By FRANCO PANIZO
Clint Dempsey is not joining the U.S. Men’s National Team, but Michael Bradley and Jordan Morris are.
U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann made a number of changes on Sunday to the squad that will play Brazil this week, including calling in Toronto FC midfielder Michael Bradley and Stanford forward Jordan Morris. Dempsey, who like Bradley was already scheduled to join the U.S. for Tuesday’s friendly, has been left with the Seattle Sounders to further recover from a hamstring injury.
“I had a good conversation with Clint,” Klinsmann said in a statement. “He’s still not 100 percent and we agreed it’s best to let him stay with Seattle to allow him to continue making progress ahead of next month’s match against Mexico.”
As had been previously announced, Klinsmann also brought in Chicago Fire goalkeeper Sean Johnson to replace Club Leon’s William Yarbrough. Matt Besler has also been allowed to rejoin his club, Sporting Kansas City, after making a substitute cameo in Friday’s 2-1 win over Peru.
“We were impressed with Matt Besler this past week,” said Klinsmann. “We definitely saw what we needed to see from him as we prepare for the (CONCACAF Cup) Mexico clash and Sporting KC badly wanted him back for Wednesday, so we agreed to send him home.”
Here is the updated U.S. roster, which now stands at 25 players, for the upcoming clash with Brazil at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts:
Goalkeepers (3): Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Everton), Sean Johnson (Chicago Fire)
Defenders (8): Ventura Alvarado (Club America), John Brooks (Hertha Berlin), Geoff Cameron (Stoke City), Greg Garza (Atlas), Omar Gonzalez (LA Galaxy), Michael Orozco (Club Tijuana), Tim Ream (Fulham), Jonathan Spector (Birmingham City)
Midfielders (8): Alejandro Bedoya (Nantes), Michael Bradley (Toronto FC), Joe Corona (Veracruz), Mix Diskerud (New York City FC), Jermaine Jones (New England Revolution), Alfredo Morales (FC Ingolstadt), Danny Williams (Reading), DeAndre Yedlin (Tottenham Hotspur)
Forward (6): Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC), Aron Johannsson (Werder Bremen), Jordan Morris (Stanford), Bobby Wood (Union Berlin), Andrew Wooten (SV Sandhausen), Gyasi Zardes (LA Galaxy)
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What do you think about Klinsmann’s changes? How much of a boost does Bradley provide? Do you see Morris getting time against Brazil? Bummed that Dempsey was left in Seattle?
Share your thoughts below.
Twould love to see Woots trot out for a spell.
This is unrelated to the article but I gotta bring up Backstage Galaxy. I know not everyone here is a galaxy fan but if you have timewarnercable you probably have the Lakers channel which is also the Galaxy channel. Love me some backstage Galaxy. You get a lot of “access” from the show. Funny moment just now was Bruce Arena getting mad because Dan Gargan was about to sub in but couldnt because everyone forgot to fill out a substitution card. Haha I thought that only happened in my rec league. You know how it goes:
“guys we are out of sub sheets!”
“You were supposed to pick some up at the league office last week!”
“Ref can we sub without the sheet this week, we will get some for next week.”
“No. No sheet no sub”
Another gem was watching the Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez trying to show Gio Dos Santos how to throw a baseball. It was Gio’s first time ever putting on a baseball glove! How is that possible!? Mexicans also like baseball. Of course he threw a horrible first pitch.
Do other MLS teams have shows like this?
I follow Toronto FC and they have a program called All for One. It is great. You catch episodes online on the Toronto FC Youtube page.
Santos grew up in Spain, so he missed out on baseball culture 🙁
No sheet Sherlock. Thanks for reminding me about the show. Whenever I have seen it it has been interesting but I usually only run across it if I tune in too early to watch a Galaxy game.
Just start Wooten, then and see if Wooten is good enough for USNT. Don’t “BOYD” Wooten!
