United States of America (2006)
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Courageous Conviction will drive the Dream to Existence (
*
)
|
"We've earned a little bit more [respect], but
'not enough.' That's fine," Bruce Arena said after the US lost to Germany
in the 2002 World Cup. "We have to keep moving forward and try to get better.
"The one way you shut everyone up is you win. You've got to step on
the field and just beat them. Period. Bottom line."
Sure sounds to me like Bruce is ready to go!
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What we know right now is that the US is going to a series
of matches to get prepared for the World Cup Qualification this summer -
against either Guyana or Grenada, before joining three other teams in the
second round of CONCACAF WCQ, probably with El Salvador, Jamaica and Pamana
(and missing Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and Canada).
Needless to say, we are still real early on in the process. This
page will develop as we get closer to making decisions. For now,
take a look at the Personnel
section for a look at the broad group Il Bruce is looking at, as well
as the Road to the World Cup
section for a look at the games and results so far.
As we know more about the road of qualification, etc., that will be
posted.
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Did you forget to set your VCR?!?
If you are looking for old tapes of team USA or the NASL, Dave Brett Wasser
is your man. Take a look at his website --
Soccer and Sports Videos
-- and find tons of soccer matches from days of old and new! Want
to see Pele's first NASL game? He's got it! Want to see USA-Colombia
from 1994? He's got it! Or the womens game -- USA v. China in the
1996 Olympics -- you know, the one NBC never showed in its entirety? He's
got it! And it isn't just the USA -- what about England-Brazil from
1970? Brazil-Holland at the Cotton Bowl in 1994? England-Argentina
in 1986? He has 'em!
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Other Information Sources
US Soccer Federation (Official)
Sam's Army (Unofficial Supporters Group)
Monty's Picture from the Army
ESPNet/Soccernet
MLSnet
(Official league site)
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That is me in the shades. The man in the hat is my fellow
soccer pilgrim, Parrish Glover, as we are in Sam's Army during the USA-Jamaica
game on 10-7-01 where the USA qualified for Korea Japan. |
With comments, questions, concerns, etc., please
email me!
Links:
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WC Resource
Dallas Burn
Music, Etc.
PERSONNEL
From the point of ignition to the final drive . . .
The point of departure is not to arrive
Anything Can Happen (**
)
PLAYER GRID
Needless to say, this is going to be in significant flux for quite
some time. This grid is as it was going into Korea. Once we
have some Qualifiers to look at, I will start adjusting this. For
below
for a complete look at the pool.
| Position |
Starter (Probable) |
Bench |
| Forward |
Brian McBride |
Joe-Max Moore |
|
Clint Mathis |
Josh Wolff |
| Midfield |
Claudio Reyna |
Landon Donovan |
|
Earnie Stewart |
Cobi Jones |
|
John O'Brien |
Eddie Lewis
|
|
DaMarcus Beasley
|
Pablo Matroeni
|
| Defense |
Jeff Agoos |
Carlos Llamosa |
|
Eddie Pope |
Gregg Berhalter |
|
David Regis |
Frankie Hejduk |
|
Tony Sanneh |
Steve Cherundolo
|
Goal
|
Kasey Keller
|
Brad Friedel
|
|
|
Tony Meola
|
|
|
|
|
Alternates
|
|
Forward
|
Jovan Kirovski
|
Ante Razov
|
Midfield
|
Brian Masonneuve
|
Ritchie Williams
|
|
Brian West
|
|
Defense
|
Richard Mulrooney
|
|
| Goal |
Tim Howard |
Zach Thornton |
|
|
|
Anyone who has even gotten a sniff of the national team
camp is here. I have tried to balance this in relation to what Bruce
has done in games, but as usual, it is a bit of a guessing game.
I have tried to look at it this way: if they have gotten playing time,
odds are they get to the Maybe/Alternate level. If they have gotten
into camp, they at least make the Long Shot category. With the December
camp in LA, the camp getting ready for Denmark and Holland, we should have
a pretty broad base of players to look at.
Needless to say, please contact me
with any comments or suggestions -- I am trying to be overly inclusive
here.
