Group C

The following three posts will be a breakdown of the USMNT opponents in the group stage of the World Cup: England, Algeria, and Slovenia.

Team for WC

No.	Players	Pos.	Ht.	Wt.	Birthdate	Hometown	Club/College	Caps/Goals
1	Howard, Tim	GK	6-3	210	03/06/79	North Brunswick, N.J.	Everton (England)	51/0
2	Spector, Jonathan	D	6-0	180	03/01/86	Arlington Heights, Ill.	West Ham United (England)	25/0
3	Bocanegra, Carlos	D	6-0	170	05/25/79	Alta Loma, Calif.	Rennes (France)	79/12
4	Bradley, Michael	M	6-2	175	07/31/87	Manhattan Beach, Calif.	Borussia Mönchengladbach (Germany)	43/7
5	Onyewu, Oguchi	D	6-4	210	05/13/82	Olney, Md.	AC Milan (Italy)	54/5
6	Cherundolo, Steve	D	5-6	145	02/19/79	San Diego, Calif.	Hannover 96 (Germany)	60/2
7	Beasley, DaMarcus	M	5-8	145	05/24/82	Ft. Wayne, Ind.	Rangers (Scotland)	92/17
8	Dempsey, Clint	M	6-1	170	03/09/83	Nacogdoches, Texas	Fulham (England)	62/18
9	Gomez, Herculez	F	5-10	165	04/06/82	Las Vegas, Nev.	Puebla F.C. (Mexico)	4/2
10	Donovan, Landon	M	5-8	158	03/04/82	Redlands, Calif.	Los Angeles Galaxy	123/42
11	Holden, Stuart	M	5-10	160	08/01/85	Houston, Texas	Bolton Wanderers (England)	14/2
12	Bornstein, Jonathan	D	5-9	145	11/07/84	Los Alamitos, Calif.	Chivas USA	32/2
13	Clark, Ricardo	M	5-10	150	05/10/83	Jonesboro, Ga.	Eintracht Frankfurt (Germany)	29/2
14	Buddle, Edson	F	6-1	185	05/21/81	New Rochelle, N.Y.	Los Angeles Galaxy	3/2
15	DeMerit, Jay	D	6-0	185	12/04/79	Green Bay, Wis.	Watford (England)	19/0
16	Torres, José	M	5-7	135	10/29/87	Longview, Texas	Pachuca (Mexico)	10/0
17	Altidore, Jozy	F	6-1	175	11/06/89	Boca Raton, Fla.	Villareal (Spain)	25/9
18	Guzan, Brad	GK	6-4	210	09/09/84	Homer Glen, Ill.	Aston Villa (England)	16/0
19	Edu, Maurice	M	6-0	170	04/18/86	Fontana, Calif.	Rangers (Scotland)	13/1
20	Findley, Robbie	F	5-9	165	08/04/85	Phoenix, Ariz.	Real Salt Lake	6/0
21	Goodson, Clarence	D	6-4	170	05/17/82	Alexandria, Va.	IK Start (Norway)	14/2
22	Feilhaber, Benny	M	5-9	150	01/19/85	Irvine, Calif.	AGF Aarhus (Denmark)	32/2
23	Hahnemann, Marcus	GK	6-3	220	06/15/72	Seattle, Wash.	Wolverhampton Wanderers (England)	16/0

Stars and Strikes is Back

After some time away due to School I am back to relaunch Stars and Strikes just in time for the world cup. I am hoping to be able to bring back all of the old readers since we had some real good conversations going. Anyone who has requests or advice let me know and I will try and make this site as good as it was before if not better.

Swine Flu News Everywhere

looks sick to me

So Landon Donovan has Swine Flu… You would think he got this in his time in Mexico but it turns out that he probably got it from his Galaxy Coaches during his trip to New England:

According to the Los Angeles Times, a pair of Galaxy team staffers (an administrator and chiropractor) who travel with the squad fell ill during the team’s trip to the Massachusetts to play the New England Revolution.
Soon after, Donovan began to feel poorly.

