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"Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Belgium)"
Who's this lad and when did we steal him from Nigeria???
Speaking of American footballers, we're not exactly very American are we? My college team is almost half Mexican, and I'm the only player on my club team whose first language was English, despite the fact I was born in the former USSR. Hopefully this recent influx of Bosnian, Romanian, and Serbian immigration leads to future "American" stars for the national team.
On the subject of Bruce Arena, I must agree that he is a very under-rated coach globally, but that COULD be because of the way he twitches and gets all nervous when things aren't going well. Anyone see him after the Reggae Boyz scored first at the Office in Kingston? He looked like he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
But as far as his tactics go, you gotta love Arena. He's transformed Convey into a left-back, allowing the team to have much more total team creativity and offensive capability. My main worry with the national team is the same as it was in 2002: the backbone of the team. We need higher quality central defenders and central midfielders. With Beasley, Donovan, and co. we have the pace and flair to match most teams in the world, but we still don't have a classy ballwinner (Reyna's not as tough as he used to be) or a true rock in the defense (though Bocanegra and Spector could be an amazing partnership in years to come). Honestly, if the US had, for example, Sami Hyypia and Patrick Vieira, I think they could win the World Cup.
"Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Belgium)"
Who's this lad and when did we steal him from Nigeria???
Speaking of American footballers, we're not exactly very American are we? My college team is almost half Mexican, and I'm the only player on my club team whose first language was English, despite the fact I was born in the former USSR. Hopefully this recent influx of Bosnian, Romanian, and Serbian immigration leads to future "American" stars for the national team.
On the subject of Bruce Arena, I must agree that he is a very under-rated coach globally, but that COULD be because of the way he twitches and gets all nervous when things aren't going well. Anyone see him after the Reggae Boyz scored first at the Office in Kingston? He looked like he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
But as far as his tactics go, you gotta love Arena. He's transformed Convey into a left-back, allowing the team to have much more total team creativity and offensive capability. My main worry with the national team is the same as it was in 2002: the backbone of the team. We need higher quality central defenders and central midfielders. With Beasley, Donovan, and co. we have the pace and flair to match most teams in the world, but we still don't have a classy ballwinner (Reyna's not as tough as he used to be) or a true rock in the defense (though Bocanegra and Spector could be an amazing partnership in years to come). Honestly, if the US had, for example, Sami Hyypia and Patrick Vieira, I think they could win the World Cup.