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There’s no question it’s wildly untimely to name a starting lineup for the US Men’s National Team for the 2010 World Cup. Possibly insanely premature.
However, with that disclaimer out of the way, I’m going to unveil my starting 11, my idealisti current lineup, my list of subs who ought to see ample playing time, and hopefully a compelling rationale for my picks.
Players were chosen to this elite cadre based on current and past experience for the most part. Nonetheless, players who have shown unbelievable promise are not excluded. Ahem, cough, cough, hack, ALTIDORE, cough.
My impression of Mr. Bob “Slim” Bradley has been that he embraces offense to a somewhat dandier degree than Good Old Bruce “4-5-1″ Arena, who was a veritable kryptonite to goal-scoring for the duration of his tenure with the National Team.
Bradley’s peptalks to his strikers prior to games are in all probability less demoralizing than Arena’s. I’m finelooking sure Arena’s talk to McBride before the US-Ghana game in 2006 went something like this:
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4-5-1: “Ok, Brian, I’m going to send you up top COMPLETELY ALONE in a game we perfectly need to win. I’m going to isolate you completely and I wholly suppose that you will be covered by at least 2-3 Ghanian defenders at all times. We in all likelihood need two goals from you today. We’re going to get this done by supplying you with frightening service into the box and pulling back our midfield to defend, even even though a tie does ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD.
McBride: What?
Kryptonite: Also, we know you’re a brilliant finisher and an splendid passer and are extraordinary in the air. Therefore, we’re going ignore those attainments and rely on outstanding pace and dribbling accomplishments for you to score any goals – you’re just going to have to acquire those achievements without delay to score the goals we utterly need.
McBride: Can I just retire now?
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Now for the lineup. In my estimation, there are approximately 75 players in the National Team players pool from which to choose. Winnowing it down to 40 players was depressingly easy. From 40 to 23 was harder. 23 to 11, very difficult.
Let’s assume the formation is going to be a 4-4-2.
IN GOAL: Howard.
But, it doesn’t matter. Seriously. The US has no less than 5 goalkeepers I’d be comfortable with – Howard, Hahnemann, Guzan, Reis, Cannon. Howard gets the edge based on experience and distribution. I think Guzan is a close second.
DEFENDERS: Bocanegra, Conrad, Gooch, Parkhurst.
I’m not crazy with regards to this back four, but it may be the best option and I think it could be honed to excellence. I’m assuming that Gooch will, at a heap of point, get it altogether together and be there to snuff out each through ball and each attack before it starts. Or at least he might shrink down a little bit so that he won’t get carded when players run into him. Parkhurst is interchangeable with assorted of my subs, but I give him the edge as he’s an unbelievable talent and I haven’t seen sufficient of Simek or Demerit to put them here. Bocanegra provides aggressive marking, in general good positioning, and may score off of set pieces. If he may keep away from any faults and any stupid fouls, he will be very solid. Jimmy Conrad will have to be used to neutralize the opponent’s best player by close marking.
MIDFIELDERS: Adu, Beasley, Donovan, Mapp.
Oh, I know I’m going to catch galore flak for this one, even from my fellow SpotlightSoccer.com cohort.
Sure, Mapp have a tendancy to vanish and may be lazy on defense, Adu is small, and Donovan is streaky, but these are difficulties that may be FIXED! I believe they may be corrected by 2010.
What I’m envisioning with these four is a speedy, originative midfield. Granted these four are surely more suitable towards offense than defense, but my dream is that the US wins games 4-2, as opposed to losing 1-0.
Donovan and Adu as dual attacking center middies could be a monster. Beasley will have to be a lock for the left midfield position, and Mapp on the right side has dribbling skill that’s rare outside of Dempsey on the US’s team.
I foresee Beasley streaking down the left side, crossing in to Donovan who attacks the defense and dishes it off to Mapp on the right side… who jukes out two defenders, gets into the box and drops it to the top of the 18 where Adu is waiting to blast it into the upper right corner.
FORWARDS: Altidore, Dempsey
“Altidore”, you say? “But he’s only played in two international games! Yeah? So? You want Josh Wolff on the field instead?
Altidore’s good calibers are far too a good deal of to not field him, starting as soon as possible. He’s got good pace, good attainments on the ball, good finishing, he’s good in the air, and he holds the ball up nicely. What else do you want? Put him on the field. Keep him on the field.
Dempsey has been fantastic as of late and his time in Fulham (providing they don’t get relegated) will only increase his already significant skills.
The US has been missing out majorly in the striker section as of late. I think Twellman and Eddie Johnson have blown too numerous prospects at this point.
