About Me:
I am the senior soccer writer here at Fox Sports. Email me at jamie.trecker@gmail.com. Follow @jamietrecker. And find me on facebook.com/jamietrecker
About Me:
I am the senior soccer writer here at Fox Sports. Email me at jamie.trecker@gmail.com. Follow @jamietrecker. And find me on facebook.com/jamietrecker
About Me:
I am the senior soccer writer here at Fox Sports. Email me at jamie.trecker@gmail.com. Follow @jamietrecker. And find me on facebook.com/jamietrecker
When Bruce Arena took over as US national team coach in the fall of 1998 his first match was against Australia in San Jose. The night was instantly forgettable, a 0-0 draw at the end of a long year that had seen the USA finish last in the France World Cup. Arena picked Eddie Lewis for that game. It was thought that the decision had as much to do with marketing the game -- Lewis played for the local San Jose MLS entry, after all -- as it did with rebuilding the national side. It didn't take long to understand that Arena didn't operate that way. He picked Lewis because he saw something in the player that could be developed. We all know what happened: Lewis became an integral part of the side, helped build the foundation for Arena's 2002 success in South Korea and went on to have a significant overseas career. Lewis will be playing for the Los Angeles Galaxy Sunday night in the MLS Cup final against Real Salt Lake. He was one of the first guys Arena brought to the team after taking over last year and his presence should remind you that the boss still knows what it takes to build a team. Yes, you've got to have a Landon Donovan and a David Beckham helps. You always need a goalkeeper and you'd better have a solid central defense. But winning teams need the Eddie Lewis's of the world and Arena understands that part of the game better than anyone else coaching in this country. He knows that if you put the right type of support players in the right spots, then don't ask them to do things they cannot accomplish, that you will ultimately have a working team that won't lose its way in the tough times. -- Just the facts: The United States went 9-1-2 at home in 2009. The only loss was the 5-0 shellacking at the hands of Mexico in the Gold Cup final and we all know that was not either side's full team. With the exception of a victory over Sweden in January all of the wins came against CONCACAF region members. The United States went 2-4-1 on the road, winning at Trinidad & Tobago and Honduras in the CONCACAF Hexagonal. They failed again in Costa Rica and Mexico [they have never won qualifiers in either country] and finished the year with two more losses on European soil. The last two games, like the Gold Cup, featured an under-strength side. The United States won 2, lost 3 on neutral ground in the FIFA Confederations Cup. The most significant win was over Spain; the most significant loss was in the final when the team blew a 2-0 halftime lead and fell to Brazil. Draw your own conclusions. -- Now some opinions:
--The USA without Donovan is a ship without a rudder. --Just as important, the USA without Oguchi Onyewu and Jay DeMerit in the central defense is a ship waiting to be sunk. --Frankie Hejduk -- love that energy, love that effort, love what he has brought for years -- is no longer the answer. --No team can expose its wide backs the way the USA has done ... it's easy to point fingers at those guys hung out to dry, but the play usually has broken down before they get torched. Still, they are getting torched. --It's time to play something other than 4-4-2 since the midfield apparently cannot support the attackers nor help the defense in the current set-up. How about a 5-3-1-1 with three in the middle of the defense?
