National Identity

There has been much discussion by columnists and commentators in the last month or so about the emerging character of US soccer as demonstrated by our national teams. This has, of course, been brought about by the recent WC qualifiers and the Youth World Cup tournament which have given us a chance to see and speculate on both the near and long term future of American soccer and how we stack up versus the best in the world. Here are a few random observations from what I've seen:

1) Physical superiority - of the teams that I've seen, we seem to possess the best combination of speed, height, endurance and agility. Outside of endurance, we probably aren't the best in the world at any of the above but we seem to have more 6'+ athletes with good agility and nice speed where England, Germany or Italy will generally either have a short guy with agility and speed or a slower tall guy. Apparently, its good to have a huge population and the best athletic training infrastructure in the World.

2) Few "playmakers" - outside of Freddie Adu at the U20 level, there aren't really any American field players who create that moment of brilliance on the offensive end that will turn a game. We're really dependent on teamwork for that sort of thing most of the time. Beasley, Johnson and Donovan are a potent trio but you really don't get that same feeling of "something good is going to happen" that you do when Wayne Rooney is on the ball for England, Ronaldihno is on the ball for Brazil or Arjen Robben is on it for Holland (I'd love to throw in an Henry reference here but no one really gets worried when he has the ball in a France uniform). Granted, there are a lot of countries that lack this ingredient - like Germany, France, Mexico, and Columbia in the world top 10 - but if we're going to seriously challenge for a World Cup we need to have that. Fortunately, Friedel, Keller and Howard all fit the bill in net and there are probably more on the way.

3) Total Offense - We aren't quite to the level of the Clockwork Orange of yesteryear but our offensive formations seem to be morphing (both at the u20 and senior levels) into a very fluid thing. Watching Donovan and Beasley interchange around McBride rather than conform to traditional wing roles seems to cause problems in the same way Chelsea interchanges Duff and Robben when they're healthy. Markers tend to get caught up either following their man and getting out of position or missing a zone assignment as the opposite wing comes across into their territory. Its also good for a change of pace after a defender has gotten used to the person they've been marking for a while. This seems to be mirrorred at the u20 level with Freddie Adu working all over the field and pushing Chad Barrett into different positions as he does so.

4) All Out Attack - Given a general speed advantage, its nice to see that in most situations we are developing the confidence to attack on a consistent basis. This needs to continue as the competition gets more difficult.

5) Lack of Technical Skill - Its getting better but there are still way too many bad crosses and flubbed shots from distance. I was shocked to see Feilhaber's shot from 25 yards - a staple from central midfielders like Scholes and Lampard in the Prem and seemingly the birthright of every German. We need more people on the team who can threaten from distance. Forcing defenses to come out further to defend us closely will open things up for us to exploit our speed. Ditto with the crosses, better crossing of the ball which will force defenders further out on the sides.