The first round of this year's World cup tournament offers a little snapshot of the quality and form of competing teams. With the caveat that it's merely a single game for each team and form can go up as well as down, I have had occasion to modify my impression of some teams and confirm that of others. I can't say that I'm unduly surprised by the lacklustre performances of Brazil and France.
Brazil are one of the best teams in the world and have the most attractive footballing philosophy - watching centreback Lucio in the Croat penalty box the other night it occurred to me than their formation is not so much 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 as 0-0-10! But, such a team has high standards to live up to and I think that there are more than a few players in the first team who don't merit inclusion on current form. Ronaldo and Adriano were very poor against Croatia. Their attacking fullbacks, Cafu and Roberto Carlos are the wrong side of 30 and will surely take longer to return to their nominal positions in defence these days. Brazil offered Croatia plenty of chances and had they possessed a striker with a keener eye for goal they could quite easily have beaten Brazil. Brazil will concede goals to better teams. Unless the Brazil second team (yet to beat the first team in training) can offer more capable strikers than the pairing who faced Croatia - and Robinho hasn't exactly lived up to his billing - Brazil will have to rely more on Ronaldinho and Kaka to fulfil the latter half of their traditional promise - score one against us and we'll run up field and score two.
As for France, they were poor last time, returning home early from Japan/South Korea without scoring a goal, and look similarly uninspired this time around. They are in a relatively easy group and should be capable of beating South Korea and Togo, and yet theirs is an ageing team with a number of players who seem incapable of reproducing their club form for their country. Perhaps that is Domenech's fault, his bizarre Sven-like squad selection - choosing erratic Barthez over Coupet and alienating the latter, leaving European champion Giuly to go on a futile penguin hunt down under - hardly inspires confidence in his tactical nous.
Both England and Portugal were unimpressive in struggling to 1-0 wins over inferior opposition. I have considerably more confidence in "Big Phil" Scolari than I have in Sven "Boring" Eriksson so I'll reserve judgement on Portuguese prospects. England, on the other hand, are sure to qualify for the next round and will probably get through against the Group A runners up (possibly Ecuador?) but will surely be sent packing in the quarter finals by the Group C runners up, whoever that turns out to be.
The United States also proved disappointing against the Czech republic. Their team topped their group in qualifying, seeing off their rival Mexico and had a great run last time around, but were lifeless against the Czechs. They're not the worst side in the competition by any stretch but how they are ranked fifth in the world by FIFA is beyond me. It is perhaps a function of the generally inferior quality of the CONCACAF teams against whom they most frequently play. Nonetheless they have probably gone backwards since the last World cup. In the intervening period they have stuck with the same coach whose experience and record is limited to North American football. Their squad is mostly composed of home-based players with a few scattered among Dutch, German, and the English second tier. The only players they have in an elite league are Bocanegra and O'Brien from Fulham and Reyna from Man city. I'm sure this is likely to enrage American soccer enthusiasts who always over hype their country's prospects but, though I'm quite prepared to be fair to the US and welcomed their run at the last world cup, at the moment they just aren't good enough.
The Czechs showed their quality with that win, remaining doubts about their prospects relate to a number of the older players, particularly Poborsky who plys his trade in the Czech second tier. The Dutch are unfortunate to be in a difficult group. They will need to get past the Ivory Coast to get out of the group but if they do - and they stave off the inevitable implosion as long as possible - they should easily dispose of England in the quarterfinals. Another team which impressed was Spain with a 4-0 win over Ukraine. Spain are the traditional chokers - always great in qualifiers, poor at the tournament - who knows, maybe "this time it's different".
Argentina and Italy both excelled, contesting hard fought games against impressive African debutants, Ivory Coast and Ghana. Both squads have quality all over the pitch and plenty of strength in depth although Totti's injury is a blow to the latter. It's early days yet but this pair look like they could meet in the final.
What was most disappointing about the US game is not the result but the performance. I knew getting a result against the Czechs would be tough but the performance was a disgrace. We did nothing right. The Czechs put in a decent performance but we made them look like 1970 Brazil.
The only possible salvation we can take is that it was the worst US performance, by far, of Bruce Arena's reign. Win, lose or draw, there's no way we can be that bad against Italy.
As someone who's watched almost every game they've played in the last decade, they most certainly have not gone backward in the last four years. We had one stinker of a game. If we have another vs Italy (again not the result, but the performance), then I'd be open to revisiting the conclusion.
What happened is that we were vastly underestimated in 2002, especially by Portugal, and that helped facilitate our quarterfinal run.
I think what happened vs the Czechs are three things.
