Things looking different for men’s national team
The quadrennial trek that is soccer’s journey to the next World Cup began for the U.S. on Thursday morning under gray and mildly threatening skies at the Home Depot Center in Carson.
It will end -- more than likely under similar cloud cover or rain -- in the South African winter of 2010, when the world championship will be played for the first time on the African continent.
Between now and then, the U.S. has 3 1/2 years in which to rebuild, reshape and refocus its men’s national team, hoping to have a greater impact at South Africa ’10 than it did during its first-round ouster at Germany ’06.
Veterans such as Brian McBride and Claudio Reyna have retired and newcomers must now stake their own claims. Of the 28 players called into camp, 11 have never played for the U.S. and 21 have made five or fewer appearances for the national team.
The only two real veterans on the rosters are Landon Donovan and Pablo Mastroeni.
Thursday, then, was Day 1 of the Bob Bradley coaching era, but Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer, preferred not to call it that.
It was Gulati who last month named Bradley as interim U.S. coach after Germany’s Juergen Klinsmann pulled out of the running. And it is Gulati who still is considering appointing a full-time foreign coach, with Portugal’s Carlos Queiroz, currently an assistant at Manchester United, the newly rumored choice du jour.
So, no, it’s not yet the Bradley era, not unless the former Chivas USA mentor can make a strong case for himself with the U.S. team routing Denmark in Carson on Jan. 20, defeating Mexico in Phoenix on Feb. 7 and overcoming two yet-to-be-named opponents in March.
Even that might not do the trick.
“I don’t view it as a new era,” Gulati said Thursday.
“It’s the start of a new cycle, but it’s not a new era. The new era started quite some time ago” when the U.S. qualified in 1989 for the first of five consecutive World Cups after a 40-year drought, Gulati said. “Expectations are raised, and Bob knows that.
“Last summer was a disappointment. But the summer of 2002 was an extraordinary joy” as the U.S. reached the quarterfinals of the Korea/Japan World Cup. “Hopefully, 2010 will be another joy.”
Apart from the four upcoming matches, Bradley’s main task is to prepare the team for two summer tournaments -- the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which the U.S. will play host to, and the Copa America in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Chivas USA has narrowed its list of replacements for Bradley to three, with the new coach expected to be announced before the Jan. 12 MLS draft.
The finalists are former U.S. international and current Chivas assistant Preki; Fernando Quirarte, one of Mexico’s standouts at the 1986 World Cup, and Paco Ramirez, an assistant coach on Mexico’s 2006 World Cup team.
