Results Don’t Matter In January
Posted on January 24, 2012 1:26 am
I realize I’m getting tedious with this whole picking intramural blogger fight schtick, but results this time of year flat out do not matter.
At least, not in America.
At least, not in American soccer.
I went back and looked at my Twitter, and while I stand by “Jermaine Jones as captain? No, no, no! Not God bless America! God damn America!”, I did wonder exactly when I was going to put together the task force to track down the miscreants who peed in my Cheerios.
Plucky youngsters playing for love of country and love of the game taking on cynical villains, persevering until beyond the very end before grabbing a last-second glorious vindication. And without Landon Doneverton, Trey Dempsey and Sheriff Tim Howard. Add those guys, and surely we shall sweep all before us like Teddy Roosevelt building a canal. I didn’t complain the last six or seven times the US played a game like this, so why was I a bigger buzzkill than DDT?
Well, for one thing – we have seen this before. The Venezuela game was indistinguishable from a game in the Bob Bradley era. So why are we paying four times as much, again?
I realize this is the classic mistake of applying macro conclusions to micro evidence – it’s just one game, man. Well, yeah, but it was the first game where Klinsmann had a wealth of time and opportunity with the guys who will help build the core of (we hope) the 2014 World Cup team. And yeah, we didn’t have Landon and Clint and Tim and whoever else, but those guys won’t be around forever, and 2014 is both closer and farther away than you think. Closer, in that we have simply got to cobble together a reliable defense. Farther away, in that it just takes one wrong landing on the wrong leg, and all of these players will be playing a complete buttload of games before Brazil.
But Dan, the 4-3-3! Holy mother of God, the 4-3-3! Weren’t you wonderfully impressed with the 4-3-3? Imagine Landon and Dempsey as two of the three!
Great, if it happens. If those guys aren’t playing up top, or if God forbid something happens to them and they’re not on the field at all, we go right back into our painfully shallow forward pool to try to fill out three spaces to fit our new system. Maybe Brian Ching shouldn’t retire after all.
Besides – I hate Jermaine Jones. I just do. The only other guy I’d be more bummed about being a hero in a meaningless game, thereby taking playing time away from someone who could conceivably not hurt us, would be, I don’t know, Ricardo Clark or something.
I want every single one of you out there to look me straight in the monitor and say, “I certainly don’t see Jermaine Jones picking up a dangerous, damaging, campaign-crippling bonehead red card at any point in qualifying. Also, Bradley brought in Jones, not Klinsmann, so where do you get off, huh?”
Hey, Bob had to take a look at him, didn’t he? He played in the Bundesliga, was getting a lot of attention, and then he was injured for so long. Sure, call him up, see if he’s the loose cannon we’ve read about.
And he is. We put the armband on a ticking time bomb. The nightmare scenario isn’t a dirty red in the Azteca. We were probably going to drop points there anyway, and everyone else will too. The nightmare scenario is the dumbass red card in Columbus, or Kansas City, turning three points we need into one. Or less. In your heart, you know he might.
If that blind Malian imbecile had gotten the call right, Maurice Edu would be an untouchable hero in that spot. And we used to complain that Michael Bradley was too much of a head case.
And now we’re complaining that Venezuela came out dirty in a friendly. Maybe this scenario had something to do with it:
“Hey, anyone know anything about these guys?”
“Yeah, this is their captain:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBwkNQZSYhI&feature=related
“….holy CRAP! That’s their CAPTAIN?”
“Wait, isn’t Moreno our captain?”
“Right! And even WE’RE appalled!”
“Yeah, we better come out kicking if we ever want to see the beautiful rolling hills of our homeland again. Is that what we have down there? Snow-capped mountains, maybe? Wild arboreal wilderness? Anyway, let’s get out there and kick the s**t out of them, and we might live to see tomorrow.”
So I don’t care about winning right now. I want us to play good. I want pretty soccer ball sport play, not kicky bash rawr mad. Maybe I am short-term thinking this to death, but if we’re all Hollywood screenplay slow motion tearful ending against bad teams, that doesn’t bode well for what will happen against good teams.
I still stand by this – the outcry we are hearing from US fans equates to the outcry we heard from the German fans when JK took over the reins of their national team. The results weren’t going Germany’s way and they didn’t like the fact that he was bring American fitness guru’s into the German camp. In short, they didn’t like that he was bucking the status quo of German soccer. Then he ended up leading the team to third place in the World Cup. Yup, I’ll continue to be patient and let him do his thing.