Twellman just doesn’t seem to be capable to get it done. Eddie Johnson may score versus Panama, but he can’t do anything versus a good team. I hope he gets rejuvenated at Fulham, but I’m not keeping my breath.
I don’t think Ching ought to be given the boot, though he hasn’t been as impressive as I’d hoped. I think Ching could work well with Landon and Dempsey feeding him passes.
SUBS: To be applied liberally.
GK: Guzan.
Does anybody ever need two goalkeeper subs? Doesn’t that seem… wasteful?
Defenders: Simek, Pearce, Spector, Wynne
I suppose Pearce, Wynne, and Simek to see the most action of this bunch. Simek has outstanding potential and could provide the US with good runs out of the back.
Midfielders: Feilhaber, Ricardo Clark, Mastroeni (just in case we ever need an ill-timed red card), Szetela, Bradley (because you just know he’s making the team, merited or not), Edu
I like this supporting cast a good bit. Clark and Feilhaber are more or less interchangeable – even though Clark is better at kicking Carlos Ruiz. Mastroeni may either play in truth well or genuinely poorly – I’m hoping for in truth well. Szetela has a bright future and Edu’s future is even brighter.
Forwards: Ching, and… the shocker of the bunch – Nate Jaqua.
Frankly, I’m hoping other choices will emerge by then, but as of today, I like either of these guys as a target man.
United States America Reis
Through a Portagee Gate is both an autobiography and a biography. It gives a in an outstanding manner honorable self-portrait and an lovable and childlike tribute to the author’s father, a Portuguese immigrant cobbler who came to America in 1915. The narrative reveals a deep desire to escape the confines of the immigrant, ethnic world, while likewise acknowledging a keen nostalgia when it comes to one’s past, a need to do not forget and pay tribute to those who come before us. Felix accomplishes this through unforgettable dialog and bright characterizations worthy of Steinbeck, a prose, from time to time poignant, at other times hilarious, that strips humane experience to it is bare and powerful elements.
From the Back CoverThrough a Portagee Gate is a plain-spoken, down-to-earth account of an American voyage, rich in fable, anecdote, and wit. Charles Reis Felix writes as boldly as if carving scrimshaw when it comes to the soles fixed by his father, a cobbler, and the tread of life upon respective nearby souls, including his own. –Katherine Vaz, author of Mariana, Saudade, and Fado & Other Stories, the 1977 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and Briggs-Copland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard University Through a Portagee Gate is a valuable document, a record, a history, an autobiography, a memoir, an elegy. When readers encounter Felix’s conservatively drawn dramatic scenes, his exacting prose, and his deeply humane people, they understand that he is engaged in a work of art. Felix is a writer possessed of humor, wit, and a great heart. –Frank X. Gaspar, author of the novel Leaving Pico Through a Portagee Gate is the story of two men told with novelistic brilliance. Passionate, witty, full of anger, but leavened with equivalent amounts of hope, it is the most moving biography I’ve came upon in years — and one of the most remarkable autobiographies. –Llewellyn Howland III, author of The New Bedford Yacht Club: A History Reading much like a novel, with it is rich detail and emotive content, Through a Portagee Gate offers a unfathomed look into the Portuguese immigrant psyche and the evolution of a post-industrial city. –Donald Warrin, author of Land as Far as the Eye Can See: The Portuguese in the Old West
About the AuthorCharles Reis Felix was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, one of four children of Portuguese immigrant parents. He attended local public schools and graduated from New Bedford High in 1941. He studied at the University of Michigan from 1941-43, at which time he was drafted into the U.S. Army. After the war he received a B.A. in history from Stanford University and became an elementary school teacher. He is married, with two grown children, and lives with his wife Barbara in a cabin amidst the redwoods of Northern California. His original published book, Crossing the Sauer (Burford Books, 2002), an account of his experience as a combat infantryman in WWII, was hailed by Paul Fussell, author of The Great War and Modern Memory, as “one of the most honest, unforgettable memoirs of the war I’ve read.” Felix has just finished his third book, a novel entitled Da Gama, Cary Grant, and the Election of 1934. In it he returns to an immigrant community in Massachusetts much like the one in Through a Portagee Gate.