or maybe a few...we'll see... Myth #1 Bruce uses the same guys all the time! The fact: 35. The number of players used by the USA in this World Cup Qualifying cycle. 35. Count 'em...I did...twice, just to make sure... Keller Vanney Bocanegra Cherundolo Lewis Stewart Reyna Kirovski Beasley Donovan Pope Casey Armas McBride Hedjuk Zavagnin Gibbs Mastroeni Wolff Convey Jones Ching Howard Mathis Berhalter Johnson Onyewu Dempsey Spector Albright Twellman Sanneh Corrales Ralston Noonan These aren't friendlies, gang...these are the "games that matter" as we so often hear...and all these guys have stepped on the field at least once... Oh, toss in another eight (mostly keepers) who dressed but never played... Walker Cannon Mullan Martino Hahnemann Busch Hartman Simms I'd be willing to wager that if we went back and looked at the training camp rosters we might be able to add another half-dozen or so players to this list. I imagine this list will get larger, we still have five matches to play... So, do we bust this myth or not? Any others?
Gold Cup roster (caps in parenthesis) Hahenmann (4) Keller (81) Reis (0) Cherundolo (27) Conrad (0) Hedjuk (62) Onyewu (4) Pope (70) Sanneh (41) Vanney (33) Armas (58) Beasley (45) Davis (0) Dempsey (8) Donovan (64) Mastroeni (37) O'Brien (21) Olsen (22) Ralston (24) Casey (7) Noonan (7) Quaranta (0) Wolff (31) Johnson had 8...
Myth #3: Neither Bluecat 82 nor appooOnU, their friends, partners or associates are working under Bruce Arena, nor are they related to him any way, shape or form...
So much for caps...how about age? For the sake of argument, how about anybody under 25 being considered "young" (as in "not in their prime yet")... Hahenmann (33) Keller (35) Reis (30) Cherundolo (26) Conrad (28) Hedjuk (30) Onyewu (23) Pope (31) Sanneh (34) Vanney (31) Armas (32) Beasley (23) Davis (23) Dempsey (22) Donovan (23) Mastroeni (28) O'Brien (27) Olsen (28) Ralston (31) Casey (23) Noonan (24) Quaranta (20) Wolff (28) Myth #2 busted yet?
Well, if I ran everbody I know through "The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" we might find someone... Can't speak for appooOnU, though
myth #4 Sigi ate Bruce's first-born child. Hence, Bruce has adopted Bobby as a surrogate and caps him accordingly.
Just for fun... looking at the players that saw action in the last qualifying cycle as compared to this cycle: 30 players with at least one 2000 WCQ Appearance: Tony Sanneh Earnie Stewart Robin Fraser Claudio Reyna Cobi Jones Eddie Pope Chris Armas Ante Razov David Regis Eddie Lewis Frankie Hejduk Greg Vanney Tab Ramos Gregg Berhalter Chad Deering Jason Kreis Brian McBride Joe-Max Moore John O'Brien Jovan Kirovski Carlos LLamosa Kasey Keller Jeff Agoos Chris Albright Josh Wolff Ben Olsen Tony Meola Chris Klein Clint Mathis Richie Williams 30 players with at least one 2001 WCQ Appearance: Brad Friedel Tony Sanneh Jeff Agoos Eddie Pope David Regis Cobi Jones Chris Armas Claudio Reyna Earnie Stewart Brian McBride Joe-Max Moore Josh Wolff Clint Mathis Carlos LLamosa Steve Cherundolo Ante Razov Chris Albright Gregg Berhalter Jova Kirovski John O'Brien Chris Klein Landon Donovan Preki Chris Henderson Zach Thornton Gregg Vanney DaMarcus Beasley Jesse Marsch Kasey Keller Richie Williams 16 "New" Guys - Have played in 2006 WCQ cycle, but did not appear in last WCQ cycle: Bocanegra Casey Zavagnin Gibbs Mastroeni Convey Ching Howard Johnson Onyewu Dempsey Spector Twellman Corrales Ralston Noonan 20 "Old" Guys - Appeared in 2002 WCQ cycle, but are yet to appear the 2006 cycle: Robin Fraser Ante Razov David Regis Tab Ramos Chad Deering Jason Kreis Joe-Max Moore John O'Brien Carlos LLamosa Jeff Agoos Ben Olsen Tony Meola Chris Klein Richie Williams Brad Friedel Chris Armas Preki Chris Henderson Zach Thornton Jesse Marsch
VTSoccerFan Good analysis but you have Chris Armas listed in the categories of being used in '06 qualifying and then not being used in '06 qualifying.