One the reason why Woods was well: Morris. Morris brings so much attention from defenders, the defenders forget about the other players, and Morris knows how to play combo.
Defense is no issue: Ream, Brooks, Gonzalez or Alvarado, Cameron
Scott,
Boyd “Boyded” himself.
He’s been in many camps and hasn’t managed to earn a start.
He’s a German American, with US serviceman father, playing in Germany so JK should be prejudiced in his favor correct? No personal grudges here, right?
In his end of game appearance he hasn’t managed to do much good.
But once he gets healthy I expect he will be back and do better the second time around. Not everyone gets it right the first time.
How many chances Wondo get? It took almost 4 years weak teams to Wondo score.
Boyd was scoring streak like Altidore (I know Austrianleague is weaker than Dutch), but never chance and striker usually depend streak
For the, US Wondo has 31 caps and 10 goals
I’ve seen most of Wondo’s games and he has looked far better than Boyd did when Boyd played.
Boyd has 12 caps and 0 goals.
With one or two exceptions he has looked bad in a USMNT shirt.
You are free of course to go back and look over the games and make your own judgement. What I remember the most about Wondo was early on he would almost always get a shot on target but the keeper would make a great save.
And every once in while he would blow one over the bar.
.
I was hoping he would see time at the Peru game, but we were down and Jozy was the captain and the scorer.
I wish I knew how fast each of our center-backs are. UsSoccer should release 40 yard dash times Nfl style. Or just make them all race and record the results. I am particularly interested in Besler vs Brooks.
If speed were the main criterion, Marvell Wynne would have been a consistent starter for the US the last 6 years. If you recall, Bradley brought him to the 2009 Confederations Cup and his shortcomings were pretty quickly exposed. He did have great makeup speed, however, after players faked him out.
Wynne has looked better recently.
Speed is invaluable but I think a lot of people seem to forget that Robbie Findley had Olympic level speed and that Jony Bornstein was arguably
the fastest man on the USMNT during his time there. And those two were not universally beloved by the SBI universe.
Frankie Hejduk, my all time USMNT favorite, could burn but it couldn’t entirely make up for his flaws elsewhere.
To paraphrase Cruyff, the fastest man is the one who reads correctly and starts running first.
I was being a bit unkind to Marvell. I know he has gotten better and he’s kind of my homeboy. He grew up in the same town (Poway, CA) as did my youngest sister. My mom lived there for 30 years and I used to root for his father who played outfield for the San Diego Padres.
A ven diagram showing “fastest center backs” and “best center backs” wouldn’t have much overlap.
SPREDSHEET BETTER THAN DIAGRAM
If you are talking about a straight up 40 yard dash, I seem to remember reading that Besler was the fastest US CB followed by Geoff. But Brooks isn’t far off. He’s pretty mobile.
The trouble with watching those 6’4, 6’6″ guys is that because they are so big they look slow but those long legs actually cover a lot of ground pretty quickly. Watch a giraffe run sometime or watch guys like Kenny Cooper Jr. or Peter Crouch.
The important thing with them for soccer is not so much height but length. Those long legs give you “extra tackling reach” if you position yourself correctly..
Brooks, Besler and Cameron have plenty of wheels.
yea Brooks is fast for his size. with most tall players being slow power-players, when you find a CB that’s big but still agile it’s a good prospect to invest in.
When you have big CB’s I think nimbleness is more important than straight ahead speed. Talking about a different position, Peter Crouch is surprisingly nimble for someone so tall and he has scored more with his feet than his head. My all time favorite coach John Wooden used to emphasize quickness more than speed. By that I think he meant how quickly a player can react and move.
Gary, Slow-I am not saying it is the be all end all, but between two similar/equal players, give me the faster one. I think you will agree that there isn’t much difference overall between our cbs as far as which ones are “better” or “the best”. Each has something that they do better than the others, the most obvious/distinguishable being Omar’s aerial dominance.
