YanksAbroad.com: Brian West for USNT

Signed, Jeff Agoos.

Few are bigger Arena fans than me. That doesn't mean hes perfect. It also doesn't mean he is above criticism.

And, you missed the point. The point isn't WHO they advocated Bruce call-up or even who was doing the advocating but that ANYONE in the media, soccer-centric or no, advocated that ANY PLAYER (hence the above Player X) get called up.

Whether it's West or Wynne or Clark or Mapp or whoever doesn't matter.

Also, if you think "it's a website" doesn't make it media in this day and age, you haven't been paying attention to the changes in the media the past 10 years or so.

 

Sandon I agree with you in that it's great to see the media starting to do this. Regardless of who in the media is doing it the fact that anyone is doing it is great. I also like the fact that the media in this case picked an intriguing possibility.

I do have a small disagreement with your Ralston analogy. I don't think Ralston suddenly developed anything post-Korea.

Look at the Nats from when Arena started through 02 and you see that there are several players who Arena played at right wing who were better than Rawlly. However a case could be made that even then Ralston had a better touch than all of them. It's what won him the rookie of the year award in MLS in 96 IMO and his touch suddenly didn't get better in 03. What kept him back was his lack of pace and physicality and it looks like right now that's what's gonna push him back down the pecking order again. But why Ralston started to get lots of caps is because those other guys were put on the backburner after Korea. Sure, Stewart got caps since then but it's wasn't like anyone thought that he was in the running for Germany and as soon as the clock got closer to Germany and further from post-Korea, Arena started looking at what possibilities he had- and he found precious little at right wing.

I think a turning point for Ralston was when Arena publicly deemed Olsen too slow for the wing since his ankle surgeries. At this time not only did Ralston start getting more playing time but Arena started going to a box midfield more thus making the need for a true winger less.

Ralston has continued to benefit from a lack of competition. DMB isn't so good on the right; neither is LD. Dempsey is a central mid. Henderson's too old. Gaven's taking awhile to develop. Quaranta wasn't even played on the right wing until Nowak started to late last year; Hudson did play him some on the wing between injuries- but on the left.

It's almost weird how much talent the US has on the left and how little it has on the right.

In light of this it's surprising that Arena hasn't called in West. I'd love to know his reasons as I presume he's more in touch then we are. Even though above I criticized West for his poor touch, Arena did put him on the alternates list for Korea so he must have some good thoughts about him.

In light of all of this I can imagine Arena calling West in even if his touch hasn't improved much, even if- like Ralston- he hasn't improved much on the areas of his game in which he's deficient.

 

I suspect the main reason we haven't seen West is bad luck and bad timing. The one time he was to be called in 2004, he was injured. Same thing goes for early 2003. Much of the rest of the time, he has had conflicting pressures from his club, where he was a key figure last year. It would have been harder to pull him all the way out from Norway for friendlies and risk the ire of his manager. I wouldn't be surprised if Bruce didn't want to call him up for recent qualifiers due to his lack of playing time with the Nats.

What will be telling will be the last two or three qualifiers, which should be meaningless games, but will be events for which Bruce gets priority call on players. Also this winter- as I do not think Norway plays league games in the winter.

 

Although you make good points, I think it's worth pointing out that when Ralston was younger, he wasn't much of a defensive player. He was a converted forward who took a long time evolving into the fairly complete midfielder he is now ... but of course, tactical improvement like Ralston's is commonplace, unlike the technical improvement that we'd like to see from West.

Incidentally, Ralston may also have been held back by playing for the 2001 Mutiny. As Arena has said, he prefers to select players from winning teams.

 

I think you miss the point here somewhat.

Bruce Arena does not make a list ranking all the available forwards from one through ten and then pick the top four or five for his squad. And when one guy gets hurt he doesn't simply cross his name off the list and move down one.

That's the mentality of a number of BS posters, and it's simply wrong.

Rather, Arena picks his likely starters, plus a couple in case he cahnges his mind, and THEN he picks role players. Cobi Jones never makes a US side otherwise. Frankie Hejduk? Please.

If you're picking forwards for the USA simply by list, Cunningham has no chance of EVER being in the first four or five guys. Never gonna happen.

But when Arena is looking for a late-game speed insertion, a take on artist to toss at tired-legged defenders late in a game or simply somebddy to carry the ball into the corners and kill 50 or 60 seconds, there's no one you would pick above Cunny right now.

If Cunny gets picked, that's how it will happen. Half the forwards in America would have to call in sick before he starts a game. But at 75 minutes, if I'm a tired, winded defender, the last damned thing I want to see is Jeff Cunningham handing a ticket to the fourth official and giving his hammies a final stretch.