By FRANCO PANIZO
If Oguchi Onyewu is hoping to earn his first call-up under new U.S. men's national team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann in the near future, he took one step closer towards achieving that this weekend.
Onyewu made his official Sporting Lisbon debut on Saturday, starting and going the distance in the club's 3-2 victory over Pacos de Ferreira. Onyewu helped Sporting Lisbon get its third win of the season, leaving it in third place in the Primeira Liga, just two points behind leaders FC Porto.
Daniel Williams also made his debut with his new club this weekend. Williams came off the bench and played 33 minutes in TSG 1899 Hoffenheim's 4-0 win over Mainz. His new teammate and fellow American Abroad, Fabian Johnson, started and played 73 minutes in the game.
It wasn't all good news. Michael Bradley dressed but did not see the field in Chievo Verona's season opener, a 2-2 draw with recently-promoted Novara, while Edson Buddle was replaced after 14 minutes of action in FC Ingolstadt 04's 4-1 loss to FC Union Berlin due to an injury.
Here is how the Americans Abroad performed this weekend:
ENGLAND
Premiership
- Tim Howard started, played 90 minutes and made 1 save in Everton's 2-2 draw vs. Aston Villa on Saturday.
- Clint Dempsey started and played 90 minutes in Fulham's 1-1 draw vs. Blackburn Rovers on Sunday.
- Brad Friedel started, played 90 minutes and made 6 saves Tottenham Hotspur's 2-0 vs. Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday.
- Brad Guzan dressed but did not play in Aston Villa's 2-2 draw vs. Everton on Saturday.
- Eric Lichaj did not dress for Aston Villa. He is recovering from a hip injury.
- Stuart Holden did not dress in Bolton Wanderers' 5-0 loss vs. Manchester United on Saturday.
- Zak Whitbread did not dress in Norwich City's 1-0 loss vs. West Bromwich Albion on Sunday.
Championship
- Jonathan Spector started and played 90 minutes in Birmingham City's 3-0 win vs. Millwall on Sunday.
- Conor Doyle did not dress in Derby County's 2-0 loss vs. Coventry City on Saturday.
- Robbie Findley did not dress in Nottingham Forest's 3-2 loss vs. Southampton on Saturday. He was out with a slight injury.
League One
- Frank Simek did not dress in Carlisle United's 2-1 loss vs. Hartlepool United on Saturday. He is recovering from a hip injury.
- Anton Peterlin dressed but did not play in Walsall's 2-1 loss vs. Notts County on Saturday.
- Mike Grella dressed but did not play in Brentford's 1-0 win vs. Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday.
SCOTLAND
- Maurice Edu started and played 75 minutes in Rangers' 1-0 win vs. Dundee United on Saturday.
- Alejandro Bedoya did not dress for Rangers. He is recovering from a calf injury.
- Carlos Bocanegra started, played 90 minutes and received a yellow card for Rangers.
- Dominic Cervi did not dress in Celtic's 4-0 win vs. Motherwell on Saturday.
ITALY
- Michael Bradley dressed but did not play in Chievo Verona's 2-2 draw vs. Novara on Sunday.
GERMANY
Bundesliga
- Jermaine Jones did not dress Schalke 04's 2-1 loss vs. VfL Wolfsburg on Sunday.
- Steve Cherundolo started and played 90 minutes in Hannover 96's 3-0 loss vs. VfB Stuttgart on Saturday.
- Timmy Chandler started and played 90 minutes in FC Nurnberg's 2-1 win vs. FC Cologne on Sunday.
- David Yelldell dressed but did not play in Bayer Leverkusen's 4-1 win vs. FC Augsburg on Friday.
- Alfredo Morales did not dress in Hertha Berlin's 2-1 win vs. Borussia Dortmund on Saturday.
- Fabian Johnson started and played 73 minutes in TSG 1899 Hoffenheim's 4-0 win vs. Mainz on Saturday.
- Daniel Williams came off the bench and played 33 minutes for TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.
Bundesliga 2
- Ricardo Clark dressed but did not play in Eintracht Frankfurt's 3-3 draw vs. Energie Cottbus on Saturday.
- Luis Robles dressed but did not play in Karlsruher SC's 4-2 loss vs. Fortuna Dusseldorf on Saturday.
- Edson Buddle started and played 14 minutes in FC Ingolstadt 04's 4-1 loss vs. FC Union Berlin on Sunday.
- Bobby Wood did not dress in TSV 1860 Munich's 4-2 loss vs. St Pauli on Sunday.
- Matt Taylor started and played 67 minutes in SC Paderborn 07's 0-0 draw vs. Alemannia Aachen on Friday.
