Over the course of twelve days, the USMNT played three matches and took nine points out of a possible nine. I wrote that despite a porous defense, the US looked to be good for seven points in the three games, and since they were lucky to get away with the win in Jamaica, I'll say my assessment was pretty solid.
Problems still clearly remain. Klinsmann seems to have settled on a center-back pairing of Besler and Gonzalez, and while it's true they anchored a defense that only gave up one goal in three games, it was hard to look at their performance on the pitch and think, "Awww yeah, we've got this nailed down." The way Gonzalez didn't close [a player whose name is now lost to time] last night toward the end of the first half seemed a little too indicative of where the defense is right now. Good enough to qualify out of CONCACAF? Sure. Good enough to face a Spain or Brazil or the real Germany? (Sorry, that friendly was a good win, but it doesn't really count.) No way.
It's a little premature to write our ticket to Brazil right now, but with 13 points, the lead in the group, and four games remaining, you've got to say the US have put themselves in a good position to qualify. If they take six points in their matches against Mexico (here) and Costa Rica (away) in September--a stretch, but not impossible--then their two matches in October could practically be friendlies. And then from there we'll have however many friendlies prior to the World Cup, and that might give us the time we need to get our defense up to actually acceptable.
(Apparently I still had more to say, because I left myself notes in anticipation of coming back to the draft. They read:
- Jozy confidence
- Bradley in midfield
- Dempsey
- That one series of passes against Panama
Of course I no longer know what I planned to say. I suppose I was going to say that Jozy Altidore, like many strikers, feasts when his confidence is high and starves the rest of the time; when I looked it up just now, I saw that he scored in all three of the qualifiers I was writing about.
I imagine I was going to say that Bradley ran the midfield, and that Dempsey was extremely important in the second striker/No. 10 role. I bet that one series of passes against Panama was really pretty, and probably led to a goal. But who knows?
I'd been in Albuquerque for two days when I wrote this draft, and was very much trying to get my feet under me. Also, a little more than week before, my friend Nolus had died in the desert near Grand Junction; searchers had found his body on Monday the 11th. I'd be driving back up to Colorado for his memorial a few days after I wrote this draft. What do you think: can I maybe forgive myself for never finishing and publishing this piece?
And the USMNT? They qualified comfortably for the 2014 World Cup, finishing first out of CONCACAF. Their defense never did get any better, but they played with enough grit (and good luck) to get out of their group in Brazil before falling to Belgium in the Round of 16. From what I gather, Jürgen Klinsmann still hasn't solved their defensive frailties, though you can't seriously expect me to be watching early-round World Cup qualifiers in the middle of the most thrillingly weird Premier League season of all time, can you?)