So he was sick during the game vs Mexico probability not a good combination with the altitude, pollution and heat…. so take that for whats its worth. However the USMNT is saying they had no idea that Donovan was sick:

“As part of the press release that announced the preventative measures U.S. Soccer expressed that they had no knowledge of Donovan being sick while he was in camp or during their trip to Mexico and it is presumed that he most likely came in contact with the virus while with his club team in L.A.
The most troubling issue is that Donovan never mentioned his illness to the U.S. team, opting to fight through it rather than alert the doctors ahead of the match against Mexico.
Donovan is quoted in the L.A. Times as saying that he began coughing on Monday and felt tired ahead of the match on Wednesday.
With the conditions is Azteca already hard enough to deal with, playing with an illness could have been a very costly mistake, both for Donovan and for the team. With the news not breaking until the team had split and was once again spread out all over the globe, the preventative measures could be hard to implement.
According to Galaxy manager Bruce Arena Donovan could be an option on Saturday for his club team but his availability will be determined by how he feels before the match.”

Because of this the US national team is taking measures to protect their players:

“U.S. Soccer is trying to take preventative measures against the further spread of the influenza A virus which star midfielder Landon Donovan tested positive for a day after the U.S. lost to Mexico.”
“We have prescribed the medication to players, coaches and staff members who may have come in close contact with Landon Donovan solely as a preventative measure,” said Dr. David Wallis, a member of the U.S. Soccer medical staff in a press release. “Based on CDC recommendations, individuals who did not experience close contact with the player, such as journalists, fans or opposing players, do not need to take any preventative measures. As of now, no other member of the U.S. team delegation has indicated any symptoms associated with the virus and at this time we do not believe additional steps are necessary. However, we will be continuing to monitor the situation and CDC recommendations very closely as we continue to learn more.”

And now club teams have begun to worry as Cherundolo has been quarantined:

“Unsure of whether U.S. Men’s National Team defender Steve Cherundolo is infected, Hannover have decided to quarantine the 30-year-old until it has become medically clear he doesn’t have the virus.
“Until we have clarity, it would be irresponsible not to isolate Stevie from the team,” Hannover director of sport Joerg Schmadtke said of the preventive measure to the club’s website.”

Hopefully this dose not affect any playing time for USMNT players, however it is speculated that Michale Bradley will be quarantined soon as well, with their clubs because its time for us to start using all of our new additions to top European Clubs as a way to improve our players and team as a whole.

Tim Howard says Ref’s Unfair

Tim Howard has said that he doesn’t think the officiating was too fair in the loss vs Mexico yesterday.Says SI.com:

“It seems like when we come to a place like this, the most intimidated person in the stadium is the referee,” said goalkeeper Tim Howard after the USA’s 2-1 loss to Mexico. “The bar was probably tilted in their favor, and that’s unfortunate because it was a hard-fought game. We went in hard, they went in hard, and for some reason, we keep coming out with the foul.”

I don’t like to blame the Ref’s usually, just because its not the right thing to do and you can’t fix it or really prove anything, but the fact that we lost Onyewu for the next game is very frustrating. Also we have to deal with the fact that its everyone against the US in every aspect of our games.

Gameday!

If only we could be like the Mexicans in NY...

So today is the big game! The game is at 3pm and will be shown on Mun2 in English and Telemundo in Spanish.  There will be a pregame show on ESPN the first ever pre-game show they do for a soccer game that they are not actually showing.  If you are like me than you do not get Mun2 (although they are adding it to all satellite customers for the game today free) because I have cable.  So I will be out and not able to add posts about the game today.  I will be able to comment though and will try to update that way.  Go USA!!!

World Cup Qualification Odds

So there’s a website called Sports Club Stats that does the odds for making the World Cup out of the CONCACAF region.  They say that our current odds of making the WC are 95.5% while our chance of finishing number 1 is 31%.  There are some neat charts and tables but this one shows the implications of our game with Mexico tomorrow:

Wednesday, 8/12
	Mexico		vs	USA				4:00 PM
	Chance in World Cup if:
Mexico wins				USA wins			Draw
Mexico	66.1			30.7			42.7
El Salvador	26.6			37.4			33.3
Honduras	65.3			75.6			72.0
USA	89.3			99.4			96.7
T & T	4.1			7.5			6.1
Costa Rica	98.6			99.4			99.2

So pretty much if we beat Mexico tomorrow were in almost for sure and their odds are very bad.  If we lose they are probably going to make it, and we are still sitting pretty well but a little less certain.  If we draw our odds are pretty great as well.  So while tomorrow is very important for pride and revenge, it is not the most important game for us in terms of the WC.  But it is for Mexico…

Who to drop?

