Pseudo Corner Kick

Starting Lineup. 4 changes from last week.

 P.S. What you think of the new look to USSoccer.com?

One of my personal favorites and former US player Richie Williams is back with the Metrostars as the assistant coach. Alexei Lalas and Mo Johnston are trying to make the Metrostars a winning team, and New Jersey native Richie Williams will bring his knowledge to the table.

Hopefully Freddy Adu’s debut will lead to more…

Feyenoord has released defender Cory Gibbs. Gibbs, coming back from a long-term injury, may have difficulty finding a new club. Gibbs’ injury status and lack of first team playing experience leaves his World Cup roster spot in doubt.

As much as US Soccer is to be denounced for screwing up the ticketing process, they are to be commended for their ‘all_access’ video archive. There you can find highlights of the game, as well as post game interviews with Bruce Arena, Freddy Adu, and other sound bites from random players. One question I have though: Presumably US Soccer owns the rights to the video of this game, why not make the entire game available online? Better yet, why not have streamed it live, being that there was no other video of the game to be had?

Hard to say much about the game from the clips, but one theme I heard repeated several times was the improvement in Freddy Adu’s defensive positioning. I believe it was first mentioned by the commentators on the audio stream last night, as well as by Freddy in his post game interview.

Live audio of the game here, since there is no TV coverage.

UPDATE 9:47 PM ET: Well I bet somebody is kicking themselves for not picking up the video on this match, as Freddy Adu just made his debut with the full MNT.

UPDATE 9:50 PM ET: LOL!! Freddy gets a yellow card for diving! Priceless

FINAL 9:59 PM ET: Full time, 0-0 draw. I wonder how long for the BigSoccer commentators to start predicting doom and gloom this summer because of a scoreless draw with Canada?

It was announced today that the Men’s National Team will have an early May training camp in Cary, North Carolina, before heading off for a series of warm-up friendlies. Cary is were the MNT trained before the campaign of 2002.
Looking at a map, Cary isn’t all that far from me, so maybe I can talk David or Bobby into joining me for a scouting trip.

Pablo tears a quad and will be out for 6 - 8 weeks. We need guys to get healthy if we are going to succeed in Germany. I find Reyna’s and JOB’s chronic injuries worrying. Hopefully Mastroeni will get back to 100%, not 98% like it seems some of our other guys. Zavagnin will be call up to take his spot.

Also, Guatemala will be added to the already hectic schedule of friendlies in preparation for the World Cup. You know guys are going pick up injuries during these games. I just hope the beneficial value of these games will outweigh the risk of injuries.

UPDATE 1/11: Mr. Fish sets me straight on the number of games we have scheduled thus far in comparison to 2002. I guess I’m just concerned about injuries. Really concerned.

Training camp for the team has begun. As a nice first day surprise, The Bruce subjects the team to the ‘Beep Test’. Watch the video here and see the ‘old man’ Hejduk beat everyone else. Honestly after watching that I’m still not 100% clear what the Beep Test is, but it looks like your average suicide drill back and forth, but you have to complete it within a certain amount of time (before the beep), and that time gets shorter every round.

In other important news (at least for those of us hoping/planning on going to Germany), USSF has announced that there will be no public sale of tickets for now. Apparently the presale got so many applications that there will even be a wait list, and from reading the release, I get the impression it will be a sizable wait list. Our application was among the morning of Day 2 overnight mail rush “since the ‘faxes’ didn’t work”, so hopefully that will be early enough. If not, they further state that we will know by January 14 so we can enter into the last FIFA lottery if need be. This is the first thing USSF has done right in this whole mess, i.e. communicating with the fans.

UPDATE 1/6: AP article here about Freddy Adu in camp.