Jerry Rice was probably the best wr ever and wasn’t that fast comparatively. Being really fast and tall sure made Randy Moss a beast and one of the greats though. I am curious as to how our cbs stack up. Would be useful information.
I’d be curious to see also, but you KNOW what would happen. If one of em makes a blunder, everyone is gonna say “Why did he play him? He’s slow, he shoulda started the other guy, just look at the stats! Fire him!”
Then there would be counter stats and rebuttal arguments regarding lateral movement, why weren’t they measured in the 20 yard shuffle like the NFL combines, and introduction of sports science modeling about the reduction in speed once someone was tired late in a game, which would then cause further arguments about conditioning, then whether or not BB or BA used the same analytics, and by the time the argument was finished someone will have figured out that the real reason was that Jozy didn’t hold his hand over his heart when he took a dive
I think you pretty much nailed it.
Bac,
Right now most SBI people take a narrower, more short term view of soccer games. They seem more interested in counting each and every missed pass or turnover as if it meant everything or was positve evidence of impending doom. For example, recently I’ve seen players like wambach and Messi hit much worse penalty shots than Jozy did. What separates Jozy from them was he kept the shot on target and remained alert enough to actually put in the rebound, something your rarely see.
In other words he made up for his intial mistake.
In my experience, and maybe this is just me, I’ve noticed that even the best teams and players make more than a few mistakes during the course of just about every soccer game I’ve ever seen. What matters is , do the mistakes result in the bad guys scoring and if they do, does your team make up for the mistake by scoring an equalizing goal in reply.
As soon as you equalize, then whatever happened before the equalizing goal does not matter anymore , all that matters is what happens going forward.
The shocking, barely believeable, reality is that several US players made mistakes in the Peru game yet somehow , shockingly, they managed to win anyway. In addition this looks like it might be a big boost to the overall confidence of the team. Maybe they have made a start at removing some of the rancid, pervasive stench of the Gold Cup.
Unfortunately, at this point, the Peru game seems like an overall positive for the USMNT.
So he didn’t miss it because he doesn’t hold his hand over his heart? Ugh..
If you remember, I told you a few months ago when Deuce was the devil for “violently assaulting the refs notebook” and 95% of the posters were calling for him to be drawn and quartered- that as soon as he scored goals, everyone would be looking for a new villain to blame the world’s problems on.
Same thing will happen again, Jozy will pick his game up again, score goals that are prettier (even though they all count the same) and we move on to the next villain.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Like I said before the game, a win over Peru isn’t some bonus, it’s the absolute minimum we should expect. Peru is not a good team.
They are 48th in the world which would be good enough for 4th if they were in Concacaf, finished 3rd this Summer at Copa America and brought their A team 10 of 11 starters from Copa which means they had experience playing together. Yes, I know Pizzaro was out working on his Bremen deal, but he has not been Peru’s best player the past year or so.
Our fastest CB is Alvarado, hands down, second would be Besler.
Other than goalie I can’t think of a position were top end speed would be less important. CB is all about positioning, communication, and ability to read the game.
J Raz,
On SBI people mostly obsess about player flaws.
If it were somehow determined that Bill Hamid was faster in a 40 yard dash than Cody Cropper then people would say that , all things being equal, Bill’s superior make up speed should he make a mistake and be caught out of the box would be a good reason to start him over Cropper.
Of course the serious flaw in that rationale is that all things are never equal.
Trying to mind-meld JK isn’t always easy… maybe we see Wooten paired up top with JA to start, Morris in for Wooten in second half. AJ available for JA late?
2 cent or totally worthless prediction v Brazil:
Wooten/Morris JA/Aj
Zardes JJ/Williams MB/Mix Yedlin
Ream Alvarado Brooks Cameron
Start Spector at the #9 role.
Inclined to think JK brought in Spector as versatile insurance. To have a peek at him- that unless he blew minds in workouts, he’s not likely to see time in tight games. But you know…. who knows.
