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U.S. team takes positives from the Confederations Cup
With apologies to Charles Dickens, the Confederations Cup performance of the U.S. men's national team can be neatly described as "A Tale of Two Teams," because without question, the Americans' South African sojourn saw them experience the best of times and the worst of times. The question now is, which team will show up during the rest of World Cup qualifying, as well as in South Africa next summer? Will it be the side that struggled early during the tournament or the one that finished with a flourish, even in losing a heartbreaking final to Brazil?
Some encouraging developments point to the latter outcome. Although the bench of manager Bob Bradley seemed a bit thin by the end of the tournament, he established some much-needed depth in certain parts of the field. For much of the past year, spots usually opened up because a player was underperforming. But players such as Jonathan Spector, Jay DeMerit, Benny Feilhaber and Ricardo Clark saw their stocks rise during the tournament. The same holds true for more established veterans such as Oguchi Onyewu. When the full team reconvenes in August and injured absentees such as Steve Cherundolo, Brian Ching and Maurice Edu heal, the team will have some competition for places that has been lacking at times during this World Cup cycle.
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With apologies to Charles Dickens, the Confederations Cup performance of the U.S. men's national team can be neatly described as "A Tale of Two Teams," because without question, the Americans' South African sojourn saw them experience the best of times and the worst of times. The question now is, which team will show up during the rest of World Cup qualifying, as well as in South Africa next summer? Will it be the side that struggled early during the tournament or the one that finished with a flourish, even in losing a heartbreaking final to Brazil?
Some encouraging developments point to the latter outcome. Although the bench of manager Bob Bradley seemed a bit thin by the end of the tournament, he established some much-needed depth in certain parts of the field. For much of the past year, spots usually opened up because a player was underperforming. But players such as Jonathan Spector, Jay DeMerit, Benny Feilhaber and Ricardo Clark saw their stocks rise during the tournament. The same holds true for more established veterans such as Oguchi Onyewu. When the full team reconvenes in August and injured absentees such as Steve Cherundolo, Brian Ching and Maurice Edu heal, the team will have some competition for places that has been lacking at times during this World Cup cycle.
(continue)