|
Position
|
Probable Starter
|
Probable Bench
|
Maybe/Alternate
|
Long Shot/Youth
|
| Forward |
Brian McBride |
Clint Mathis |
Ante Razov
|
Connor Casey
|
|
Landon Donovan
|
Josh Wolff |
Pat Noonan
|
Edson Buddle
|
|
|
|
Taylor Twellman
|
Eddie Johnson
|
|
|
|
Jeff Cunningham
|
Jovan Kirovski
|
|
|
|
John Wolyniec
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Midfield
|
DeMarcus Beasley
|
Eddie Lewis |
Chris Klein
|
Ricardo Clark
|
|
John O'Brien |
Chris Armas
|
Steve Ralston
|
Justin Mapp
|
|
Claudio Reyna
|
Richard Mulrooney
|
Ben Olsen
|
Kerry Zavagnin
|
|
Pablo Mastroeni
|
Bobby Convey
|
Jovan Kirovski
|
Brian West
|
|
|
Kyle Martino
|
Brian Mullan
|
Eric Quill
|
|
|
|
Chris Albright
|
Peter Vagenas
|
|
|
|
|
|
Defender
|
Eddie Pope
|
Cory Gibbs
|
Eddie Robbinson
|
Ricky Lewis
|
|
Steve Cherundolo
|
Danny Califf
|
Orlando Perez
|
Nat Borchers
|
|
Frankie Hejduk
|
Greg Vanney
|
Wade Barrett
|
Brian Dunseth
|
|
Carlos Bocanegra
|
Tony Sanneh
|
Jim Curtin
|
Chad McCarty
|
|
|
Greg Berhalter
|
Carey Talley
|
Diego Gutierrez
|
|
|
Nick Garcia
|
Robbie Russell
|
Ryan Suarez
|
|
|
|
Ritchie Kotchau
|
|
Goal
|
Brad Friedel
|
Tim Howard
|
Johnny Walker
|
Kevin Hartman
|
|
Kasey Keller
|
|
Zach Thornton
|
Marcus Hahneman
|
|
|
|
Nick Rimando
|
Adin Brown
|
|
|
|
Joe Cannon
|
|
Bruce had a December 2003 camp. Go
HERE
for the roster and article from CyberSoccer News.
Bruce scheduled a January 2004 camp to prepare for the friendly against
Denmark. Go
HERE
for the roster from MLSnet. This team has a distinctly MLS flavor.
It is probably reasonable to expect the group called into the February friendly
against Holland to be more focused on European based players (Keller, Friedel,
Howard, O'Brien, Reyna, Cherundolo, Lewis, Gibbs, Vanney, Berhalter, Conno
Casey.)
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ROAD TO THE WORLD CUP
It is the engine that drives itself, but it chooses the uphill
climb (***
)
Now we have the actual details on the road to Germany. The US will
play a home and away series with either Grenada or Guyana in June. If
they win, they will advance to play the winners of the following sets in
a group of four in the second round (El Salvador, Bermuda, Monserrat; Jamaica,
Haiti, Turks and Caicos Islands; British Virgin Islands, Panama, St. Lucia).
Odds are that Jamaica and El Salvador will advance. Panama will
probably also advance.
Note that the other second round groups will probably be: Costa Rica, Guatemala,
Honduras and Canada; and Mexico, Nicaragua, Barbados and Trinidad &
Tobago. At least two dangerous teams will be eliminated from the Costa
Rica group before The Hex, and Mexico's group will probably bring a patsy
to The Hex.
The top two teams are then put into The Hex with the top two from the other
two second round groups, and the top three from that group are in automatically,
and the fourth place team has a playoff against the fifth place Asian team.
Of note - the fifth place team last time around was Iran, who lost
to Ireland - who did pretty well in the 2002 World Cup. Then again,
Iran might have done better than Saudi Arabia or China.... But it is
no guarantee that the fourth place CONCACAF team will advance to Germany.
See the USSF article.
A while back, CONCACAF put together their inital designs of qualification
for 2006. Per
ESPN:
CONCACAF has designated three rounds of play, and all 35 teams
start off in the same boat. This format was changed.
Also, the
Official Germany 2006
site has some good information about the overall qualification process.
See below for recent results.
Initally, teams are seeded as follows:
Pot A -- USA, Costa Rica, Mexico (Made the World Cup Finals)
Pot B -- Honduras, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica (Made the Hexagonal)
Pot C -- Canada, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Panama (Made
it to the second round of qualifying for 2002)
Pot D -- the rest of the teams.
Round One -- twelve groups (eleven with three teams, one with two),
home and away, each group has one team from either Pot A, B or C, and
the rest from Pot D, winning team from each group advances
Round Two -- winners of Round One are repotted, and then drawn into
three groups of four teams, play all teams home and away, with the top
two teams from each group advancing to the Hexagonal
Round Three/The Hex -- top six teams are put into the final group
of six, play home and away, and the top three go to Germany, with the
fourth place team taking on what is currently scheduled as the fifth place
team from Asia for what could prove to be the final spot in the 2006 World
Cup.
Analysis -- both of the first two rounds harbor some difficult possibilities.
Especially the first round. Granted, we are talking about playing
Antigua or St. Vincent and the Grennadines(sp?) or something like that,
but as we have seen with the Gold Cup in years past, wierd things happen
in groups of three.
