New FIFA Rankings Out: Italy #1, USA #18

The new FIFA rankings were released today with Brazil "tumbling" out of first, landing in third place. Italy took over the #1 spot with Argentina moving up into second place. The USA dropped one spot to #18. Other movers included England moving up to #9 from #12, Scotland moving up to #14 from #23.

Not that these really mean that much to anyone, but I am a little surprised that Brazil fell two spots, but Argentina stayed at #2. Brazil beat the then #11 & #17 ranked teams last week, along with posting a victory over Algeria in August. Argentina lost 2-1 to Norway in August, and then only had one match in September, beating Australia. I really fail to see how a record of 1-1-0 gets you better points than a record of 3-0-0?

USMNT Roster Set

USMNT Head Coach Bob Bradley has set his 19 man roster for the September 9th match up against Brazil. Considering the fact that this is a FIFA date, the roster isn't that big a shock:

Goalkeepers: Tim Howard (Everton, England), Chris Seitz (Real Salt Lake)

Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham, England), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover, Germany), Jay DeMerit (Watford, England), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Belgium), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock, Germany), Frank Simek (Sheffield Wednesday, England), Jonathan Spector (West Ham, England)

Midfielders: DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Michael Bradley (Heerenveen, Netherlands), Bobby Convey (Reading, England), Clint Dempsey (Fulham, England), Benny Feilhaber (Derby, England), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado)

Forwards: Davy Arnaud (Kansas City), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles), Eddie Johnson (Kansas City), Josh Wolff (1860 Munich, Germany)

I have to figure that Bradley will use the following starting line-up:

Howard

Bocanegra ------ Gooch

Cherundolo ------------------------- Spector

Mastroeni ----- Bradley

Donovan -------------------------------Beasely

Johnson ----- Deuce

I would like to see DeMerit play in central defense instead of Gooch, but considering the way that Bradley has been playing the side, Gooch should be a lock for a start. A lot of people are speculating that Donovan and Dempsey will start up top with each other. I think that they will both start, but I think that EJ will get a start up top with Deuce, who seems to have found a calling at forward for Fulham.

I would have liked to have seen Jimmy Conrad play in the middle of defense, instead of Bocanegra, as I think he supports Gooch much better than 'Los does, but Jimmy got a pass on flying to Chicago this time around.

All in all, I really don't have any complaints for this line up. I am surprised that Bornstein was left off the roster, but considering that Chivas USA are in the middle of a playoff race, Preki must have called in a favor.

My biggest complaint is that the USSF has seemed to have failed at securing a second match for the two FIFA dates in September. I know that playing against CONCACAF teams is getting old, but hell, see if Panama wants to take a trip to Miami or LA or something like that. Getting our guys playing time together now will help them out later when they are trying to handle the hostile atmospheres of Costa Rica or Azteca.

BTW, it seems as if the Catalonia match is getting terminated as well. If this does happen, a second match in September seems more important than ever.

USMNT vs. Brazil

It's official now, and they are bringing their big guns.

Here's to Big Bob's first home loss.

Soccer News & Notes: 8/12/2007

Wayne Rooney Breaks foot, Manchester United held.
Manchester United were held 0-0 today against Reading at Old Trafford. Despite something along the lines of 70% of the possession during the match, United were unable to crack the Reading defense. Considering that Reading were able to hold United 1-1 twice last season, this seems like a fair result. United shouldn't have that much of a problem in the rest of the league.

Then again, with Wayne Rooney breaking his foot during the first half against Reading, the entire outlook for United might have to be re-examined. The addition of Carlos Tevez seems to be an even brighter point in the summer transfer market action now. During the match the announcers were listing off that Saha & Ole were down with injuries, so adding Rooney to that list isn't promising for Sir Alex Ferguson.

Steve McClaren is probably the only person who is going to be in more of a bind than SAF will be, as England really haven't any other options for striker in their upcoming Euro 2008 qualifiers. The return of Michael Owen might be able to ease the pain of losing Rooney, but Owen has his own injury demons to deal with.

