might slow down."
As Mathis is quick to note, this is the last year of his MLS contract. "I need to stay focused," he says. "I got a little unfocused after the World Cup going back into the MLS season. The last few years I've started off well in MLS, and I want to put myself in a good position at the end of my contract. I haven't thought a lot about where I'll be next year, but my main concern is to play good soccer, and everything will take care of itself." Of all the criticism Mathis received last year, what bothered him most, he told me, were the public nasty-grams he got from MetroStars GM Nick Sakiewicz and former coach Octavio Zambrano. "Last year I wasn't having much fun playing soccer," Mathis says. "It came to a point where I said, What am I doing this for? If it's not fun, I shouldn't be doing this at all. So I took some time, sat down and said, What do I want to do? Well, I want to play soccer. So the only thing I can do is roll with the punches. Everybody knows what I can do on the field, and if I have to re-prove that I'll do it."
Mathis on Donovan: "You look at him playing in the World Cup at 20, and you see how far U.S. soccer has come. If he keeps growing as a player he'll be on top of the world, and that will just keep pushing the younger guys to get better. We have two different personalities, which isn't a bad thing. If we had 18 Clints out here it would be a disaster. We'd be ripping each other's head off. That's what makes a good team, having those different personalities."
Reader mail
I have two questions. First, is there any chance the U.S. could go to a 3-5-2 at any point? I know they are still searching for outside backs, but I think if Arena wants to get Bobby Convey on the field, it might be as a fifth midfielder, rather than as an outside back. Alternatively, does it make more sense to move John O'Brien to left back, where he plays for Ajax, and move Convey into the middle of the field? Second, of this under-17 residency group, are there any special players (leaving Freddy Adu aside) that could force their way into a role with the Nats during the late stages of qualifying or in Germany? The '01 team has produced some good players (Santino Quaranta and Eddie Johnson), but unlike the '99 team (Donovan, Beasley and now Convey), there is no one that will likely play a big part with the Nats in the next year or two.
Second question first: Of the under-17 members who could draw a look from Arena (besides Adu, who scored two goals in a 2-1 win over the Chicago Fire on Wednesday), keep an eye on Eddie Gaven, Memo Gonzalez and Corey Ashe. As for Arena possibly going to a 3-5-2, that's exactly what he did during the final two games of the World Cup, so of course it could happen. As Arena told me last week, "You play your best players. Sometimes there aren't enough positions for your best players. You may be stacked at certain positions or have an extra player who doesn't have the versatility to play elsewhere. So you're caught there. But if a left-sided midfielder can possibly play left back like Bobby Convey, give it a shot. You just try to get your best players on the field." The main thing Arena needs is enough games to find out if Convey can handle the pressure in the middle (he was decent but hardly spectacular in that spot against Jamaica). The main thing is to have options, and Arena is clearly developing those right now. Who knows? You could see Claudio Reyna and O'Brien as your outside backs in 2006. Or you might not.
What is it that keeps the USA from playing smart, flowing soccer? Are we technically and tactically THAT bad? Sure, Argentina is very talented and will make many decent teams look inept, yet what concerned me most was not what we did when pressured, but when we DID have control.
In both the Argentina and Jamaica games, it was clear that Reyna could have calmed things down immeasurably with his healthy presence on the field. None of the U.S. central mids this week (Ben Olsen, Donovan or Convey) was capable of ironing out the wrinkles, and the result was (in many instances) unwatchable soccer. What's more, you can only hope that the rash of horrific first touches is attributed to rust from the offseason. If the U.S. tries to get away with slipshod ball control in France this June, the Yanks will pay dearly.
I applaud you for abandoning your previous ultra-national-centric approach to soccer. You managed not to insult any Latin American countries this time.
You must have the wrong guy, Juan. I'm a big fan of Latin soccer and grew to love the game while living in Argentina during the mid-1990s. I may shave my head, but that doesn't mean I'm with the National Front.
CAPS APLENTYYou may recall that I thought I was hot stuff last week when proclaiming that I now have 31 caps covering the U.S. senior men's national team. Turns out I'm nothing but a callow punk. When I brought up the subject in the Orange Bowl press box last week, the Hartford Courant's Jerry Trecker, the dean of American soccer journos, knew exactly how many caps he had. "After Jamaica it'll be 144," he told me, sending my jaw to the floor. "I checked recently to see how far I was behind Cobi Jones [who has 159]." Trecker's U.S. debut came on May 27, 1964, when England beat the U.S. 10-0 on Randall's Island near New York City. "It was the full England team that would go on to win the World Cup," Trecker recalls. "The funny thing is, the only guy who didn't play well for them was Bobby Charlton." In case you're wondering, here are some cap numbers for my fellow scribes:
Trecker (Hartford Courant) ... 144
See you next month! Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl keeps you up to date with the world of U.S. soccer each month at SI.com. To send Wahl a comment, question or story idea, click here.
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