I am american and the national team is my all time favorite sports team. The redskins, DCU, red wings can loose and i'll be able to sleep but if the US nats go down, i'll spend my night wondering if maybe my voodoo rituals just aren't doing it any longer. Anyway, I play and edit my fifa '07 game and have been on big soccer asking people about their nat squads (french, german) in an effort to learn more about them. I had every intention of doing the national team myself until I read the benny fielhaber post and realized I totally forgot about him... What I wanna do is post what I think the roster might be and just make sure I didn't leave anyone out. certainly critisize my roster if you like and post your own if you feel you wish to but, i'll probably largely kep my own squad. I felt it might be a good idea to kind of identify who the U.S. is looking at, first string and beyond. Anyway: starters GK: Keller (no question still number 1 until he retires himself) LB: Bocanegra CB: Conrad CB: Onyewu RB: Cherundolo LM: Beasley (or convey... depends who ate their wheaties that day) CDM: Mastroeni (although i'de consider ricardo clark here starting) CAM: Donovan RM: Dempsey ST: Ching ST: Rolfe backups GK: Howard LB: Dunivant CB: Gibbs CB: Parkhurst (really not sure about this selection) RB: Albright LM: Convey CDM: Clark CAM: Feilhaber RM: Mapp (i know he's a left mid, i'de use him here b4 Gaven or something) ST: Twellman ST: Johnson reserves Matt Reis - GK Freddy Adu - LM/ST/CAM Michael Bradley - CDM Nate Jaqua - ST Kenny Cooper - ST Johnathan Spector - CB/LB Jonathan Bornstein - LB Bobby Boswell - CB Kyle Martino - LM? Brian Carrol - CDM ----------------------------------------------- it's not a perfect roster... and many guys could be moved around to fill gaps but... As far as the left back situation goes... conrad or bocanegra can play there and do well... dunivant can step in if they both go down. forget about lewis, he's too old and wasn't that good to begin with (defensively). Left mids - like I said. quite interchangeable. i prefer Beas cause he plays a bit more D than convey. but we wouldn't really be suffering from the slightly better attacking of convey. Strikers -- our striker situation sucks. Looking at ching, twellman, johnson... ching has been playing the best in MLS as I understand it. twellman is good but ... well... nevermind. I'll play johnson if I wanna see the fastest guy in the american soccer system jog around for 90 minutes. Might as well be rolfe... not getting anything better from anyone else. I have to admit i don't know a ton about feilhaber and spector. If feilhaber is a CAM (i'm not positive) and i've heard he's quite good but have never seen him play... Would it be possible to move him to CAM, put donovan and ching up top together and do it that way. I hate the idea of putting our best midfielder up front but what the hell else can we do? our strikers are probably two steps down from the quality of the rest of our squad. take mcbride out of the mix and I really dont know who's gonna score anything. I like coop though. give him some time... he looks like he may make someone bleed at least. thanks for any responses guys... i don't mind critsism. i'm ultimately looking for the 32 guys who may be in the mix to play. if we have one right mid and have to use a CM or RB to fill it's really alright.
I'll give it a shot, depth-chart by position, more than 32, however, GK: Howard, Keller, Hahnemann, Reis RB: Cherundolo, Spector, Albright, Simek, Wynne CB: Onyewu, Gibbs, Bocanegra, Conrad, DeMerit, Califf, Boswell LB: Gibbs, Bocanegra, Pearce, Bornstein, Dunivant DM/HM: Mastroeni, Clark, Feilhaber, Carroll, Klejstan, Beckerman, Szetela AM: Donovan, Dempsey, Mapp, Adu LM: Beasley, Convey, Mapp, Davis RM: Dempsey, Donovan, Bradley, Noonan F: Donovan, Wolff, Twellman, Ching, Johnson, Cunningham, Cooper Some others on the horizon (Fearington, Hill, Smith) and mayble left some MLS'ers who are a bit down the chart (Robinsons, Marshall, etc).