By Daniel Kelley
(OFFICIAL ONELOVE US CORRESPONDENT)
The ads have been posted everywhere and just about every sports publication and major newspaper has had something to say about the second revolutionary war. Tomorrow team USA will take on the mighty three lions in what many are saying will be England’s revenge match for the world cup game in 1950. A game that saw England lose to the lowly and unheard of, at least in the soccer world, team USA. The Americans are taking every precaution they can to recreate the 1950 game, going as far as recreating the jersey’s worn in that game and giving it a slight modern update. It’s 2010 now and both teams are much improved from their last previous competitive meeting. The rematch is tomorrow and it’s looking to be one of the most anticipated games of the group stages.
It’s sixty years later now and much has changed for England since that fateful game in Brazil. The three lions went on to win a world cup in 1966, famously got scored on by Diego Maradona’s hand in 1986, and managed to consistently miss tons of crucial penalty kicks in big time games. They are world-renowned choke artists, but they have to be credited and respected for consistently going far in the tournaments they play in. They also have managed to produce tons and tons of world-class players and have arguably the best professional league in the world. England has been and continues to be a total powerhouse in Europe, a team loaded with real talent.
Team USA spent many years in soccer obscurity and mediocrity until the 1990’s, which saw them host a world cup and spark interest in the sport nationwide. The result of that interest was the first legit professional soccer league since the NASL, a league that we all know as Major league Soccer. The league helped develop players that form the base of the current national team. Players like Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard, and many more refined their playing skills playing in MLS. While the MLS can most definitely not compete with England’s EPL it’s done pretty well for itself considering that the league is only fourteen years old, it also doesn’t hurt that one of England’s most celebrated players ever plies his trade in said league. Since the formation of MLS team USA has become the perennial powerhouse in the CONCACAF region and has qualified for every world cup since 1990, a feat that not even mighty England has accomplished.
The playing field is much more even now then it was sixty years ago when team USA beat England. USA was a practically an amateur team then, while England was loaded with well-respected professionals. This time around both teams have well respected professionals, and while the odds are firmly on England to win because of star-studded talent like Wayne Rooney and John Terry, this will be a closely contested match and just might turn out to be another historic result for team USA. With an injury to team captain and defensive talisman Rio Ferdinand, USA might be able to shake things up. The real question though is how can a team like USA with no real superstars, in the eyes of people who don’t live in the US at least, beat a team with a reputation like England. It’s quite simple really. They can’t make costly silly mistakes.
With all of the drama of the Americans losing their influential stanky legging forward Charlie Davies, the general public was concerned that team USA would have a hard time scoring goals. Well as it turns out USA has had no problem scoring as of late thanks to the heroics of the newfound/recycled talent of Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez. In USA’s last three friendly matches they scored a total of seven goals against pretty formidable opponents. Unfortunately in the last three games they also managed to allow six goals against them, ouch. Lets face it though, while they had some impressive wins they also had a lot of luck going in their favor. Many laughable defensive errors were made in the friendly matches played. The only team that took advantage of them were the Czech Republic. The Czech’s scored four goals on USA and most of them were largely credited to some very woeful defending. In the games against Turkey and Australia there were also some really noticeable defensive errors that went unpunished thanks to absolutely awful finishing. England, unlike Turkey and Australia, has no problem taking advantage of defensive errors or scoring in general. If team USA wants to go back to 1950 in 2010 they need to play smart, and they just can’t afford to make silly mistakes.
Bob Bradley won’t pull out to many surprises in the biggest game of his career, but there will be some new faces in the starting lineup that some people may not be used to seeing. Meet Clarence Goodson the new starting centerback folks. Oguchi “Gooch” Onyewu will retain his starting spot one day, but its not going to be in this game. He is just not fit enough to play in a game like this. In midfield Jose Francisco Torres, the new and much improved version of Claudio Reyna, will be the other starting center midfielder. Look for Torres to prove his worth in this game show that while he is a finesse player he can dig in and get physical. Finally up top next to Jozy Altidore will be…Robbie Findley? Yeah that’s right, Robbie Findley is going to play and start in the world cup. I honestly never saw this coming but lets all face the inevitable, Findley is going to start against England tomorrow. He has looked like a new and improved player as of late. Only problem is that he can’t seem to score, even when it’s an open net. In the Australia game he skillfully missed two open goals. Hopefully whatever force field was around the goal during that Australia game is gone tomorrow.
Projected line up:
Formation 4-4-2
Howard
Cherundolo, DeMerit, Goodson, Bocanegra
Donovan, Torres, Bradley, Dempsey
Altidore, Findley
Prediction:
USA-2, England-1