So the current roster for the game against Mexico is 20 guys, but the only 18 players actually get to be on the roster come game time, so the question is who to drop?

Here is the roster to look over again:

U.S. ROSTER BY POSITION Full Roster Click Here
GOALKEEPERS (2): Brad Guzan (Aston Villa: 5/3 SO), Tim Howard (Everton FC: 11/7 SO)
DEFENDERS (7): Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes: 21/3), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA, 2/0), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover: 18/0), Jay DeMerit (Watford: 2/0), Chad Marshall (Columbus Crew: 1/0), Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan: 16/1), Jonathan Spector (West Ham: 2/0)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Michael Bradley (Borussia Mönchengladbach: 10/4), Ricardo Clark (Houston Dynamo: 5/0), Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC: 17/4), Benny Feilhaber (AGF Aarhus: 1/0), Stuart Holden (Houston Dynamo: 0/0), José Francisco Torres (Pachuca: 5/0)
FORWARDS (5): Jozy Altidore (Hull City: 8/5), Conor Casey (Colorado Rapids: 5/0), Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo: 15/6), Charlie Davies (FC Sochaux: 2/1), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy: 30/11)
*numbers indicate all-time World Cup Qualifying caps/goals

Which two players will be dropped to get to the 18?

To me it seems that it should be 1 D player and one Forward/Midfielder.  I don’t Bob Bradley would call a player from overseas to come back if they were not going to play so that only leaves the MLS guys to eliminate.  For the D that is Bornstein or Marshall. Of these I think it is more likely to be Marshall but I’ll put it at 60% Marshall and 40% Bornstein. 

For the F/M it is between Casey, Ching and Holden.  I don’t think it will be Holden because both Donovan and Dempsey can move up to play Forward if need be.  For Casey and Ching, while Casey played in the Confed Cup and Ching didn’t, Casey has been hot scoring a Hat-Trick this week, and while considering Ching has been hurt, I still see Casey as the most likely to be left off.  Ching just has so much experience and in a game in Azteca experience could play a big role.  I will put the odds at Casey 60% Ching 30% and Holden 10%.

What do you think? Who should be left off? Who will be left off?

Update: Offical Change

The official for the Mexico game on Wednesday has been changed! ussoccer.com reports:

Referee Change Posted by ussoccer at 8/10/2009 6:59 PM CDT

U.S. Soccer has been informed of a change in the referee crew that will officiate Wednesday’s match.  Roberto Moreno of Panama will now run the middle, replacing Joel Aguilar of El Salvador.  Fans who followed the Gold Cup will remember that Aguilar served as the referee in the 1-1 draw between Mexico and Panama from the group phase in which Mexico coach Javier Aguierre and Panama midfielder Ricardo Phillips were sent off, with the Mexican manager receiving a subsequent three-match ban from the sidelines.

You would think that this is a good change for the US, as Aguierre kicked the Panama player and there is now a ref from Panama.  Also the same things apply that Panama has a better chance to get in through the 4th spot than passing the US…

Bradley Press Conference

If you want to listen to a conference call with USMNT Head Coach Bob Bradley from Miami you can check it out on the USSOCCER website.  Tim Howard was also on the call.

My notes from the call:

• They are currently training in Miami.
• They will not train in Mexico, they will get there late Tuesday and not go to Mexico City till the last second possible.
• Bradley talks about altitude, consulted experts from the Olympic committee.
• They believe its either get fully acclimated in about 10 days or spend as little time as possible in the altitude
• 14 guys are currently in Miami. Guys yet to arrive are MB JA BF BC RC SH
• Giovanni Di Santos is of concern.  Had a very good gold cup, but we know his tendencies now… prefers his left foot a lot. Tim Howard not scared.
• Gold Cup was disappointing but most player were not involved and don’t think it is a problem.
• Tim Howard has never been to Azteca but has played at much more intimidating venues and so have his teammates.
• Win doesn’t guarantee top seed in WC
• Tim doesn’t care about seeding, everyone in the WC will be a challenge.

The total call is very long this is only about half of it.