So... it's taken me a couple days to get over the loss. That stings to be sure. But Ghana played a better game and deserved to win. We didn't get our asses kicked, but we did get beat. That's the way it goes. I have way too much to say about the US team for one post, so I'll keep tonight's comments to one simple topic: Bob Bradley.
Considering how little the guy says, Bob Bradley is a fairly polarizing figure among US fans. No one, not even US Soccer, had him as their first choice to be coach after Arena got the boot. But here he is nonetheless.
Some criticisms are easy: He gave too many chances to guys who didn't earn it (i.e. Sacha Klejstan); he played too many of the same guys over and over again when he had better options (i.e. starting Ricardo Clark over Maurice Edu); he didn't give our creative attackers enough opportunity (i.e. Jose Francisco Torres).
Others are probably not his fault: He took a B Team to Copa America and flopped; he took a B Team to Gold Cup and got spanked in the final. Truth is, the federation and clubs heavily influence who plays when and where. If it was up to Bradley, I'm sure he'd want his best players all the time.
But here is some hard-to-refute evidence in his favor: He coached the US to the top of CONCACAF qualifying; he took a raggity-ass B Team to the Gold Cup Final; he took the US to its first ever major international cup final at the Confed Cup; he is the first US coach to win the group at the World Cup since 1930.
In my opinion, Bob knows how to win and how to coach in tournaments. In 2006, Bruce Arena didn't make changes and adjustments even as games were getting away from him. When the US needed a spark or a set of fresh legs, Bradley consistently brought the right guys in off the bench to positive effect. Injuries forced him into hard choices, but he made those choices and won the group.
I wanted to beat Ghana as much as anyone, but as is so often the case, one play can make all the difference. If we take a good, honest look at the US men's national team, can we really say that we're player for player much better than Ghana? We're probably on par with them, which I'd gladly take because they're not an elite team, but they're pretty damn good. By that analysis, the team didn't under-perform.
Unless the federation has someone else in mind, someone who is a proven national team coach, I can't see any wisdom in a coaching shake up. I guess what I'm saying is, barring something unforeseen... FOUR MORE YEARS!
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[Soccer] comes from Latin America, and first we have to get into this term, the Hispanics. That would indicate Spanish language, and yes, these people in Latin America speak Spanish. That is because conquistadores who came over from Spain—you know, tall Caucasians, not very many of them—conquered the Indians, and the Indians adopted the language of their conquerors. But what we call Hispanics now really are South American Indians. And this game, I think, originated with the South American Indians, and instead of a ball they used to use the head, the decapitated head, of an enemy warrior.
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