Your last sentence sums up the fans perspective for trying to figure out JK’s rationale, especially when it comes to playing guys out of position. It can be entertaining to combine that thought process with the affinity we know JK has towards some players. For instance, we know JK loves Jermaine Jones; enough even to move him to CB. What if JK tried to get a few more years out of JJ by moving him to Keeper?! Sadly, at this point I would be too surprised with something as absurd as this.
Actually, I really hope JK doesn’t read this and get any ideas…
I doubt we would see a tandem of JA and Wooten. They are kind of alike with the exception that Wooten is excellent in the air and is faster.
I said before the game that considering the available options Klinsmann called in, I liked the lineup he used for Peru. While Bedoya wasn’t good at cm we got great wing play from Yedlin and Zardes. The combination of Yedlin, Zardes and Wood made the usually slow Usmnt a bit speedy for once. Watching the Trinidad vs Mexico game its obvious Mexico is very vulnerable to speed (as most teams are). Trinidad’s team is basically a lot of Zardes and Yedlin type players. I hope Klinsmann keeps that up against Mexico. I doubt it though because he will probably go with Altidore and Dempsey up top, a slow striker-tandem. So we will be slow at forward, but hopefully he keeps the speed on the wings. I personally would choose between either Dempsey or Altidore, and then start a speedster next to him (Wood, Morris, Zardes if he’s not on the wing).
The problem is you can’t not start either Jozy or Dempsey without fans and commentators going going ape sh*t.
Completely agree that Dempsey and Altidore are not an ideal pairing because of speed. Johansson does not have elite speed either.
The German friendly finished with Wood and Morris out there…
Roll the dice, Klinsi, start Morris!
It seems like just a little while ago that a lot of people were saying, what the hell is he bringing that college kid in for? Amazing how fast Morris has caught on. Now he has almost become a mainstay.
Nah, more like why is one of better young players wasting key development years in the wasteland that is college soccer.
Not being an a$$, but maybe he also wants an education? It’s not like Stanford is a bad school, after all.
Agreed, If he opted for the MLS draft, he’d be in the wasteland that is expansion or bottom team MLS hell.Stay in school, young man!!
bottlcaps,
Not that it is likely but I would love for Morris to spend the whole four years at Stanford AND still be a hot forward for the US.
There are always exceptions and it would be really fun if Morris turned out to be that one .
@bottlecaps, hes a homegrown player for Seattle. He wouldn’t go through any sort of draft or anything, he’d end up there.
I have been urging him to go pro. I thought you were one of the ones saying it’s good for him to stay at Stanford. Is my memory incorrect, or? Even in college he has developed quite quickly. I wonder where he would be if he were playing for a decent team in a decent league.
uhh actually another might say why is this kid wasting the stanford degree? still plenty of time for soccer and for now he gets the best of both worlds.
besides. clint played @ furman.
look at how far adu agudelo and altidore got-oh wait!
First of all Altidore has gotten a lot further career-wise than Agudelo and has been making between 3 – 6 million a year since 2009. Not to mentioned He won the Dutch Cup and was given the award for the top scorer in the tournament. I think things turned out OK for him.
I wonder how far Altidore would have got if not for JK propping him up for so long. Without his constant NAT exposure, Jozy would have been the second coming of Freddy Adu. He has failed at every place except Holland and is not setting the world on fire in Toronto either. Hopefully he has invested wisely because he does not a degree to fall back on
Yoda man
“I wonder how far Altidore would have got if not for JK propping him up for so long. Without his constant NAT exposure, Jozy would have been the second coming of Freddy Adu”
Almost no one expected Tim Ream to ever come back to the USMNT after he left the team practically in disgrace, so who knows how these things will go?
You are assuming that any other manager would have banished Jozy to the outer darkness long ago but then again who would have replaced Jozy and done better? EJ is gone, and Boyd, Bunbury and Agudelo have all been mostly unimpressive in their tryouts, so far. AJ is more in competition with Clint and Morris, Wood and Rubin are a different type of player.
