With this thread in mind, I'm wondering if it's too early to look at how we'll do in 2010. Of course it is. We need to qualify first. And, to make it worse, I'm sufficiently out of touch that I can't pull together the list of players that we're probably looking at for 2010. But I figured that the referred thread was such a good one, it only makes sense to use it to project into the future. And I figured I'd start it, and see if any of y'all can provide the useful information. I know this much. Here's where those under 25s will be in 2010: Landon Donovan (28), DaMarcus Beasley (28), Oguchi Onyewu (28), Bobby Convey (27), Clint Dempsey (27), Eddie Johnson (26). And those formerly prime age players will now be: Pablo Mastroeni (34), Josh Wolff (33), Jimmy Conrad (33), Ben Olsen (33), Brian Ching (32), Carlos Bocanegra (31), Steve Cherundolo (31), Chris Albright (31). (I took O'Brien out for obvious reasons) Using a list from the US Soccer website, here's other players currently on the roster that fit in that 25-29 age range: Sacha Kljestan, Justin Mapp, Drew Moor, Michael Parkhurst, Ricardo Clark, Chris Rolfe, Kyle Beckerman, Clarence Goodson, Matt Pickens, Jeremiah White, Brad Davis. Clearly some people are missing, but that's enough to start a conversation.
Yes, we no longer have a missing mini-generation. Our prime age players have plenty of experience to serve as our leaders as well. The most logical place to have an older guy is defense and we have a few candidates that could serve that role as well. I don't want to start many 30+ players and we shouldn't have to. 2010 is shaping up well from an age distribution standpoint.
the biggest factor in US success over the past four World Cup finals is location, and I think it will be a huge factor in our favor in 2010. European teams do not travel well, we do. Even if S. Africa loses out on the '10 cup, look for it to be held a long way from Europe.
Previous posters, it's shaping up well on a lot of fronts, including what you guys have mentioned. Except that we're still missing our striker revelation, our right winger revelation, and our left winger revelation. Not that we won't have any by 2010, but just saying... (I have given up predicting our current prospects will be our next big thing. Too many disappointments, brought about by a variety of circumstances, have taught me better. Look at the other missing generation thread and you'll see that a lot of guys we had good reason to have a lot of hope in didn't turn out so well, for reasons including injury, self-implosion, bad club situations, unrealistic expectations, you name it.) In other words, when you start predicting the progress of players 2 years-plus into the future, you've got to take Murphy's Law into account. It has a way of keeping its hand in there...
Yup, the age of generation looks very good. Under 25 we have what, probably 3 starters in Altidore, Adu, and Bradley? Then we have solid vets like Donovan, Beasley, Dempsey, Boca, Gooch, Dolo. The Howard and Guzan, kind of like 2002? So far, this cycle is starting to look good, just need to keep developing as a team, and the young talent. Also, very good thing that it's in SA, or at least away from Europe!
I agree that location is one of the biggest factors in whether or not we've done well, but I wouldn't say that we travel well.....just that we travel better to non-European locales than we do to European ones (and it helps that European teams don't usually fare as well away from Europe).
i agree. i think a good indicator of who the movers and shakers are and where our expectations will be, will come from the olympic team this summer.
I definitely agree. Just looking at the thread that inspired this one, many of the players that comprised the core of that 25-29 group faded in the 20 months prior to the World Cup. One of my reasons for starting this one is this: having the group of guys fade out the way they did prior to '06 wouldn't have been felt as badly if there were any backups of any kind to fill the void. Seeing 11 players on the current US nats roster that fit in that age range gives me confidence that we've finally developed some real depth. Throw in the Olympic squad, and it does look very likely that we won't have the dropoff that we had in '06. It'll definitely be fun to see how the Olympic squad does. That is, if they make it there. If they don't, it will definitely NOT be fun.
Violet Crown, I'm glad you brought this up based on my thread, because before I started that thread, I actually conceptualized a list of a possible 23-man roster for the 2010 WC to see if that could give us an early idea of our chances. From what I discovered, this certainly looks to be the case: I don't want to drag this thread off-topic by turning it into a "project the 23 tickets to South Africa" thread, but here's a sample roster (please don't delve into critiques of the player choices, it's just meant to be a sample) and the age of each player in 2010: (Note: Bold Players comprise that semi-arbitrary 25-29 year old age range as encompassing a player's "prime"...goalkeepers not included) Goalkeepers: Tim Howard - 31 Brad Guzan - 26 Marcus Hahnemann - 38 Defenders: Steve Cherundolo - 31 Carlos Bocanegra - 31 Oguchi Onyewu - 28 Jonathan Spector - 24 Frank Simek - 26 Heath Pearce - 26 Michael Parkhurst - 26 Jonathan Bornstein - 26 Midfielders: Landon Donovan - 28 Michael Bradley - 23 Maurice Edu - 24 DaMarcus Beasley - 28 Ricardo Clark - 27 Benny Feilhaber - 25 Bobby Convey - 27 Freddy Adu - 20 Forwards: Jozy Altidore - 20 Clint Dempsey - 27 Eddie Johnson - 26 Kenny Cooper - 26 As you can see, this sample roster shows that the age distribution is pretty good. We have a wide array of players in that "prime" range (13 field players, much more than our numbers in 2002 or 2006), and NO field players above 31 years of age, which is another potentially good sign.
What I like about the above player list is that it highlights a dynamic we had in 2002 but not in 2006: players that help the US qualify may not be the players who represent us in the World Cup. In 2002, Donovan, Beasley, and Mastroeni all came on strong in the end, particularly the last two. In 2006, only Dempsey made an impact. In 2010, we should see older guys like Conrad and Ching play a part in the Hex and not even make the roster at the World Cup.