There simply aren't many concrete conclusions to draw from the USMNT's loss to Honduras on Saturday. Jimmy Conrad's early second yellow and subsequent ejection so completely changed the game that even evaluating a few select players become difficult.
If nothing else, the loss to Honduras and some of the abject performances by American "B/C" team players appears to indicate that which we all know and love to moan about; the United States doesn't have much depth.
After seeing that sentiment expressed all over the Internet following the loss, I found myself thinking about the definition of "depth". It seems a simple concept. But are the lamentations over American depth missing the point?
What is depth? Is it a quality backup option at every position? Is it a pool of five or so players in reserve who can be slotted in when necessary? Is it talent beyond the first choice twenty-three that compares favorably to the same players from other World Cup participants?
Unfortunately for the United States and Bob Bradley, the American development infrastructure has yet to produce enough talent for a strong backup to be available at every position, or for even the third and fourth choice players to be of good quality. There are few nations in the world that can boast a reserve squad of players who hold down first division club jobs in top leagues in the world, and the ones that can happen to be home to such a league. Italy, Spain, England, Germany, and perhaps one or two others rely heavily on domestically-based players and do so because they're able to; even those not good enough to break into their country's first team are standouts on the club level. Other nations traditionally among the world elite like Brazil and Argentina benefit from a singular sporting focus, long history of playing the game, and the sheer number of young players coming up when it comes to depth.
None of this is to say that the US is not seriously lacking, or should not be better, when it comes to depth. But for a nation that sits solidly on the second level in world football, well below those countries mentioned above in prestige, history, etc., the US is far from unique. When at full health (which it is admittedly not at the moment), the Unites States' first team is strong enough to do things like beat Spain and take Brazil to the wire in the Confederations Cup; when facing an injury crisis, the team becomes an uneven patchwork, a situation in which most of the World Cup field would also find themselves. How many nations headed to South Africa this year are deep enough for a rash of injuries not to critically weaken their team?
Not many.
Perhaps I'm partaking in a bit of sleight-of-hand here. For many, "depth" is an absolute; either you have quality backups and reserves or you don't, and the comparable state of other nations' own player pools is irrelevant. If depth is not relative, than the United States is absolutely lacking, no question, and the angst and hand-wringing is understandable. It's difficult to be comfortable with the state of the squad beyond the first twenty players or so when they lay an egg like they did on Saturday.
Still, simply for arguments sake, let's take a look at the potential squad for South Africa with an eye towards depth:
I'm using Max Zeger's "Bradley's Bunch" from Goal.com as the basis for the World Cup squad because it's easier than putting it together myself on a tight schedule, and Max knows his stuff and is a friend of The American Soccer Show.
Max's current twenty three man roster, if the World Cup started today:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Tim Howard, Brad Guzan, Marcus Hanhemann
DEFENDERS (8): Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Steve Cherundolo, Jonathan Spector, Jay DeMerit, Jonathan Bornstein, Edgar Castillo, Clarence Goodson
MIDFIELDERS (8): Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Ricardo Clark, Stuart Holden, Benny Feilhaber, Jose Francisco Torres, Maurice Edu, DaMarcus Beasley
FORWARDS (4): Landon Donovan*, Josmer Altidore, Brian Ching, Robbie Findley
*Striker, midfielder, whatever
I might have a few quibbles with this roster, but for the most part, it seems about right. From this roster, it's possible to create two full teams; by definition, "depth" begins with those second team choices:
Possible First team*:
FORWARDS: Altidore, Findley
MIDFIELDERS: Donovan, Bradley, Clark, Dempsey
DEFENDERS: Bornstein, Onyewu, Bocanegra, Cherundolo
GOALKEEPER: Howard
*Obviously this lineup is far from a certainty
Now a second team; keep in mind that this is an entirely new lineup without any considerations for a possible change in formation. The only player that will remain is Donovan, because though he has settled into a left-sided midfield role, he remains an option at striker. Max includes three traditional strikers plus Donovan, which means there aren't four available players to make two full squads in a 4-4-2 and have every player be exclusive to one lineup or the other:
FORWARDS: Donovan, Ching
MIDFIELDERS: Beasley, Feilhaber, Edu, Holden
DEFENDERS: Castillo, DeMerit, Goodson, Spector
GOALKEEPER: Guzan
Again, certain players in the first team could be swapped out with ones from the second team depending on tactics and opponent; the point here is to illustrate "depth" as a function of two distinct lineups, with a view of how comparable the quality of the second team players are to the first. Clearly the second team is weaker in spots and lacks experience, but there's a reason why most of them are clear second choices. Debating the strength of the first team based on the quality of certain players, and the weaknesses they create in the overall team, is a different question; focusing solely on how the lineups compare, the drop-off is noticeable but far from drastic.
The major variable that is difficult to account for is form; as with most of their competition, the US is beholden to form as a major factor in choosing a first team.
What's missing from this comparison is players whose statuses are unknown, but who would either be first team players or add depth, like Charlie Davies and Jermaine Jones. If fully healthy, those two players would bump the weaker second-teamers from the roster, and slightly increase overall depth.
Depth is necessary to cover for injury and the aforementioned issues of form, but in and of itself doesn't make a team significantly better; first-teamers are such for a reason, and while every team aims to have backups with quality as close as possible to those in front of them, few teams in the world can boast a second lineup of players close to or on par with their first choice lineup. Those that can are generally on the lower end of the quality spectrum, meaning that they don't have enough highly skilled players in the first team for the second team to represent a real dip in talent.
What Saturday's loss to Honduras indicated is that the United States is lacking quality at its third and fourth string levels; in fact, instead of giving insight about a lack of depth, it might be more accurate to say that the game illustrated the United States is deficient in developing players, though it's difficult to assess that now with so many fringe/new names in the mix.
Saturday's lineup:
FORWARDS: Cunningham, Findley
MIDFIELDERS: Rogers, Feilhaber , Beckerman, Kljestan
DEFENDERS: Bornstein, Conrad, Marshall , Wynne
GOALKEEPER: Perkins
SUBSTITUTES: Heath Pearce, Brad Davis, Dax McCarty, Conor Casey, Alejandro Bedoya, Clarence Goodson
Of the group that played on Saturday, only a handful truly have a shot at the World Cup squad, and only a few of those that do would have any chance of seeing the field in South Africa. What then, does this team or that game really say about American depth?
Depth matters, that much is certain. Whether the players that represent depth are viewed as potential first-team contributors or simply the "next wave", the development of a pool of talent says a lot about the overall quality of a national team program. The United States lacks that overall quality in many ways, even as its first choice lineup is capable of beating top-ranked teams, advancing in the World Cup, or consistently achieving regional supremacy.
But the question of "depth" is neither black/white nor properly asked without establishing context. If "depth" is a full secondary roster of twenty-three players who can compete against an equivalent team from a similarly ranked nation, then perhaps there is little to none in the US ranks. If it's simply a second line that can ably backup the first team and keep the team's loss of overall quality to a minimum, then there is at least some.
How do you define depth?
