World Cup Qual Roster [Updated]

USA Roster Announced:

The 17-man roster, including four Olympians, for Wednesday’s World Cup qualifier at Guatemala (10 p.m. ET, ESPN2, Galavision): [FYI, an 18th player will be added in the next few days.]

GOALKEEPERS: Tim Howard, Brad Guzan.

DEFENDERS: Steve Cherundolo, Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Heath Pearce, Frankie Hejduk, Jay DeMerit.

MIDFIELDERS: Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, Sacha Kljestan, Pablo Mastroeni, Eddie Lewis.

FORWARDS: Landon Donovan, Eddie Johnson, Brian Ching, Clint Dempsey.

Jeff’s take:

Surprisingly missing: Kenny Cooper

Mistakenly present: Brian Ching (I love the Dynamo therefore I love Ching, but he doesn’t need to be on this roster; I would have brought Kenny, or long list of other people first).

Additional Coverage

USA MNT Olympic match v. Nigeria – 1st Half

Shel and I are watching together on this one! (She’s back, YAY!!!)

In the first three minutes of the game Orozco got the most bogus red card of the entire Olympics! It maybe should have been a called foul, a yellow max! But definitely NOT a red.

Meet The Press: Holden

 

Stuart Holden holds post-game press conference after his Olympic-game-winning goal

 

 

US Soccer Olympian Stuart Holden (Photos: USSoccer.com/isiphotos)

 

 

Click here to hear Stuart Holden and Coach Peter Nowak’s post-game press conference

Also, click below to watch Holden, Guzan, Wynne and McBride (but mostly Holden) on the 1-0 win over Japan in their first match of the olympics, as well as looking forward to our game against The Netherlands this weekend.

US Olympic Team vs Japan

Watching the first half of the US Olympic squad on TiVo delay…so this is like live blogging a game except it’s only the blogging that’s live, not the game. I’ve a few thoughts.

1st impression: this US squad looks STRONG. Despite some scary things we’d heard since our boys headed to Asia, they look like a strong team. (Phew!)

2nd thought: Rogers is hot today! By that I mean he’s playing very well and he is looking GOOD. I mean clearly Holden’s the hottest player on the field (he always is the hottest player on any field). But I’m enjoying Rogers this morning also.

3rd thought: thank god we brought Guzan! He’s had some great saves (particularly aprox 21:00 if you watch online; great teamwork with Edu at aprox 27:40).

4th thought: I really hate Marcello Balboa (one of the two commentators). It’s not just because he spews stupid shit, constantly tokenizes himself, sounds like nails on chalkboard or has the vocabulary of a twelve year old. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Luckily JP’s doing more of the play-by-play.

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Writen on my iPhone; please excuse typos, brevity and lack of photos.

What exactly IS the Japanese player reaching for???

Olympians Took My Advice, Kinda

I mentioned in a previous post that the US Men’s Olympic Team was in route to Hong Kong, and that they shared the flight with about half the US Swim Team.  One might hope the two teams could share training tips, and that the end result would be barely-there shorts for the soccer team. Turns out they did learn something, but it involves the long tights rather than the short shorts. Sigh. [Really, they are compression pants to reduce swelling in flight; so they had them on before meeting the swimmers. But I fear the swimmers might have validated the style, and that would be unfortunate for all.]

 

Stuart Holden and Brad Guzan rockin' (yes, I'm sometimes delusional) the...um...leggings. (Photo: USSoccer YNT-blog)

Friedel at Villa too? Poor Guzan

It’s official.  Brad Friedel signed a three-year contract with Aston Villa for an undisclosed sum, leaving Blackburn after an eight-year stint.  But what does this mean for Brad Guzan? The reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year recently transferred to Villa as well.  It was thought that he would have to compete with current Villa player Stuart Taylor for starting honors (Scott Carson, former goalkeep, has moved on), but seems like he now has to beat out American/Premier League veteran Brad Friedel as well.  Bummer for Guzan.  What do you think are Guzan’s chances of winning? Let the battle of the Brad’s commence.