CONMEBOL secretary not happy with US sending B team.

That makes two of us.

 

My guess is that he expected the the best national players that the US had to offer. We won't get invited to this tournament again for a long time.

 

From the article:

There aren't many more desirable guest teams out there. And what is the current agreement between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL in terms of who gets invited?

 

so turning down invitations every two years for more than a decade wasn't enough to get them to stop inviting us, but sending a B squad was?

...sure...

 

Sounds like alot of smoke but no fire.

The US may never be able to send an 'A' squad to this tournament between MLS, Gold Cup and WCQ. Its just simply never going to be the tournament we put as the #1 priority.

If we ever do face this situation in the future though, I'd like to just send a whole new 23 with a different coach and at least get some time for the players to get to know each other, I think some of the problem with this team was throwing them together on such short notice.

 

Hey, there have been even some CONMEBOL member countries (even Brazil or Argentina?) that have used the Copa America in the recent past to do exactly what Bob Bradley is doing now -- blooding younger players for future international play.

CONMEBOL, look in your own back yard. And having said that, I don't think their president is explicitly criticizing the USSF by name directly.

 

Also, when you have other conflicts on the FIFA international calendar -- such as the U-20 World Cup -- there are going to be logistical problems there as well. Michael Bradley, for one, would have been a member of this team travelling to Venezuela had his services not been previously mandated for the USA's U-20 team.

And quite frankly, that's a more important competition for the players who are age-eligible to play in it.

 

And honestly, what else do you expect him to say? I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a political statement. "I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you that they would sully our great tournament by not sending their first team!" Yeah, I'm sure it came as a complete surprise...

 

Then it's a double standard for him to say that about the guest teams -- or even one particular guest team -- and yet not say anything when teams in his own confederation treat the same tournament in the same way.

 

Colombia and Brazil have sent their B and C teams to the Gold Cup in the past. So I think we'll call it even.

 

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't it made completely clear by USSF to CONMEBOL in advance that this would probably be the case, before they "officially" extended the invitation?

When it comes down to it, CONMEBOL has to have invited teams to fill out the tournament, and considering that no major foreign power (i.e. the top European teams) would be interested, the U.S. for better or worse is their best option. I mean perhaps Korea or Australia or an African team or someone like that might be interested, and might be able to send their A team (I don't know what the summer schedule is like for Asian and African teams and whether or not they are conflicted as well), but no other feasible participant can elicit the response and fan interest that the U.S. can - for reasons both soccer-related and unrelated.

EDIT: And by "fan interest", I mean interest from fans of the South American teams towards playing the U.S. as an opponent.

 

Nothing to see here. If Brazil and others can do it, so can we.

 

Imagine how unhappy he'll be when he finds out it wasn't even a B team.

 

I just took a look at how the quarterfinal matches are shaping up at the official Copa America web site...there are already two rematches from group play (BRA v. CHI, VEN v. URU)...if that is truly the case, THAT is embarrassing and something not to be happy about!!!

 

Oh absolutely. But we're not the people he's trying to look good for. Guest teams are easy to criticize, but it's a more delicate matter to rip on your own constituents (especially the more prominent ones).

And Mexico isn't open to the same criticism, they brought a much more solid team. If they brought their U23 team I'd expect them to be included in the "criticism" as well.

 

There's a drastically greater drop-off in the talent level among the US players than among the Brazilians or the Argentines.

In other words, Veron may be getting his first cap in four years but he is still a very good player. As are the Milito brothers or Anderson, Diego and Baptista for Brazil, none of whom made the WC squad.

In the US, the drop is deeper, though it should have been managed better with those who hadn't gotten a lot of minutes at the GC being invited to join the squad in Venezuela.

Of course, finishing sucks for A, B or C US squads anyway.

Within 2 years, the US would able to send a decent B-team and do well at Copa.

It could even make the semis, if it's not coached by Bradley.

 

Wow, you're right. And that is idiotic. It's not like it takes a NASA scientist to figure out a tournament schedule where this can't happen... According to the schedule though, it seems they locked it so that the Group A winner gets to play the #8 seed ("2nd best" 3rd place team) even if it comes from the same group... which seems rather slanted in favor of Group A, which was weak to begin with...

Additionally, the Group B winner is locked in to play the Group C runnerup, while the Group B runnerup gets what is most likely to be an easier game than the Group B winner because it gets pitted against the other 3rd place team... I suppose upside down logic somehow makes sense if you're in the Southern Hemisphere?

 

What CONMEBOL was trying to do was to pit Argentina and Brazil in the same bracket so they would avoid Venezuela. What they did not count on was on another team coming in first in group B. I hate how this tournament was tilted towards Venezuela from the very beginning where the draw was concacafed.

 

We sent a pretty good under 20 team to their tournament.

Our normal starters are pretty good.

To this tournament we have 4 players that can play.

Add all these guys up and some unknowns that will become known just before 2010.

We are going to have a decent team in 2010 WC. I am starting to feel better about this situation we have know in this tournament.

The future is looking up we have to think a head.

 

If the American and Mexican feds would throw their weight around a bit we could try and get the Gold Cup to be a once-in-four instead of an every-other event.

How it could have worked:

WC2006
Copa 2007
GC 2008
Hex 2009
Confed Cup 2009

WC2010
Copa 2011
GC 2012
Hex 2013
WC 2014

We could play in the Copa every four years with our best team.

Another thing that would help is if we received a bye to the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup. It is crazy that we have to keep our players away from clubs and summer breaks just so they can play minnows on the way to an inevitable semis and/or final.

 

We have a chance to play Argentina and Brazil in a real tournament and so many of you want to 'look ahead'.

My question, look ahead to what exactly?

Winning the Gold Cup is nice, but lets face it, Mexico is really the only challenge there. Qualifying is simply a lay-up. The Confederations Cup, let me guess, yet another chance to see what we have?

That leaves the World Cup. As a fan, is this the only real challenge we want to take on?

 

Winning the Gold Cup was nice, let's face it-- come 2009, we'll be playing Argentina, Italy and/or Euro 2008 winner in South Africa in the same stadia where we'll be back to compete in 2010. Mexico just might win Copa America in 2007. You know where that will put them in 2009? Watching us on TV play in the Confed Cup. You guys just don't get it.

The same COMEBOL officials complaining about our team this year are already talking about how they are going to invite us back-- we must mean big bucks for them (and no one from Europe will come anyway, so outside of Mexico, we're the best team they can get). That means we'll most likely be playing in Copa in 2009 (along with the qualifiers and Confed Cup). Honestly-- who else are they going to invite and get excited about-- Canada, Costa Rica or Panama?

My dream is that, in 2009, Sunil demands that Concacaf use all European refs and, when they refuse (which we know they would), we have our excuse to send the U-18s that are not in the U-17 or U-20 mix for that year. The off-cycle Gold cup is crap, but not the last one we played.

 

i wonder what he would have said if we had finished half our chances against Paraguay and beat them? What happens if we beat Colombia, does he ask their coaching staff to be fired or does he ask their confederation to bring different players? Invite or don't invite us, it's our choice who we bring and for what reason.

 

Agree with that... And ironically, it wasn't really our "B" guys who cost us the game. If the WC was played today, we'd probably see Boca slide over to left back, but right now there aren't too many ahead of Bornstein on the pecking order in one of our weakest positions.

and same with Johnson/Twellman... who exactly do we have that's better than those two right now?