FRANCE
- Quentin Westberg did not dress in Evian Thonon Gaillard's 0- 0 draw vs. Bordeaux on Saturday.
NETHERLANDS
- Jozy Altidore started and played 45 minutes in AZ Alkmaar's 4-0 win vs. Vitesse Arnhem on Sunday.
PORTUGAL
- Oguchi Onyewu started and played 90 minutes in Sporting CP's 3-2 win vs. Pacos de Ferreira on Saturday.
RUSSIA
- Eugene Starikov came off the bench and played 45 minutes in FC Tom Tomsk's 2-0 loss vs. PFK Samara Kryliya Sovetov on Sunday.
BELGIUM
- Sacha Kljestan started, played 90 minutes and received a yellow card in RSC Anderlecht's 2-0 win vs. KV Kortrijk on Sunday.
DENMARK
- Michael Parkhurst started and played 90 minutes in FC Nordsjaelland's 2-1 win vs. Aalborg BK on Sunday.
- Marcus Tracy did not dress in Aalborg BK's 2-1 loss vs. FC Nordsjaelland on Sunday. He is recovering from a knee injury.
- Chris Rolfe started and played 73 minutes for Aalborg BK.
- Clarence Goodson started and played 90 minutes in Brondby IF's 5-0 win vs. HB Koge on Sunday.
- Brad Rusin did not dress in HB Koge's 5-0 loss vs. Brondby IF on Sunday.
- Conor O'Brien started and played 77 minutes in SonderjyskE's 3-1 loss vs. AC Horsens on Sunday.
SWEDEN
- Ryan Miller and Halmstads BK play Gefle IF on Monday.
- Samuel Petrone did not dress in Mjallby AIF's 0-0 draw vs. IFK Norrkoping on Saturday.
NORWAY
- Mix Diskerud started, played 90 minutes and had an ASSIST in Stabaek IF's 4-2 loss vs. Tromso on Friday.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZbgn4eO8_o&w=440&h=272]
- Josh Gatt came off the bench and played 24 minutes in Molde FK's 2-2 draw vs. Brann on Sunday.
- Sean Cunningham did not dress for Molde FK.
MEXICO
- Jose Torres started and played 90 minutes in Pachuca's 5-0 loss vs. Tigres UANL on Saturday.
- Herculez Gomez came off the bench and played 21 minutes in Estudiantes Tecos' 2-0 loss vs. Jaguares de Chiapas on Friday.
- Edgar Castillo started and played 90 minutes in Club America's 1-0 loss vs. Atlante on Sunday.
- Sonny Guadarrama did not dress in Atlante's 1-0 win vs. Club America on Sunday.
- Jonathan Bornstein did not dress in Tigres UANL's 5-0 win vs. Pachuca on Saturday.
- DaMarcus Beasley started, played 90 minutes and had an ASSIST in Puebla's 3-3 draw vs. Monterrey on Sunday.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngtF4NaTV2w&w=100&h=100]
- Adrian Ruelas did not dress in Jaguares de Chiapas' 2-0 win vs. Estudiantes Tecos on Friday.
- Michael Orozco started and played 90 minutes in San Luis' 1-1 draw vs. Atlas on Saturday.
——–
What do you think of these performances? Think Onyewu is ready to make a comeback? Hoping to see Williams and Johnson playing for the U.S. men's national team in October?
Share your thoughts below.
Adu is born in 89. Gooch in 82. Massive difference.
“How this guy has nor established himself as a starter is a bit of a head scratcher. Too bad he doesn’t play center back. ”
Are you talking about Spector?
He has started at center back for the US. Most people accept that he will probably move there later in his career. I’d play him there now for the US; don’t be surprised if JK does so.
“Gave up two goals in the win which isn’t too encouraging. ”
Are you saying the two goals were Gooch’s fault?
“There are still the painful memories of the WC and the friendly with Spain to overcome.”
Are you saying that a player’s bad games from a year or two ago are more important than whether he is playing well today?
It seems to me Sporting, unlike you, also took some good memories into acount or else Why would they have spent good money on him? Why bother?
Portugal’s league is ranked sixth in Europe just below France and Sporting is one of the “Big Three” along with Benfica and Porto. Most leagues in Europe are “top heavy”.
In other words it’s probably harder to get a start for Sporting than it is for an MLS team or a team in Scotland, Belgium or Denmark, all leagues ranked lower than Portugal.
If Gooch can get more regular playing time there I’m pretty sure JK will have a hard time ignoring him. And if Gooch is in good form his age won’t count against him in terms of 2014.
Klinsmann played for two years at Bayern Munich at the age of 32-33. In 65 appearances he scored 31 goals. That’s close to a goal every two appearances an outstanding ratio.
