I see so many posters talking about some of our team's players being too old. Well Eddie Pope is two years younger than some of the Czech players and stars that whipped our butts yesterday. It shows age is not a huge issue, but skill can make up for it. Young and fast does not necessarily make a great soccer player. Guys like Pope that are the best defenders we ever had may be around for 2010 too. Not to mention Reyna who played better than everyone else on our team yesterday. I just hope people saw this and we won't have to see this argument for the next cycle. It is more about skills than age and speed.
Here's a little tidbit from BBC. The US actually fielded an older team than CR. So why the heck is everyone talking about CR being old? "With an average age of 29 years and 49 days, the US fielded their oldest ever line-up in a World Cup match. The Czech starting line-up was also the oldest ever (including Czechoslovakia) with an average age of 28 years and 335 days. Jan Koller became the second oldest World Cup scorer for the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia at 33 years and 74 days. The record holder is Antonin Panenka (33 years and 204 days in 1982)."
Was wondering when somebody might bring up that tiny little point. Yesterday, Mr. Arena fielded the single oldest lineup that will be seen at this World Cup. What makes this really strange is our national self-perception that the quality of our soccer is rapidly improving, thus the ongoing threads about how our '06 Cup squad is better than '02, and let's look at the '98 guys and laugh, etc. If this is true then logically we should have among the very youngest of World Cup teams, not the very oldest. But there is a whole lot of bullshit with our self perception, that is the sad reality.
Age is an important issue in the WC but I think this thread is missing a few things. First, it would be more useful to look at the numbers without a goalie. Having a 36-year old goalie boosts our average age numbers but is not really a problem. Second, age is more of an issue over the course of a tournament rather than game one. I don't think losing to the Czechs was an age issue. They are simply more skillful (and older to boot when excluding the goalies). But there is room for concern that we have produced relatively few young players in the past cycle. Some of it is injuries--to guys like Gibbs, Spector, Clark, Mapp, Marshall. Some of it is the Bruce wasting valuable opportunities to give some of these guys PT toward the end of qualifying last year when we had already qualified and in friendlies such as the Scotland game.