TV THIS WEEKEND (All times ET; our picks in bold) FRIDAY OM v PSG 1500 Setanta
SATURDAY Rubin Kazan v Zenit 0545 Setanta Liverpool v Man City 0745 ESPN2 Schalke v Hannover 0930 GolTV Chelsea v Wolverhampton 1000 Setanta Sunderland v Arsenal 1000 FSC/FSE Burnley v Aston Villa 1000 Setanta X B’ham v Fulham 1000 Hull v West Ham 1000 Rangers v Kilmarnock 1000 Setanta P Cardiff v Barnsley 1000 ESPN360 Inter v Bolgona 1155 ESPN360 Deportivo v Atletico 1155 ESPND/360 Tenerife v Sevilla 1200 GolTV Ipswich v Sheff. Wednesday 1220 Setanta Man U v Everton 1230 FSC/FSE Racing v Real Madrid 1355 ESPND/360 Parma v Fiorentina 1445 ESPN360 Auxerre v Monaco 1500 Setanta Bilbao v Barca 1600 GolTV Pereira v Medellin 2000 GolTV
SUNDAY Perth v Sydney 0300 FSC Dundee United v Celtic 0730 Setanta P Bolton v Blackburn 0830 Setanta Ajax v Heerenveen 0830 ESPN360 AS Roma v Bari 0900 ESPN360 AC Milan v Cagliari 0900 FSC Tottenham v Wigan 1000 FSE Stoke v Pompey 1100 FSC St. Etienne v Lorient 1100 Setanta Hamburg v Bochum 1130 GolTV Zaragoza v Malaga 1300 ESPND/360 San Luis v Toluca 1300 Univision Botafogo v Sao Paulo 1400 GolTV Juventus v Udinese 1430 FSC/FSE Montpellier v Lille 1445 Setanta Osasuna v Valencia 1600 GolTV Santos v Morelia 1800 Telefutura MLS CUP 2030 ESPN/ESPND/360
Thursday, November 19, 2009, 09:03 AM EST
[General]
Fair Play? Now we'll find out if FIFA or UEFA or anybody else really believes that motto. The whole world saw it: Thierry Henry handled the ball before William Gallas scored to knock Ireland out of the World Cup. Well, not everybody saw it. The match referee, two assistants and the fourth official apparently missed that part of the match, or if anyone of them saw it nobody did anything about it. We've been on about the need for replay in the world's game for a long time. We've suggested that MLS put itself forward as a testing lab. We've argued that at some point a major game would be decided by a completely incorrect decision. Now it has happened. The "bad calls" and the "human element" won't even out for the Irish Republic. They'll miss millions of FIFA dollars and their players will not get a chance to play on the great stage. The French will head to South Africa under under a cloud. Everyone will know how they got there. OK, Mr. Blatter. OK, Mr. Platini. Let's see if "Fair Play" means anything. The right course of action is to acknowledge what everyone knows, order a replay at a neutral site and let the players decide the matter on the field. According to the rules this time.
Dept. of No Comment: Bradley: “The six minute stretch really teaches us some lessons in terms of our reactions and our ability when a team really comes after us. That's something we can really look at closely and try to use down the road.”
Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 09:10 AM EST
[General]
One of the best things about the World Cup is that you have to actually play your way in. It's not like the BCS, where a group of conference guys gerrymander the pairings while a bunch of pundits spend 16 weeks arguing whether that team from Idaho really, really would beat that one from Alabama if they actually played. Of course the reverse of the equation is that in the World Cup you don't play if your nation doesn't qualify. Which brings us to the final day of qualifying when the organizers must face the reality that their 2010 event could proceed without Andrei Arshavin, Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo. Oops. Who would organize an event and leave three of the world's best players -- OK, Henry is on the other side of the hill these days -- off the guest list? Arshavin's Russian side heads to Slovenia with a narrow 2-1 lead, having coughed up a late goal in Moskva that will give Slovenia every reason to think they can end Guus Hiddink's run of World Cup appearances. Henry's France will be looking to protect a 1-0 lead against the Republic of Ireland in Paris, but there are still many who believe that the Irish will somehow get the result and offer us six weeks of Robbie Keane next summer. And then there's Portugal. Ronaldo, of course, isn't playing and hasn't been since the end of the group stage qualifying a month ago. His teammates managed a slender 1-0 lead against Bosnia-Herzegovina but have a history of fragility on the biggest of occasions. From a purely entertainment standpoint you have to hope for the French, Portuguese and Russians to get the job done and take their places in South Africa. There are already too many quite ordinary European and South American sides who have qualified and if anybody expects entertainment from the Asian or CONCACAF qualifiers they must be kidding. There are seven nations whose best hopes for advancement start with the "let's try to score from a set piece while keeping all eleven guys in our half of the field" approach. Entertainment isn't the thought which comes to mind when contemplating the remaining UEFA fixture, either: Ukraine and Greece aren't teams which conjur up free-flowing images. Uruguay should finish off Costa Rica in our region's interzonal playoff but the African showdown in Sudan must be a toss-up. Egypt's two-time African champions face Algeria in that one. There will surely be plenty of grit, passion, atmosphere -- every cliche you can think up. Hopefully there will be an artist or two among the survivors.
TV TODAY:
Egypt-Algeria 1230 ART/Dish 601 Ukraine v Greece 1300 ESPN2/D/360
Denmark v USA 1430 ESPNC/360 (*this game will move to ESPN2 at 1505) Italy v Sweden 1430 RAI/GolTV Holland v Paraguay 1440 ESPN360 Bosnia-Herz v Portugal 1445 Setanta
Later on, we'll preview all the World Cup games tomorrow and provide you with a schedule as well as a look at Don Garber's State of the League address.