So you have to think he would have at least remained in the mix, JK or no.
Before JK became USMNT manager:.
1. Jozy was a well-established professional and USMNT starter under Bob Bradley through the Confederations Cup and the World Cup.
2. He got his 10 million dollar transfer to Villarreal (still the largest transfer fee for an MLS player). Normally, the player keeps 10% of that.
3. He was signed by AZ. His accomplishments there, which are what, earned him the Sunderland transfer, very likely would have happened without JK’s input. If you don’t believe that just ask Verbeek, his manager for most of his time there and no “friend of JK”.
Jozy’s transfer to TFC arguably had more to do with Sunderland wanting Defoe and TFC seeing value in pairing another USMNT player with Mikey. Without Defoe I doubt Jozy winds up in TFC.
It’s ironic you mention Adu.
Fredinho has made what seems to be a pretty good living off of the game for the last 5-7 years by doing a fraction or less of what Jozy or just about any other regular player has done.
Jozy is too late to become the second Adu but if somehow he did , that would mean he could look forward to being signed by teams and then doing nothing for another 5 years or so.
Nice work if you can get it.
I still think it’s a bit strange to have him in the full national team but playing in college is a waste for any elite level soccer player. He’s performed well and has potential but he’s wasting it playing in college. He can always get an education when his career is over.
This always really upsets people for some reason but name another country where top young players play at a super low level like college soccer during key development years.
He’d be a fool for not staying in Stanford and trading that degree for an uncertain soccer career. I think he is a good model for young soccer players. School first, soccer second if you want that, there is always the degree to fall back on
If our best young soccer players all spend four years in college we can sure as hell forget about ever becoming an elite soccer nation. You may not realize this but millions of people get their degrees later in life and if JM wants to do that he’ll certainly be able to. He won’t be able to get back these key developmental years.
slowleftarm,
Actually Morris’ success seems to disturb you more than anyone.
You needn’t worry so much
Morris’ success does not mean that cats and dogs will suddenly live in harmony and that the US college system is suddenly validated as the way to go for every other ambitious American kid.
His success tells you that Jordan is an exceptional American kid .
It also tells you that maybe there are other exceptional kids that the “pro player developmental system ” ( whatever that means) have overlooked in the US college system that are maybe worth a closer look.
That’s all it means
However, it is unlikely that the majority of American kids who dream of being soccer players will follow Jordan’s path. He’s an intelligent, well off kid with what seems to be a strong support system .
This is code for saying he has options a lot of kids don’t. For one thing how many American kids can get into and afford to go to Stanford?
I’d tell you it was my safety school but I’d be lying.
It also means JK has a good eye for talent.
I have pointed this out before, bujt I need t p;oint it out again I guess. There are numerous cases of pro athletes going back to school and succeeding in other fields after their pro careers. Doctors, dentists, attorneys, etc. An all pro defensive lineman went back to school, got his law degree and eventually became a state supreme court judge! If Morris begins playing professional soccer and has a modicum of success overseas, he could make as much money in one year as your average dopctor makes in 10. He can certainly make enough to afford the tuition to return to Stanford. Even if he wants to become a doctor, which takes about 4 or 5 years after his B.A.,he would have about 30 years to do that and to practice. The window for a professional athlete is much small than the window for other professions. If he truly likes to play soccer, he needs to strike while the iron is hot and turn pro soon.
Morris does well when defenders don’t know him, and his speed can catch them making false assumptions about their ability to stay with him. When he is a known entity, like we’re seeing in college games, defenders just give him more cushion. That’s what speed gives you – some space to work with. The problem with Morris is he hasn’t yet figured out how to use that space and keeps trying to rely on speed. He’s young, so no major problem there in terms of his development. But… his usefulness as a USMNT player is diminished until he figures it out, because after Mexico got caught, the word is out.
