Be it the soccer gods conspiring against the Americans or just a bit of rough luck, the US National Team faces a two-sided problem leading up to the World Cup. Just a few hour separate us from the announcement of a camp roster that will include a few extra bodies; this means that Bob Bradley still has decisions to make, and only a month ahead of the opening game against England. Optimal, the situation is not.
Such is the state of the US player pool; due to injury and questionable fitness, uncertainty at more than a few spots is the reality of World Cup prep. In a perfect world, Bradley would have his team selected, head to Princeton with twenty-three players, and have the balance of the buildup to work out strategy, lineups, and team cohesion rather than spend time evaluating potential contributors.
Additionally, crucial players are returning to full health at just the right (or wrong, depending on your viewpoint), time, with little to no competitive minutes to their names and a layer of rust thick enough to cause serious concern among the fan base. Onyewu, Holden, Brian Ching, the inspiring Charlie Davies; none is "match fit", none has shown enough in recent weeks to be termed "ready", and none is likely to be on top of their game anytime soon. Is a few weeks of training enough to round them into form? More to the point, is it enough to round them into World Cup form?
All of this leads to a question for the fans, one tied to the amount of anxious energy we spend assessing our team's chances before a ball is ever kicked: Would we rather have a settled team of completely health players, even if they are of lesser talent than those they're replacing, than deal with the uncertainty of players returning at the last possible minute?
It's impossible to know if an on-form secondary option is better than an un-ready usual first choice (and readiness is obviously subjective). Clarence Goodson might be deserving of a start against England over Oguchi Onyewu if the latter is still not up to game speed, but we'd almost always prefer the player with the higher ceiling be in there, no matter his questionable sharpness (Onyewu and Goodson are just an illustrative example, not an attempt to reflect what Bradley would actually do). Analytically, we can see that the first choice player shouldn't be first choice if his lack of recent time negates his advantage in quality over another option. Our guts, however, and largely due to the magnitude of the World Cup stage in this case, churn with less violence when we see what we're used to. If our regular starters are healthy enough, we want them playing.
There's an analogy here somewhere, struggling to be found, to illustrate just how much a player should be downgraded when he's in a situation like Onyewu's. How many "quality points" does lack of playing time over the course of the past eight months subtract from Onyewu's overall score? Is he a five now when he was an eight before, or is it worse than that? His replacement could be a six; wouldn't that mean sitting Gooch down is the right move to make?
It's not that easy, of course, and determining which is better, the rusty stalwart or the of-lesser-caliber-but-on-form replacement is not as clear as picking the better of two from a deck of Magic the Gathering cards (if that applies, I have literally no idea). If it were so simple, we could all probably do Bob Bradley's job.
Onyewu will likely play, as will Holden in some form, because talent wins out. As fans, we'll probably feel better because some of our best players are back. It's not the known that is the problem - Onyewu is better than anyone that could replace him when's he's fully himself - but the unknown; how much will his play suffer because he was forced to sit out an entire European season?
The World Cup, with the four year wait and the international scope multiplying our usual levels of fan consternation, makes us all a little crazy. It might not be smart to rely on players who haven't kicked a ball in an actual match in months. But we want our "best" team on the field, even if some of our best have been coated by layers insidious rust obscuring the gleaming brilliance underneath. We know the brilliance is there, and we'd rather take our chances that it will reemerge in time for the world to see than take our chances with something functional, yet much less impressive. One can be polished to shine, the other isn't getting any better. We rest our hopes on that fact.
I'm working on my own level of rust here, so forgive me if this is a bit strained. Again, let me reiterate that the Onyewu/Goodson example is just an example, and not representative of any belief it could actually happen.
Let me close with a question, which I may or may not have gotten out in the piece: Would you rather have an entirely healthy and on-form side that may not be made up entirely of first choice players (say Onyewu was out for the World Cup, for example), or a team with several first choice players getting healthy just as the preparations begin (the situation we actually have)? How much of the uncertainty surrounding players who haven't played much or at all recently affect your feelings about the team as a fan?