But there you have it -- the first steps on the Road to Germany. Probably
will start in February or March, 2004 -- about a year from now!
Date
|
Teams
|
|
Location/Tournament (if any)
|
11-17-02
story
|
USA 2
|
El Salvador 0
|
RFK
|
1-18-03
story
|
USA 4
|
Canada 0
|
Ft. Lauderdale
|
2-8-03
story
|
USA 0
|
Argentina 1
|
Orange Bowl
|
2-12-03
story
|
USA
|
Jamaica
|
Kingston
|
3-29-03
story
|
USA 2
|
Venezuela 0
|
Seattle (Japan bailed)
|
5-8-03
|
USA
|
Mexico
|
Houston
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GENERAL USA WORLD CUP AND NATIONAL TEAM
HISTORY
Against the run of the mill, static as it seems
We break the surface tension with our wild kinetic dreams! (
****
)
Korea Japan '02 was the seventh appearance for the United States in
the World Cup. Before its tremendous accomplishments in the Far East,
the only times it advanced out of the first round were 1930 and when it
hosted in 1994, although the 1950 upset of England is also a very memorable
match.
Uruguay 1930
| Italy 1934
| Brazil 1950
| Italy 1990
| USA 1994
| France 1998
|
Korea-Japan 2002
For general World Cup history, go to FIFA's site
here
. I have also linked the title link to the FIFA page
that has the entire set of results plus a commentary from that World
Cup.
|
Uruguay 1930
|
USA 3 |
Belgium 0 |
| |
USA 3 |
Paraguay 0 |
|
Semifinals
|
USA 1 |
Argentina 6 |
|
Italy 1934
|
USA 1($
)
|
Italy 7 |
|
Brazil 1950
|
USA 1 |
Spain 3 |
|
Upset story
|
USA 1 |
England 0 |
| |
USA 2 |
Chile 5 |
|
Italy 1990
|
USA 1 |
Czechoslovakia 5 |
| |
USA 0 |
Italy 1 |
| |
USA 1 |
Austria 2 |
|
USA
1994
|
USA 1 |
Switzerland 1 |
| |
USA 2 |
Colombia 1 |
| |
USA 0 |
Romania 1 |
|
Round of 16
|
USA 0 |
Brazil 1 |
|
France 1998
|
USA 0 |
Germany 2 |
| |
USA 1 |
Iran 2 |
| |
USA 0 |
Yugoslavia 1 |
Korea-Japan 2002
|
USA 3
|
Portugal 2
|
|
USA 1
|
Korea 1
|
|
USA 1
|
Poland 3
|
|
USA 2
|
Mexico 0
|
|
USA 0
|
Germany 1
|
PERSONNEL
| ROAD TO THE WORLD CUP
| SUPPORTERS
| Back to top
SUPPORTERS
The Unofficial Fan Club of US Soccer is
Sam's Army
, which I am a proud member.
Check out my
USA Chants and Songs
page for as comprehensive look at songs and chants by fans
supporting US Soccer as I can find.
My own personal touch is the
28th Cavalry Regiment of Sam's Army
where you will find Texas' motorcycle arm of the world famous supporters
club for the US National Team.
USA 1 - England 0
| Return to World Cup History
| Top of the page
With a bit of digging, I'll get you some more info here.
Suffice to say, though, that this was quite an upset. There
has been a book written about the players in this game, and it is an
incredible insight into US soccer in years past. Entitled, "the
Game of Their Lives," by Geoffrey Douglas, it is being made into a movie
- I don't know the release date, but they had John Harkes and other
pro players in it, so you figure that it is probably decently accurate for
the soccer scenes - at least better than Victory, anyway. [Thanks to
Janice Harris for her help in getting the details!]
($) The USA actually played two games in Italy for the 1934
World Cup, but only the game against Italy was actually a part of the
World Cup itself. Apparently both Mexico and the USA went to Italy
for the World Cup to represent North America, but only one team was going
to be allowed in. So they played a match which the USA won, 4-2.
The USA went on to get smoked by Italy and Mexico returned home without
having played a World Cup match. Chalk that up to the worst World
Cup performance. Back to Italy 1934
.
(*) From Rush's Vital Signs, off of their Moving Pictures album.
Back
(**) From Rush's Prime Mover/Hold Your Fire.
Back
(***) From Rush's Cut to the Chase/Counterparts.
Back
There is more to that song that I think is relevant,
but it wouldn't fit in real well in the flow of the page. Check
this out:
(I'm) young enough not to care too much about the way things used to be,
I'm young enough to remember the future -- the past has no
claim on me
You may be right, it's all a waste of time
I guess that is just a chance I'm prepared to take
(It's) a danger I'm prepared to face
What kind of difference can one person make?
Cut to the Chase!
(****) From Grand Designs/Power Windows
Back
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