*bringing in
*gurus
Being my own grammar policeman this morning.
I know you are, but what am I?
Anyhoo, Jones is dangerous and maybe not enough better than MB or other options to be worth the risk. But that’s why they pay Klinsy the (very) big bucks.
Dan:
Your blogs are always well-written, funny, and generally awesome…. but I have to disagree with you about Jones. He ran the field for the Yanks and aside from the intentional foul (resulting in a yellow) I would not call him a loose cannon. That foul was still a “good” foul… he made a sloppy pass and did what he could to prevent a breakaway doing the only thing he could from behind with zero positional advantage.
Jones has never gotten a straight red card in a game, and in his entire career only has 5 yellow reds. He is not the “loose cannon” that everyone makes him out to be.
It’s pretty obvious that sections of the US soccer establishment are building up the German-American contingent to take the fall should US soccer not achieve its supposed glorious destiny. Jones, especially, will make the perfect scapegoat. No matter what the facts are.
I’m with Dan. Jones is a terrible example. A loose cannon. A thug. A miscreant.
He should be dropped forthwith, so that the US national team is not tarnished by association.
You won’t see American Heroes like Clint Dempsey pulling that kind of…. oh wait…
Results always matter. It’s why we play the game. And I don’t know why folks are so hung up on the naturalization thing. You gain some and you lose some. We probably have Klinsman to thank for gaining more than we’re losing right now.
I LOL’d at “kicky bash rawr mad”
Very true. But that does not mean he’s not a cheap shot artist. He is certainly no angel.
I’ve been following him since his Frankfurt days and I’ve never liked his personality. But he has put in decent performances for the national team and that’s what should matter. I think US fans are prone to use disciplinary issues and intangibles like “classyness” to discredit players that they don’t like. In 2007 Ricardo Clark straight up kicked Ruiz in the face, yet I don’t remember blogs being written about how he shouldn’t be allowed onto the national team. Heck, some people even applauded him.
Examples of his being a miscreant and thug, please.
I am not saying he is a schoolboy, but he is Nigel de Jong either. Not even close. Jones does his gamesmanship crap and the odd elbow or shove, but he is not anything as you depict.
Damn this new interface…cannot edit. Meant to say he is NO Nigel de Jong.
Grammar doesn’t matter in January.
I don’t see Jones as all that bad a loose cannon. But against good opposition last year, I didn’t see that much in the way of impressive play from him, either. This is the guy who’s supposed to dash in from the Bundesliga and make like Gunter Netzer for us? I don’t object to the use of dual-citizen players. But when we go that route, I think it should be for someone who can really make a difference for us, a la Dooley or Stewart, not somebody who is just another face in our large crowd of defensive midfielders.
So you are saying that a dual citizen needs to be significantly better than “natives” to get a fair chance? It’s veiled prejudices like this that annoy me the most. I much prefer the in-your-face bigots who, as ignorant as they are, at least let their true color shine through. You on the other hand claim to be open to dual-citizens, but then turn around and impose extra requirements that they have to meet.
JJ has really improved his overall behavior and attitude since his somewhat humbling time at Blackburn (Schalke essentially saying, hey we don’t need you that bad)… I would say this though Roger, his play this season for Schalke has been pretty good, when he’s not busy getting yellow cards.
Any American player, dual-citizen or not, who plays in Europe and forces the USSF to pay for the flights back and forth and sometimes forces the U.S. national team coach to go through battles with his club coach should be expected to be worth the effort.
Those are trivial issues.
Goodly played.
Maybe so. I remember that it sounded like a big deal when Bruce Arena was fighting with Martin O’Neill over Kasey Keller’s call-ups. Whether they are or not, I wonder whether Jones is someone we should be going out of our way over. Before his injuries, he certainly sounded like someone we should, but now I wonder. Maybe my expectations concerning him were too high.
Mr. Allaway – BWHAHAHAHAHA! Nice.
Yes, but:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/player/_/id/31793/jermaine-jones?cc=5901
This year, club+country, he has 11 yellows in 21 games. Last year, it was 14 in 30.
In international soccer, it takes two to get a suspension, not seven like you’d see in a league.
Erm… sarcasm sir. Basically put, Clint Dempsey headbutted somebody recently, yet nobody would question his inclusion in a US squad.
If every footballer who did something stupid or unsavoury was automatically excluded from their national team, the World Cup would be held once a millenium.
In other words… I agree with you.
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