June 12th - Day 6

NIGHTMARE

Bruce Arena set us all up…and now we’re paying the price. Yeah, some of the U.S. players looked flat and didn’t play well. But who put Eddie Lewis at left back when his ENTIRE professional life he’s been a midfielder? Who played the diminutive DaMarcus Beasley on his wrong side against one of the best midfielders in the world? Who had Oguchi Onyewu playing center back in a three man back line for the first time ever in an actual World Cup game? Who left Landon Donovan on the field instead of putting in a bigger, more physical and more electrifying player like Clint Dempsey who likely wouldn’t have hid out for 90:00 like U.S. Soccer’s Golden Boy? Who the hell put Josh Wolff into the game instead of somebody who has actually done something positive in the last few years of their career?

Bruce Arena.

All the back slapping, pep talks and sarcasm don’t mean anything when you have players playing out of position and not having any clue how to link up together because their coach never plays them in the same lineup more than once. You can’t expect the U.S. players to flick a switch and be ready to take on some of the best competition in the world after warming up against a bunch of second and third-rate opponents who play nothing like the team we faced today. And again I ask you, who’s fault is all that?

Bruce Arena.

If you’re still a staunch Bruce supporter who thinks it’s cool that all he talks about is putting guys out on the field with pre-game speeches telling them to have fun, learning how to run his team from basketball guys and tinkering with a lineup until it’s way too late…you deserve as much of the blame for today’s embarrassing loss as he does.

It’s now or never. In sports you’re only as good as your last game. It’s that simple and today the U.S. got absolutely blasted by a very good team. The scariest part about the 3-0 shellacking we suffered to the Czech Republic was that it really wasn’t even that close. How many passes did the U.S. complete? How freely did the Czech Republic move the ball around the field? How many touches on the ball did Nedved get? I thought that maybe it would have been a good idea to man-mark him with Mastroeni in the first half since EVERYTHING was going through the silky-smooth Juventus midfielder, but what do I know.

It’s time for everyone to watch what Bruce Arena does against good teams. Anybody can go around and beat the crap out of the little guys. All that does is create a false sense of confidence and allow our players to develop bad habits like thinking that in international competition you’re going to have a lot of time on the ball.

The U.S. failed in every aspect of their game today. I am not happy that it happened, but I was expecting it. Bruce Arena’s job has been made way too easy by all those people who take his every word as gospel. He’s limited in his abilities as a tactician and evaluator of talent and is finally being exposed for those limitations. The U.S. has good players who play at relatively high levels around the globe. They are probably better than they showed today. Unfortunately, we might not ever know how good they can be as long as they aren’t allowed to play in the right spots together around the right guys. And whose fault is that? None other than your hero…Bruce Arena.

Tomorrow: Ready to get out of here and over there.