Fool's Gold: The Tale of the 2009 Gold Cup

My initial, as-optimistic-as-I-can-be reaction to the Gold Cup is "I guess overall, this team overachieved" (they exceeded my original of going out in the semis). When I predicted a few weeks ago that we could win this Gold Cup, I was anticipating that all those new players named to the squad (Jozy, Davies, Fielhaber, etc) would all be playing in the knockout round; however none of them saw a minute after the group stage (most of them went back to their European clubs) and so the squad was left to its average MLS-ers and Danish league All-Stars. Given this fact, I am (initially) kind of amazed that we got all the way to the final.

My amazement (and my belief that we overachieved) quickly fades as I realize that we played nobody of any significance to get there; a group consiting of Grenada (a terrible team who by the way were lacking their best player, the Rev's Shalrie Joseph), the Honduran B-team, and Haiti provided really no standard of any quality against which we can judge our C-squad. Panama in the quarterfinals took us 120 minutes to dispose of, while in the semis Honduras' B-teamers once again proved that they belong on the B-team.

So we took the cake walk all the way to the final, and it looks like we have a decent shot at it; USA's C-team vs Mexico's B-team... is there really that big a gulf in skill-level, I asked myself? We at least have some players who are capable of putting in a decent performance, namely Holden, Rogers, and Ching. Well, these players did not do themselves or their reputations any good services on Sunday. I remember one thing about each of them from the final: Holden's first half miss, Rogers' amazing run through 5 Mexicans which was finished by an awful cross, and Ching's general lack of speed. Notice that none of these are anything to put on the resume.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing fingers; everyone-everyone- was crap. Crap. I was embarassed for them in that second half. As I watch the goals (very much in the same way our defenders watched the goals), it's like our defenders are both totally inept and totally indifferent. I've never seen such a beatdown in soccer, and this includes the 8-0 beating of Barbados. Credit to the Mexicans, they stepped up and dominated us on our own soil, which hadn't happened in 10 years.

We were (or at least should have been, I don't know what the oddsmakers ended up deciding) underdogs, even though at home. But were we five goal underdogs? I think not. We didn't earn ourselves the smallest speck of respect on Sunday, and if any of these players are hoping for call-ups in the future (you know, for games that actually matter), they are going to have to:

1. Play well at a club level that is higher than MLS

and

2. Hope that Bob Bradley is a forgiving man (except for Holden and Rogers, who I think earned themselves enough USMNT credit in the games leading up to the final to be considered "in the mix" for the A-team).

Otherwise, this Gold Cup will have taught us nothing more than 21 of the 23 man roster are not good enough to hack it at the international level.