I liked his reply to the letter that was talking about our World Cup chances in the future...its not as simple as some of us seem to think, and he's right, Holland and Spain havent even won the cup before, yet have been competitive and at it for decades...we're getting better as nation, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. Personally I'll be thrilled if we could get to the quarterfinals againt in either 2006 or 2010, that would be an amazing accomplishment. Cup favorites though? Decades away...
One of the the most peculiar things about US fan support is the constant mystification of the World Cup by the American fans. Ooh, Holland hasn't won it yet...there are evil spirits about! Why is that? It has always struck me as odd that a nation that does as well as the US enjoys fans that sell their team short...
Not selling us short nor a mystification of the cup, just being a realist - theres no automatic progression of quarters to semis to cup finalists; just using the Dutch as an example of a consistently strong nation with the potential to win it everytime theyve been involved in the past few WCs, but haven't.
July is one of the only months those guys don't have to bust their asses. I'd rather have them resting from a long league season - with qualifying mixed in - and preparing for a long league season - with qualifying mixed in - than winning a tournament that, quite frankly, isn't that respected around the world. In other words, Claudio needs July to rest, not pick up a new injury beating Martinque.
The idea of the tournament is good. the bad comes from the timing this year. Its just plain stupid playing Mexico and Costa Rica when we have to play them for "even more" real in 6 weeks. The other is the competition. Is playing Cuba in "meaningful" Gold Cup game better than playing a Sweedish A/B team in a friendly a better gauge to judge whether Eddie Gaven or Chad Marshall is ready to play in a hex qualifier? Anyway, Cluadio and the others won't be resting. The European-based players not on the gold cup rosters will be back in training by the time the Gold Cup gets started. EPL begins 8/19. Coca-Cola, Holland, Germany all start 8/12. Euro camps usually are at least 5 weeks. If we call them up for this little get together, the fringe club players (Spector, Cooper, Convey etc.) risk getting their club seasons off to a bad start with their manager despite the right to recall for Nat team purposes. The likes of Spector and Howard will be needed to rape the far east of their yen as Manyoo reserves tour the far east.
I don't see how missing the first week or two of camp is going to get these players off to a bad start with their clubs. The begining of their preseason camps is mostly just physical training. It's a fair argument that they should be with their clubs but I don't think it's that big of a deal. A 3 game US Cup would probably be better for the schedual but the gold cup is not as bad as the olympics were last year. It is a waste for a regional championship but I'm not looking at it for those reasons. Claudio has been getting plenty of time off during the season as have a lot of other YA's. Most will have their time off in May and June. There's only a couple players who will play in the June Qualifiers that have played a full season in Europe. The others should be well rested by July.
part of arena's job is communication with euro managers and teams, coordinating arena's wishs and the teams wishes and arriving at agreement.. obviously, wcq heads arena's list, and the gold cup is secondary... the object will be identifying the euro guys whose presence at the gold cup is a desirerable quality, and then meshing in a handful of mls guys on the cusp of becoming national team contributors... it'll be a gloried B squad, but it'll be a group of guys getting serious experience and can step into the 2nd phase of the hex in emergency situations.... I'd wager costa rica and mexico will approach it with a similar mindset.... save your top 11 for the wcq, but surely, with all the growing depth, and with all the names suggested on bs for call-up, arena can find a decent 20 man roster....