We’re talking about Soccer, of course! USA’s manager Bob Bradley promised us a “surprise” when he announced his squad for the game against Cuba at RFK on Oct. 11. Many speculated the surprise might be that he wouldn’t pick a team that anyone who follows the side thinks is terrible compared to what it could be.
Well, that is also mostly true, so that’s sort of surprising. But the REAL surprise is that the USA has won the battle against Mexico for Jose Francisco Torres of FC Pachuca, one of the hemisphere’s best football clubs. This is an important battle to win against Mexico, because I don’t like our chances when they actually battle on the football pitch. Carlos Vela, Gio Dos Santos and Andres Guardado managed by Sven Goran-Erikson vs. Question Mark at forward #1, Question Mark at forward #2 and Landon Donovan managed by Bob Bradley doesn’t seem to be in our favor.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Torres is a fantastic pickup for the Mens side. I’d like to see him play in central midfield paired with either Maurice Edu or Michael Bradley. Both Bradley and Edu are physical midfielders who can jam up the middle of the field for you AND they are also very good bombing forward and cleaning up plays around the box and getting goals when they play for their clubs. But when they play together on USA, they both end up too far back too often. If you put a guy with the skill and technique of Torres n the midfield, he can hold onto the ball and give Bradley or Edu enough confidence to come up and join some attacks because they won’t be afraid that Torres is going to give the ball away in the midfield with a bad touch or a bad pass. That’s what happens now when Edu and Bradley play together because one of them is always asked to pretend to be Cesc Fabergas when that’s just not who they are. Edu and Bradley cannot play that far forward and Landon and Dempsey cannot play that far back. If you want to compare molds on the Spanish example: Bradley and Edu are Marcos Senna type players, and Donovan and Dempsey are in the Iniesta mold. We don’t have a Cesc or a Xavi player, a true distributor who stays back and orchestrates the offense. Maybe Torres can be the guy who can successfully link the ball front to back through the middle.
The full callup sheet for the USA can be found here.
