Bradley's Copa America Squad

Goalkeepers:
Brad Guzan, Kasey Keller

Defenders:
Jonathan Bornstein, Bobby Boswell, Danny Califf,
Jimmy Conrad, Jay DeMerit, Drew Moor,
Heath Pierce, Marvell Wynne

Midfielders:
Kyle Beckerman, Ricardo Clark, Benny Feilhaber, Eddie Gaven,
Sacha Kljestan, Justin Mapp, Lee Nguyen, Ben Olsen

Forwards:
Charlie Davies, Herculez Gomez, Eddie Johnson, Taylor Twellman

Ladies and gentleman, your Gold Cup ros…no wait…I mean, here’s your US Cup…no...um…really? Copa America? This is his line-up for Copa America? Does he know that we play Argentina, not Antigua? Is it April Fool’s Day?

A line-up like this would have made perfect sense for the Gold Cup. The Gold Cup is where you try out young unknowns like Drew Moor and Herculez Gomez against the inferior competition of CONCACAF. In the Gold Cup, we knew that our only real competition would be Mexico, yet our line-up featured some of our best available players: Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, DaMarcus Beasley, Tim Howard, Carlos Bocanegra. And, to be honest, that superior line-up hasn’t been playing all that well under Bradley’s direction (despite his spotless record).

“Copa America is going to be a great opportunity for our younger players to gain invaluable experience at the highest international level,” Bradley told ussoccer.com. “Playing two major tournaments back-to-back is both a privilege and a difficult challenge in terms of putting together rosters, and this is something we’ve known all along. This group has many of the faces that could play a role in 2008 and 2009 when our focus turns to our ultimate goal of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.”

So, you do it backwards? WTF? We are not going to have to worry about Guadeloupe in 2010. But we might have to face Argentina or Brazil. CONCACAF tournaments are the best place to test the young, uncapped players (or the USA C-team), and if they perform well enough, as is the case with DeMerit and Feilhaber, they get invites to the bigger dances.

That is not to say that there aren’t any names on this list that deserve a shot. Wynne, Beckerman, Davies, hell, I’ll even through Guzan on that list, although I think Bradley showed too much love to his former team, but when your most experienced player, after Kasey Keller, is Ben Olsen, you are throwing out the baby, the bath water and the tub. Of course, Brazil and Argentina will not be bringing their A-teams either, but we are not Brazil or Argentina, where kids play soccer in the womb. The development of our players has increased dramatically, but the reality is that soccer is not a tier 1 sport in this country (no matter how much I want to delude myself and others). So, my point is why not test our “best” against real competition, rather than run out a group of young, inexperienced and untested players like lambs to the slaughter.

I’m not saying that this group will get embarrassed because there is some talent here, but not enough to really make a run in a high-profile tournament like this. I mean, raise your hand if you think Eddie Gaven should be on this team. Ok, Mrs. Gaven, you can put your hand down. Many of these players have only an outside shot at making their way onto the US team for World Cup qualification. Plus, most of our real talented young players were already called up for the U-20 World Cup staring June 30.

The bottom line is, while I’m excited to see some these unknowns play – Moor, Nguyen, Davies, etc. – Bradley seems to be setting up our possible future for certain failure.

TYH

ussoccer.com's article
Arena had DC,
Bradley has Chivas