Friendlies Roster

So Bradley has released the roster for the USA National Team's upcoming friendlies. It's a who's who of young American talent in the MLS, along with our old Scandinavian stomping grounds. Cervi plays for Celtic, which is the only foreign club of note here. Obviously he doesn't start. In fact he's on loan to Dundee. Where he doesn't start. Sigh.

Here's the list:

GOALKEEPERS

Cervi, Dominic (Celtic)
Johnson, Sean (Chicago Fire)
Pickens, Matt (Colorado Rapids)
Rimando, Nick (Real Salt Lake)

DEFENDERS

DeLaGarza, A.J. (Los Angeles Galaxy)
Franklin, Sean (Los Angeles Galaxy)
Gonzalez, Omar (Los Angeles Galaxy)
Ihemelu, Ugo (FC Dallas)
Loyd, Zach (FC Dallas)
Miller, Ryan (Halmstads BK)
Ream, Tim (New York Red Bulls)
Wallace, Anthony (Colorado Rapids)
Wynne, Marvell (Colorado Rapids)

MIDFIELDERS

Alexander, Eric (FC Dallas)
Bedoya, Alejandro (Örebro)
Cronin, Sam (San Jose Earthquakes)
Diskerud, Mikkel (Stabaek)
Larentowicz, Jeff (Colorado Rapids)
McCarty, Dax (D.C. United)
Shea, Brek (FC Dallas)

FORWARDS

Agudelo, Juan (New York Red Bulls)
Braun, Justin (Chivas USA)
Bunbury, Teal (Sporting Kansas City)
Wondolowski, Chris (San Jose Earthquakes)

Feliz Navidad!

So, I don't want to give the impression I have a Giuseppe Rossi man-crush by including him in the last two posts, but it's much more indicative about how bad at posting I've been recently. Here is Villareal's Christmas ad which I thought was cute. Come on it's in good fun. It is a little sad that he is clearly an Italian, through and through, to everyone in Spain and Europe. Obviously having him sing Yankee Doodle Dandy would be great but as I've said before I really have no hard feelings towards Rossi. As opposed to other players who more callously choose their national team off of a combination of prestige and possibility of playing time, he never wavered in his commitment for Italy. He always represented them at the youth level and never toyed with the US. He always made it clear he wanted to represent Italy, which for a kid from New Jersey, is a pretty ballsy move. I respect that. He could have been first-choice striker for 15 years for the US team (assuming we don't have some golden generation of 14-year olds right now) but instead is trying to play for the team of his childhood dreams. What's wrong with that? Besides he basically moved at 13 to Parma so by that logic Ghana should hate Freddy Adu (or they would if he was good) and so many other countless movements of players. I have more respect for Rossi, a kid who chose a path he has never wavered from and was always clear and upfront about who he wanted to represent, than I do for Jermaine Jones, who I really think just wanted to play some international football. I have no issue with Jones as I would do the same in his situation but does anyone really think that he would be playing for USA if the German national team had been calling? He played in three friendlies but never would have seen any starting lineup. Look, I'm going to stop ranting but where I'm going with this is that I think hating Rossi shows how weak a footballing nation we are. He is clearly the best player to have been born on American soil and barring some new prodigy, will probably hold that title for his career. Donovan is great but come on, everyone would take Rossi first. The problem isn't that USA soccer didn't hold on to Rossi (whom even Brazil wouldn't have) but the problem is that we are so desperate for a creative player that we'll scorn a kid living out his dream.

Anyways, here is that Christmas special, it is quite funny.