Bayern Munich start off Klose; 3-0 victory over Rostock
A very much retooled Bayern Munich dropped Hansa Rostock 3-0 in their Bundesliga opener Saturday behind two goals by new striker Miraslav Klose and one goal behind Italian striker Luca Toni. The Bayern defense looked very good in the match.

The inclusion of Ze Roberto, Frank Ribery, Toni and Klose showed to be an excellent grouping. Ribery was excellent in the midfield, especially working with German International Bastian Schweinsteiger. I'm not the only one picking Bayern to win the Bundesliga, the German Cup and the UEFA Cup this season.

USA vs. Mexico off; USA vs. Brazil on.
According to Washington Post uber Soccer Guru, Steve Goff, the September 9th away match in Azteca Stadium for the USA vs. Mexico has been canceled. Due to the cancellation, the USSF has been able to pull of a major coup and schedule a match in Chicago's Soldier Field against Brazil.

If this is in fact true, and Steve is rarely, rarely wrong, it is interesting. I have just as much mixed feelings about its cancellation as I did when the match itself was announced. The idea of getting our new guys and new look squad an away match in Azteca, in front of 110,000 Mexican fans would be huge in the way of getting them all ready for World Cup Qualifying and for playing in the World Cup. That said, having a third match against Mexico in one calendar year is a little over kill.

Playing against Brazil is another matter. I like this. I wish it could be held in Europe, but getting the Copa America Champions is a great match to line up. I am hoping that the USSF still gets a match scheduled for the Sept. 12 match date as well. Even if the match in the USA, get a match scheduled.

Day Recap: Several matches, different results.

Last night was a busy night for watching or following soccer. The U-20 FIFA World Cup is in full swing and the USA went head to head with Uruguay and after 120 minutes, they gutted out a 2-1 victory to setup a Quarter Final match up with Austria. At the same time, the Copa America Semi-Finals were in full swing as Argentina dashed Mexico's hopes of making their second straight tournament final with a 3-0 victory, setting up the CONMEBOL dream final of Brazil vs. Argentina.

I have to admit, last night was the first U-20 match that I have watched of the tournament. I figured that after the rave reviews I have seen about how organized and effective the USA was against both Poland and Brazil, I would check the team out for myself. I was a little disappointed in the performance that I saw. I expected a better looking side, when I saw a side the reminded me of the US squad that was sent to the Copa America.

Yes their team defending was pretty good, but the longer that match went on, the more I knew that it was going to be Uruguay scoring first. Based on that, along with the fact that the USA never really looked dangerous in the second half, I figured that the USA would get dumped out of the tournament 1-0. We were very lucky to get that goal to send it to extra time. Once we got that goal, I saw an entirely different USA team take it to Uruguay. I saw better runs and I finally saw Feddy Adu make himself known in the match. Overall, the extra period was way better than anything I saw for the first 90 minutes.

While this match was going on, I was flipping back and forth between the U-20's and the Copa America match. I really wasn't that impressed with Mexico for the half that I saw. Argentina seemed to be giving Hugo's boys a lot more space than they deserved. Guardado's strike that hit the post was very well taken, but I didn't see anything else from Mexico that made me feel that they were going to break down the Argentine defense. Argentina on the other hand, was making great runs in the box with Messi and Teves giving the Mexico backline fits.

So now CONMEBOL has their dream final of Brazil vs. Argentina. I have to believe that Argentina will pull this one out. Brazil has been sleep walking through this tournament and Argentina has been focused and dedicated towards winning the tournament. I see Argentina picking up the Copa America title.

FIFA Rankings: USA #16?

FIFA released its June rankings and other than Brazil dropping to #3, the biggest story is the USA moving up from #29 to #16. It is speculated that the large jump is due to the strong start to the Gold Cup, as official tournament matches have more weight than friendly matches. Mexico on the other hand, dropped six spots to #26. Poor Mexico.

Ok, does anyone out there really think that wins against Guatemala, Trinidad & Tobago, and El Salvador along with a friendly win over a less than experienced China warrants a 13 place jump? Are these FIFA rankings the same inflated/bloated ones that had had the USA ranked #5 in the world?

Assuming we make it to the Gold Cup finals, our run here should help offset any problems we get from the performance in the Copa America.