One Trophy down, One to Go

Hurray for Benny Feilhaber. The hero of the moment has played lights out soccer for the past 6 months for Bob Bradley. It's not very often that a young guy like this turns from zero to hero for a top 20 soccer team. Feilhaber wasn't even a name that was mentioned prior to the world cup and now he's, arguably, the first name on the roster.

Other players that made big impressions on me in the Gold Cup:
Ricardo Clark: Has looked very good and generally displays better physical presence then Michael Bradley and better sense than Pablo Mastroeni... I think the team of Bradley/Feilhaber or Clark/Feilhaber is going to come down to the physical demands of the game... Against a Guatamala or similarly physical team, Clark will get the nod. Against a Brazil or other slower, skill based team I think we'll see Bradley more often...

Frank Simek: This guy has been great. His defensive skills are suspect at times but in general, he's looked very, very good. He is a beast on the overlapping runs and has vastly superior physical presence and attacking skills then any other option at right back.

Justin Mapp: Not since a young Beasley have we had this kind of speed on the flank. He's still prone to try to do a little too much at times but that's the kind of exuberance of youth you want in your attacking wingers. I like that he hustles on both sides of the ball too.

As for the next trophy... I wouldn't hold your breath. We're paired in a grouping that would be called the group of Death in a World Cup, let alone a regional tournament. Argentina, Columbia and Paraguay are tough opponents any way you look at it. On top of that, we're fielding such luminaries as: Bobby Boswell, Drew Moore, Marvell Wynne, Lee Nguyen, Sasha Kljestan, Kyle Beckerman, Charles Davies (WHO?) and Hercules Gomez. Don't be alarmed if you hadn't heard these names... They're probably unknowns to many of Sam's Army too. This is a team that wouldn't even be called a B Team by most observers. Some of those are pretty good players, however. Nguyen, Wynne and Kljestan specifically have all been on the fringe of the national team. I'm just not sure it's fair to test these players out in this kind of environment without some strong supporting players.

On the plus side, I think we've got a decent shot of advancing... We can beat Columbia and Paraguay is always an anemic attacking force that we probably need to score 1 goal against to get at least a tie. 1-1-1 is generally enough to advance in these kinds of tournaments so there is hope.

Projected starting lineup:

Keller
Wynne, DeMerit, Conrad, Bornstein
Gaven, Clark, Feilhaber, Mapp
Johnson, Twellman

Other possible lineup:
Guzan
Wynne, DeMerit, Conrad, Pearce
Kljestan, Olsen, Feilhaber, Mapp
Johnson, Gomez

The other knock against us is that the fans are going to be decidedly hostile (you may have heard that we're not well liked by the government over there) and its winter time so our superior conditioning won't be quite as much help as it would be in the dead of summer.

It should be interesting ;)