The U.S. National Team: What Happened Yesterday?

Yesterday, through some skill, some good play, and a lot of luck, the U.S. Men’s National Team went on to the semifinals of the Confederations Cup with a pair of 3-0 wins (US over Egypt, Brazil over Italy). For anyone who’d watched the U.S. play over the last four or five games, this result was completely out of character for a team that, lately, has shown little skill or ability.

So what the hell happened yesterday? Did the U.S. get good overnight? Were we just more motivated than Egypt? Or was this a fluke? Let’s take a look after the jump.

To my mind, the Confederations Cup was merely the culminating event in a slip the U.S. has been on for about a year. In that year, the team’s been pitiful outside of the country. Going back to the second round of World Cup qualifying last June is telling; the U.S. beat Barbados 8-0 at home only to follow that up with a 1-0 win on the road. The third round wasn’t much better; that saw two 1-0 away wins to Cuba and Guatemala on the road (teams they beat 6-1 and 2-0 at home, respectively) and a 2-1 loss to Trinidad & Tobago. In the fourth round, the team’s yet to record a win away from the U.S.; so far, their two road matches in this round were a 2-2 draw with El Salvador and a 3-1 loss to Costa Rica.

Road record notwithstanding, there’ve still been tactical inconsistencies. When I saw the lineup for yesterday’s game, the first thing I checked was the formation. In my mind, one of the major downfalls of Bob Bradley’s stint has been his inability to correctly gauge the opposition and select a formation that makes sense for that game. This was most evidenced when he ran a 4-3-3 against Costa Rica; in the heat, with the speed of the game accelerated, that was a lot of pressure on the midfield to keep possession. After watching the way Costa Rica dominated the midfield, I came away with the impression that an extra midfielder could’ve helped out quite a bit there.

The other problem that arises when players are constantly switching formations is familiarity. A 4-3-3 is just different from a 4-4-2; our players need to understand what role everyone plays and where they’re all supposed to be. They’re professionals; they can do that if they’re given the time. Against Costa Rica, though, there was no time; half the team wasn’t at training camp due to European obligations. A “base” formation made the most sense in Costa Rica, which was a game on the road, in heat, with a strange pitch and players who weren’t quite used to each other yet.

Yesterday, we returned to a formation that the team was obviously much more comfortable with: the 4-2-2-2. The 4-2-2-2 is not a new formation for the U.S. The last time they ran it, in fact, the game ended with the same scoreline: the 3-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago back on April 1st was this formation with some slight personnel tweaks. The biggest change was Brian Ching, who played where Charlie Davis played; Jozy Altidore also started the April 1st game, and in fact ended up with a hat trick.

That game was supposed to be his coming out party; yesterday, though, Altidore continued with the struggles that have plagued him this entire tournament. His best play thus far was his dive in the penalty box that got the U.S. their lone goal in the Italy match. Yesterday wasn’t different; Altidore looked slow, had a poor first touch, and showed a complete inability to turn with the ball (which was complicated by the fact that his back was always to the goal). If anything, he became a decoy; known as the main U.S. striker by now, he was constantly marked.

Going constantly unmarked: Charlie Davies. Davies came into this tournament as a virtual unknown; although he was earning his seventh cap, this was his first start in actual competitive play. In fact, he’d only played 139 minutes before this, coming on mostly as a sub at the end of games the U.S. was already losing. In spite of his lack of minutes, Davies managed to score a crucial equalizer for the U.S. back in October against Trinidad and Tobago after only being on the pitch for six minutes; that equalizer would be a moot point four minutes later after the U.S. gave up a penalty kick, but it was still a remarkable achievement for a player who rarely played with the full squad.

The goal Davies scored yesterday wasn’t a cracker from distance or a header off a set piece; at best, it was the fortunate result to the second ugly goal box scrum of the game. Still, Davies was determined to score; he chased the ball down and put  himself in the position to benefit. While his record with the U.S. doesn’t show it, his club play reflects a player who is relied upon by his team to score when put in the position to do so; in his eleven appearances with Swedish club Hammarby IF this season, he’s scored six goals. Last season he scored fifteen goals in thirty appearances, so over the last two seasons he’s managing about a goal every other game; that’s not a bad strike rate. If we’re counting every ninety minutes as a game, it’s also a rate he’s continued with the U.S. national team in competitive competitions; he’s scored twice in his 175 minutes of play.

The fact that Davies is showing himself as a quality product on the field highlights the other critical problem Bob Bradley’s management tenure has had: player selection. Certain players (namely Freddy Adu and José Francisco Torres) are frozen out of the squad, while others (I’m thinking of Damarcus Beasley, Jozy Altidore, and oddly Clint Dempsey, who was anonymous before scoring against Egypt yesterday) are given free reign to be ineffective without consequence. A striker getting a goal every other game and actively playing for his club should always be given preference over a striker who made a grand total of six appearances last season, injury or no injury. Davies is more fit than Altidore. That was made most clear as he hustled to chase balls down while Jozy struggled to jog back onside, and it should count for something. For Bradley, who’s claimed Adu can’t play until he gets more time with his club, overlooking Davies this long seems like a major oversight.

There’s also a lack of creativity in the initial team selections. The U.S. talent pool is not terribly deep, but there are players in it that should at least be given the opportunity to come out once in awhile. Chad Marshall was a dominating force at center back for the Columbus Crew last season, and yet he hasn’t been called up to the national squad since 2005. Frank Simek is Sheffield Wednesday’s starting right back, is eligible for the national team, and hasn’t been called up since the 2007 Gold Cup final. Kenny Cooper trained at Manchester United and has scored forty goals in his 93 appearances for FC Dallas; that kind of strike rate could really help the national team, especially considering that he’s fit. All three of those players are 24, playing regularly for their club, and could eventually be needed on the national stage; ultimately, Bradley should start thinking about bringing them into the fold now to ease the transition.

The U.S. team is not completely unsalvageable; as we saw against Egypt, they can play well. They’ve also shown, against teams as good as Brazil and as bad as El Salvador, that they can appear disorganized and confused. Whether this is because of lack of formation consistency, lack of player selection consistency, or plain old lack of quality talent is up in the air; with U.S. Soccer unlikely to replace the manager before the World Cup, though, it’s time for the team to start taking a long hard look at why they played well against Egypt, and what can be done to replicate that success.