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter 64: His Father Again. I knew almost not one thing of my father’s childhood. I knew he had been poor in Portugal. I knew he had gone to work at the age of eight in a sardine cannery. The sardine cans ended up covered with olive oil. His occupation was to dip the may in sawdust and then, with a brush, clean the may off. He demonstrated his brushing technique to me. I knew his father had been a cobbler. That was in regards to all I knew of his early life. He never talked when it comes to Portugal. It was as if his life had started when he came to America. Whatever happened before that had been erased from memory. When I was growing up, I did not realize that all his stories were regarding America and that there were none with regards to Portugal. But as I got older, I took note of the omission and felt it was rather odd. I wanted to recognise when it comes to those early days, in regards to his father, regarding his family, when it comes to his experiences. I knew that he had an inner reserve that would not be breached by direct frontal assault. So I tried to entice him into reminiscing by priming the pump with artfully designed innocent questions. And I waited for the proper moment, when his stomach was full and he was relaxed. He looked at me blankly. He never heard me. He always talked with regards to something else. Once when I would not acquiesce in his sudden deafness and pestered him, he turned on me in exasperation and said sharply, “What do you want to know that for?” I made no headway, so at last I gave up. He merely did not want to talk regarding it. But one day, he did talk. He was in his eighties then. His voice was husky with age. I was home, visiting from California. It was a balmy summer day. I expended the afternoon at my aunts’ house a few blocks away. My mother and my sister had gone out on a obligation call, admiring someone’s new baby. My father was left home alone. It was late afternoon when I walked into the house. My mother and sister were still out. The house was perfectly quiet. There was no sound. I couldn’t do not forget it ever being that quiet before. He was sitting at the table. He sat in shadows. There were no lights on. The sun was sinking behind the New Bedford Cotton Mill. A fresh breeze was coming through an open window and more or less moving the curtains. I sat down besides him. He didn’t seem conscious of me. His face was set in utter desolation. He was a man beyond reach, beyond love and family, beyond humane relationships, alone, the last man on earth. Was he contemplating humane destiny? Was he conscious of a lot of level of existence that could only horrify? “My mother die when I was eight,” he said. “We were very poor. I had numerous a meal of just a piece of stale bread, not one thing on it, and a cup of coffee. But not coffee like here, with milk and sugar. Just black coffee, very strong. That was the whole meal, bread and coffee. “But my mother die. My father married again, a younger woman. She was not old sufficient to be my mother, more like a huge sister. But she did not care for me. Or for my two brothers. ‘Brats,’ she called us. Well, I can’t blame her. Soon she had babies of her own and she had her hands full taking care of them. You cannot suppose her to take care of somebody else’s kids. “So she was always yelling at me. She didn’t want me around. One day she said to me, ‘What are you always hanging around the house for? You huge sissy!’ “So I took to staying away, to keep away from her. I would leave early in the morning and come back in the dark. Sneak in to my bed. “But my stepmother–I never got a kind word from her–not even once. “Then I took it into my head to come to America, so I started out saving cash to that end. I had a jar under my bed, and when I got a coin or two, I would put them in the jar. So I saved and some months later, I had the jar almost full. One day I reached underneath the bed for the jar and could not find it. It had been moved. I got on my hands and knees and looked beneath the bed and found it. It was empty. I took the jar to my father and said, ‘What’s this?’ “‘Yes, I took it,’ he said. ‘I need the cash more than you do. You know, it is customary, when the father gets old, the son gives him a kick in the ass. Well, I’m going to give you a kick in the ass first.’ “But in the long run I had sufficient cash to remunerate for my passage over here. I was to take a train to Lisbon, where the boat would be. My last day there, I packed my valise and my father walk with me to the train station. “He seemed sad. “‘I don’t think I’ll ever see you again,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’ll ever come back here again.’ “I looked at him but I didn’t say anything.” Then he stopped talking. Just a few brief sentences. That was all I had of his early life and that was all I would ever have.
United States America Reis Pic
United States America Reis Photo
United States America Reis Pic
United States America Reis Photo
An Emotional Look at the Portuguese-American Story
NOTE: This review will have to have received a five-star rating, but I rated it four by accident. ~LBS
I adored this book!!
I utterly adored this story! My favored emigrant group to the U.S. has always been the Portuguese. (Though I myself am not of Portuguese background.) Charlie’s telling of his father-his entire family-in America is profoundly amusing, nostaligic and at times, heart-wrenching. I love how he depicts the Portuguese as common, daily people, not haughty or putting on heirs of any kind. Wanting not one thing but a mere chance to achieve the American Dream. Highly recommended!
Portuguese Gate so true
It was good to listen the dialog that so often times took place in my fathers kitchen as I grew up. There were My paternal grandparents and my parents and me. I listened to the banter back and forth; this book brought back a great deal of memories and helped me grasp percentage of what made me Portuguese.
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