A Last Chance at Glory
No Landon Donovan. No Taylor Twellman. No Kevin Hartman. No Clint Dempsey.
No hope?
No matter.
The result today when the United States plays Guatemala in an international soccer friendly at Frisco, Texas, is of secondary importance -- almost no importance at all, in fact.
What matters is how the 17 players on U.S. Coach Bruce Arena’s roster perform.
This, very likely, will be the last chance for the majority of them to stake a claim to being on Arena’s 23-man squad for the World Cup in Germany in June.
Arena is dipping deep into his depth chart to field a starting lineup for the game, which will be televised live on ESPN2.
The top dozen or so players are in Europe. Eight of the leading U.S.-based players -- Donovan, Twellman, Hartman, Dempsey, et al -- are back with either the Galaxy or the New England Revolution, preparing for CONCACAF Champions Cup matches this week.
That leaves the U.S. relying on veteran defenders Eddie Pope of Real Salt Lake and Frankie Hejduk of the Columbus Crew, along with the Kansas City Wizard quartet of Josh Wolff, Jimmy Conrad, Eddie Johnson and Kerry Zavagnin to carry the load today.
Those six players remain serious candidates to go to Germany. The other 11 are riding the slippery side of the bubble.
But as Arena said midweek, “We haven’t penciled in anyone on our roster yet. I want to make that clear. We have not finalized any names. I think we need to play it out.”
After today, playing it out means games against Poland and Germany in Germany in March and a home match against an unannounced opponent in April. After that, Arena will choose his 23 players for the World Cup and use them in three final warm-ups in May.
Today’s game, therefore, is pretty much the last time players such as Heath Pearce, Brian Carroll, Chris Klein, Santino Quaranta and Brian Ching can try to do something dramatic to catch Arena’s eye.
The game could see three players making their national team debut. Arena’s goalkeeping choices are limited to Chivas USA’s Brad Guzan and Houston 1836’s Zach Wells, with Guzan expected to get the nod as starter, while defender Bobby Boswell of D.C. United also could earn his first cap.
Also hoping to get playing time will be midfielders Ben Olsen of D.C. United and Kyle Martino of Columbus, as well as forward Chris Rolfe of the Chicago Fire.
“It’s an opportunity now for a number of players who haven’t received a whole lot of minutes in the first three games to show us what they’re about,” Arena said.
After tying Canada, 0-0, in its first game of 2006, the U.S. has defeated Norway, 5-0, and edged Japan, 3-2.
Guatemala, meanwhile, brings a couple of known quantities, namely striker Carlos “El Pescadito” Ruiz (25 goals in 52 games for his country) and midfielder Guillermo “El Pando” Ramirez, both of whom won Major League Soccer championships while with the Galaxy.
Having failed to qualify for the Germany ‘06, Guatemala also brings a desire to upset the side that helped end its World Cup hopes.
But the U.S. is 8-4-4 all-time against Guatemala and has a 12-game unbeaten streak against the Chapines, who last defeated the Americans in 1988.