So I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think 32 year old players are washed up just because they are too old.
The MLS site has an article on Beasley’s defensive error in injury time, giving up a game-tying penalty with the last kick of the match.
I’m a troll for considering that to be “screwing up pretty badly”?
So was it tough playing for your dad then?
“Americans at Home”
+1
Not sure that Paca is a weak team. It was early in the season, but Paca was two points above Sporting before the game. Also, Paca has been historically in the 6-10 range of a 16 team league – according to the 5 years of tables I just viewed on soccernet. I do not know how they look this year, but it is early on.
Good for Gooch in getting some playing time. Hopefully he will continue to recover and get back to form. My recollection is that he always needed to play to keep his form – more so than others.
And it was a rout.
Yea, I was thinking since, you’re right, the domestic pool is so large, maybe its just for goalscorers and MOTM type performances?? Cuz let’s be honest…do we really need to know that Omar Gonzalez started and played for a full 90 minutes??? of course he did, every game. But if he scored a goal, or was Man of the Match, that would be awesome. Cuz I like to keep up with the MLS, but I can’t follow every game, so it would nice to hear about all the UMSNT guys on the radar that have a big game in the States.
Have you seen him play lately to make such a determined statement?
It was the same with Adu; SBI and a bunch of his nut sack hangers wrote Adu off without seeing with their own eyes, how well he was playing for Rizespor. They just assumed it was 2nd div Turkey that it was a joke without regard to the quality of that league.
Then when he played well in the Gold Cup, they jumped back on the Adu bandwagon.
LOL people these days.
I really like the idea, although it would be far too expansive to blog on each US hopeful in the MLS who has a big game. Maybe it could be done but limiting to rookies, capped players, and former olympic/youth team players so it would be more manageable.
I’d appreciate it. As someone most interested in the US team, it would be a good way to aggregate the domestic pool and make loose comparisons to the foreign based guys.
I’m sure the debates would rage about who gets included, but debates seem to rage regardless of the topic.
My sense of the MB hate, much of it so vitriolic and detached from reality, is that it’s really all about people’s personal experience with “coach’s sons.” Truth is, a lot of coaches’ sons get more playing time. Often, they deserve it. But when they don’t, man, there are few things more infuriating. I almost always chalk up MB haters as guys who are still pissed off they didn’t get as much playing time on their childhood team because some other kid’s daddy didn’t play them enough. Really, they do protest too much.
If you watched the Fulham game, Dempsey displayed why he is so good at outside mid. In the first half at least 3 times he took the ball up the side from the middle of the field, dribbling past and through multiple Blackburn defenders. While nothing came from those impressive forays, they did result in half-chances for his team. I think it shows why his best position is still midfield, not forward.
I guess we can write off abs as a troll, or at least someone who doesn’t watch the games he comments on.
Good comment! Whether it is MB, Adu, JB, R. Clark, Altidore, Sasha, Onweyu, or the favorite whipping boy of the moment, I just don’t get it. Each of those players has talent and while each of them also has some short-comings (who hasn’t?), none of them can by any stretch be considered poor players. Each has at one time or another risen to the occasion to provide the USA with a win it might not have had otherwise.
Though our Americans Abroad had a down weekend, our Americans at Home actually had a pretty scorching one:
-Donovan (1 goal)
-Agudelo (1 goal)
-Bunbury (brace)
-Adu (1 goal)
-Feilhaber (1 goal)
-Charlie Davies (hat trick!)
So if the point of this site is to follow USMNT Americans, overall, they actually had a good weekend.
***quick idea, Ives and SBI staff: considering how many good young USMNT talents are playing domestically right now, how about you start an “Americans at Home” update column???
I heard he had picked up an ankle injury, but the source was unverified.
Seems likely though since they were clamoring to pick him up and he has made a couple substitute appearances already.
You failed to list Beasley got an assist.
I say this with love: Gooch is done for international duty. He’s not coming back. Time to move on.
I think the other option is a 4-2-3-1 where the midfield looks something like this:
—Shea——Dempsey—–Donovan—-
——–Bradley—Holden————
But at this point the one forward experiment appears to have crashed and burned with our current personnel, so I’d prefer to try Dempsey with Altidore.
I’m not sure how you people see both Holden and Torres in the midfield at the same time, but hey at least you don’t have Holden on the right wing like that other guy….
I watched the whole game. He was a threat and instrumental in Puebla turning a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead against Monterrey and then had a brain fart in the box during injury time that resulted in a penalty kick awarded to Monterrey to get an undeserved tie. He assisted on the second goal but was the goat due to the blunder.
Beasley got an assist against Monterrey. He provided the cross from the left on the 1st or 2nd goal.