One, I think the players started a little bit to believe the hype. They knew they weren't #5 in the world but I think in the back of their mind, they believed they could get a result vs the Czechs with something less than their best performance. I mean, the Czechs only had maybe 4 or 5 good chances, but they buried 3 of them. That's what a world class team does.
Two, the Czechs were way too smart and prepared to make the same mistake Portugal did; they didn't underestimate us.
Three, we simply played our worst game in years.
I was always nervous about this World Cup because we do better when we're underestimated. I didn't think we'd be underestimated this time around. And we started with matches vs two world class teams. Bad combo.
There are several mistakes I wanted to correct.
"Their squad is mostly composed of home-based players with a few scattered among Dutch, German, and the English second tier"
A majority (12 of 23) of our roster plays in Europe which means a minority are home-based players.
"The only players they have in an elite league are Bocanegra and O'Brien from Fulham and Reyna from Man city."
Three of our players play in the German FIRST DIVISION. I think most people would consider that an elite league.
It's McBride who plays at Fulham, not O'Brien.
And frankly, almost all of the starting 11 were European based players and they stunk up the joint. The only player who was the least bit dangerous was sub Eddie Johnson, an MLS player and to some extent Convey, a former MLS player who also hasn't yet played in an 'elite league.'
Posted by: Brian | June 16, 2006 at 01:49 PM
Of course, part of me is a little bitter that Mexico got the WC seed instead of us despite the fact that:
-The US won the CONCACAF qualifying group
-The US won the last CONCACAF Gold (nations) Cup
-The US was ranked above Mexico in the FIFA rankings when the seedings were announced.
It's a mark of how idiotic the FIFA rankings are that FIFA themselves don't even use their own rankings the one time they could do so: in naming WC seeds. Why does FIFA even maintain these rankings if they themselves don't put any credibility in them? Oh wait, it's FIFA.
In short, IF only one of Mexico-US was to get a seed, it should've been the US. They got Angola, Iran and Portugal, We got Italy, Czech Rep. and Ghana.
No point in being bitter but it's worth mentioniing.
Posted by: Brian | June 16, 2006 at 01:54 PM
Last note I promise: one thing I wanted to add is that the US ought to schedule more matches against European teams. All our competitive matches are against CONCACAF teams. And we schedule a lot of friendlies vs South American teams. And even a few against Asian and African teams. But we very rarely play European teams outside of the World Cup. The general Latin American styles are so much different than the varioius European styles that we don't have enough exposure to it.
Posted by: Brian | June 16, 2006 at 01:57 PM
Brian, thanks for some interesting comments and there's a lot there that i agree with. I think the underestimate/overestimate thing is spot on. Last time round they were definitely better than their rep. This time round it appears they might be worse. These assessments of mine are just off-the-cuff observations and necessarily tentative, but I do think the problem is insufficient experience playing against top quality players. Mexico aside, you just don't get that in CONCACAF and winning the group might have been the worst thing to happen to the US!, inducing a false sense of superiority. As for the European based players:
Looking at the starting 11, you have Keller and Cherundo in Germany (which by the way, Bayern Munich aside, is not such great shakes) Mastroeni and Donovan in the MLS, I don't know where Onyewu plays (does he have a club?) Pope in Belgium, Beasley in Holland, Convey in Reading (promoted but no experience yet of the Premiership) and Reyna & McBride in the Premiership. They certainly did stink up the place, but there's no guarantee that the second string with even less experience of elite football will be any better.
As for:
The only possible salvation we can take is that it was the worst US performance, by far, of Bruce Arena's reign. Win, lose or draw, there's no way we can be that bad against Italy.
Well, you know what they say: When you hit rock bottom, there's only one way to go...sideways!
Also, just on Mexico's seeding. It does indeed make a nonsense of FIFA's own ranking but if so, too bad for the rankings because it looks like Mexico will end up winning their group and the US are likely to finish bottom of theirs, vindicating Mexico's seeding - however galling this might be to fans of Team USA.
Posted by: Frank McGahon | June 16, 2006 at 02:39 PM
Well the Bundesliga is probably the fourth best league in the world so I'm not going to bash Keller or Cherundolo just because they don't play for Barca or Juve.
For what it's worth, Oneywu plays for Standard Liege in Belgium and Pope plays for the MLS club in Salt Lake City. Pope is the best defender the US has ever produced but it's been clear for about two years that he's on the downswing of his career.
Like I said, I think it's a lack of experience playing against top quality EUROPEAN sides. We regularly play matches against South American teams and do reasonably well against them. I think we have trouble against the size and strength of top European sides because the top Latin American sides are more about quick decision making and possession. We're bigger and stronger than most of the teams we play in CONCACAF and South America. But top European defenders are the size of rugby players.
Posted by: Brian | June 16, 2006 at 05:38 PM