Chad Marshall hasn't been capped in a WCQ match, but he will be before the hex is over. A duo of Marshall and Onyewu would be crazy, two giants in front of the keeper.
That would be crazy. Those two guys are the future of the US defense. Still, Chad Marshall is only 20 or 21 so he's got a lot of soccer ahead of him. But it would be nice to have seen him in the Gold Cup but, oh yeah, the 28 year old uncapped Jimmy Conrad as does the 31 year old painfully slow Greg Vanney have more to offer. I hope you're right about Marshall being capped soon.
I witnessed his first cap against Colombia in Fullerton a few months ago. He was teamed up with Kotschau in the middle and Mullan on the right with Albright playing left back. He commanded all of them like he had been with the national team for a while, and easily had a better game than Kotschau, who was being outclassed by the Colombians. If Bruce wasn't impressed, than he's worse at developing talent than Andrulis, and that just can't be possible. I can't wait to see him in some important games.
If we get the job done against T&T in our next match, there's a chance that one point at home against Mexico will be enough to clinch direct qualification (most likely a win against T&T clinches playoff-or-better). I think we're very likely to get a win or a draw against Mexico, so what that means is: barring some pretty serious bad luck, there's a pretty good chance we will be qualified for the World Cup with three matches to play - two of them away in Central America, which means we can give some of the younger players some match experience in hostile environments. I'm willing to bet that Marshall will see action in at least two qualifying matches.
The REAL myth #3! Myth #3 The US doesn't deserve it's current #10 ranking in FIFA Deserve? They most certainly do! Why? This is no coaches/writers opinion poll...it's a mathematical formula... Reading assignment... http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/rank/procedures/0,2540,3,00.html It applies to everybody the same... There's room for reasonable discussion as to the validity of the formula, but when the numbers are crunched, the US comes out at #10. BTW, how important is the Gold Cup? (this may be myth number 4) FIFA ranks the matches "importance factor" thusly: Friendly 1.0 Contential Championship prelim 1.25 WC Qualifying match 1.25 Contential Championship match 1.75 Confederations Cup match 1.75 WC Finals match 2.0 Winning this tornament would be huge. Oh, remember, FIFA only takes the best 7 results of any year in figuring the ranking, so that friendly with England? Meant absolutely zero.
Re: The REAL myth #3! Sorry, hate reading assigments But seriously, if math formulas involve numbers, does that mean: Mexico 2- US 1 IS Mexico then the superior team until the September match? And it's been superior to us for years, since the ranking said so? Haiti 1-US 1 We are yet to play Haiti again, IIRC...so are they perhaps our equals for the time being!? Because those numbers in the scorebard say so.... And you are giving way too much importance to the GC... you are looking at it as a number.... I prefer to look at the actual competition playing in it... Oh, btw South Africa appear to be sending their B team ... Yipee... Actually, a bigger insult would be if this team manages to get past the first round, or gets to the semifinals..
Sorry and thanks... I guess I was more tired than I thought, but I loved seeing some of those old names.
What good US soccer fan in their right mind would believe this statement? Arena has used more than one hundred players in his tenure as US coach.
IMO, the real myth is that this is indeed a myth..... (meaning, not really true that lots of people do believe this....at least not those following the USMNT closely)