USA-El Salvador Aftermath

Thursday, February 25, 2010 | View Comments
USA VS EL SALVADOR

The American MLS All-Stars finished their mini-tour last night with a last-gasp win over El Salvador in Tampa.


Few, if any, of the Americans truly distinguished themselves; though the US dominated the game, putting the ball in the net was a major issue. Too many clear chances were missed, with Sacha Kljestan being the biggest offender. Sacha finally got his goal, of course, putting the US ahead for the win in added time.

“Overall, there were some good efforts and we saw some very positive things on the field tonight,” said U.S. Men’s National Team head coach Bob Bradley. “We went down but continued to push to get a win, and when you can come away with a result from a good play at the end that’s very positive.”

The real business of preparing for the World Cup begins now. Bradley will give us a glimpse of what the tournament team might look like, save a few omissions due to injury, when a mostly Europe-based team takes on a real challenge next Wednesday. Lucky for us, we won't have to wait long to find out who will be there; US Soccer is set to release the roster sometime today (per Grant Wahl and other sources).


There are a number of players who are either finally healthy or just on the edge of the squad who are based in Europe and might be in Bradley's team. Edu. Beasley. Bedoya. Eddie Johnson. Fred-....just kidding.


General consensus is that Brian Ching, Clarence Goodson, and Heath Pearce did the most to help their cases in last night's game. All three would seem locks for the Netherlands match roster, so they may have another chance to up their stock. More interesting than the carryovers will be those dropped; will Chad Marshall, who didn't play against El Salvador, be included? What about Robbie Rogers, whose performance was almost comically atrocious?


Bradley on Ching:

“Brian has just been in this camp. Brian had a little bit of an injury at the end of the season last year. We talked with him, we talked with Dominic Kinnear, we agreed that January he would work on his own, he would do strengthening, and we would get him into camp in February. I think in this camp, it’s like a preseason. He starts and the first few days, you can see it’s a little bit slow. But Brian has qualities on the field in terms of putting himself in good positions, holding balls, bringing guys into the game. He’s a player that works hard for the team. He puts himself in good positions. I think often he makes players around him better because of the type of honest, dirty work that he does. I thought that was clearly the case in the second half. Had some chances, the goalkeeper made some great saves, but he got himself a goal, and I thought he had a good presence."

I have trouble buying into the theory that one game can decide a competition, though if you choose to view last night as a "Ching v. Casey" showdown, Ching clearly came out on top. Club form will also matter, and while I don't think Casey can do enough for Colorado to set him apart from Ching, or that Ching will play poorly enough with Houston to fall beyond Casey, the opening part of the MLS season* will play a part.


And let's not forget that injuries can happen at any time.


Bradley on the roster for the Netherlands:

“It’s important to say that decisions for Holland involve many different factors. In some cases we might have an idea that we want to see another guy play, so not bringing in a player isn’t necessarily a statement that he has for some reason dropped down a little bit, just that we have two opportunities, this week and the next game to see some guys and we also recognize that we’ve had a number of these players away from their club teams a good amount in January, in the case of a guy like Clarence Goodson, because his team in Norway had actually started doing stuff. MLS guys, it’s just been this last stretch but we factor all those things in.”

Say what?


As important as these two "B" friendlies over the last month have been to Bob Bradley and the process of filling out his World Cup roster, things get kicked into a higher gear, and very quickly, for next week.


It won't be the full first-choice team, as it will be without Dempsey, Onyewu, Feilhaber, and Cherundolo (am I missing anyone?), but will certainly provide a better picture of where things stand just over three months (!) ahead of the World Cup.


Who would you like to see called in for the match against the Netherlands next week?
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