Paul,
This is true for all speedsters pro or college.
Actually it’s true for all players who are great right out of the box in all sports
Unknown player, takes everyone by surprise then the savvy players adjust.
In America they call it the sophomore slump
The players who last learn to make their own adjustments. .
Mark from LA,
Usually you bring your speed person in later, as a literal change of pace. Also, given his recent operation and rehab time it is likely his fitness isn’t all there.
So 45-20 minutes in the second half seems most sensible.
Though it would be nice to see Zardes, Wood, Morris and Yedlin all on the field at the same time.
wood-jozy-zardes
—–morris——–
—–MB–JJ——-
(defenders)-Yedlin
lol
Why stop there GW? Introducing the all speed team:
—-Morris——-Wood——
Zardes–Bradley–Williams–Finlay
Johnson–Besler–Cameron–Yedlin
With Gyau and Gatt waiting on the sidelines with crutches.
Note: I admitt I have no idea how fast Finlay is. Also I couldn’t really think of fast CMs in our pool. And Beasley probably deserves to start over Johnson, I assume he is still faster. See this is why we need those 40 yard-dash times.
FYI, after the last WC I was looking at a website that had a lot of stats from the WC. Included was the speed measurements for every player who appeared. I can’t remember how they measured it, but Fabian Johnson was probably at least in the top 10% for speed. Since it was arranged alphabetically, that is an estimate based on looking at most of the results.
Marvell Wynne needs to be in there somewhere.
Mikey is not slow but he isn’t exactly fast either.
GW, I get that, that’s mostly the way Yedlin has been used until now, that’s JK’s SOP. However, JK played Yedlin 90 and Wood 70 min against Peru, and I want to see Morris get a start and max it until he gasses in the second half to compare him with Wood and to see what happens.
Mark,
“Completely agree that Dempsey and Altidore are not an ideal pairing because of speed.”
That makes no sense.
With Zardes and Yedlin burning either down the flanks or down the channels.Jozy and Clint, unarguably the US’ two best finishers, give you two strikers hanging around the box to profit from the chaos caused by the speedsters.
And all that chaos is irrelevant if your team does not score. .
Speed always kills. Between Zardes, Yedlin, Morris and Wood the US should have a lot of quicks available.
But TNT are also a powerful team. Kenwyne Jones gave Mexico all kinds of trouble in the Gold Cup.
If Jozy stays hot, and he seems to be getting there, the Mexicans won’t want to see him.
I missed that game. Good if Jones gave them fits since he is past his prime, it seems to me. He used to start in the EPL, but last I saw him he was a late game sub.
Gary Page
“Good if Jones gave them fits since he is past his prime, it seems to me. He used to start in the EPL, but last I saw him he was a late game sub.”
You bring up a very crucial point about the difference between the club game and the national team game.
Being a late game sub and past your prime for your club does not mean you can’t do well for your national team.
Regular starters for most of the top leagues could play something like 40 games plus or minus 10 games a season.
The USMNT averages something like 15 to 20 games a calendar year. Under JK, Clint has averaged about 10 games a calendar year.
An older accomplished player like Jones may no longer be able to do it for 40 games a year but he can probably turn back the clock for 5-10 games.
It’s kind of like the relief pitcher who can, on a regular basis, give you maybe 2 great innings but not the 6-8 innings that a good modern starter must give you.
By the way this also applies to younger players transitioning from MLS to Europe or the national team.
How many meaningful games do MLS players have to play in a season? Compare that to a player in the EPL where every game is the end of the world or Real Madrid where an opening 0-0 draw has the media and fans screaming CRISIS after one game.
The transition takes a few adjustments. Some guys can do it and others can’t and it is not all about talent.
Good to see. Morris can be a game changer off the bench, could come in handy against Mexico.
Would you rather have Morris coming off the bench v. Mexico or starting in Olympic qualifying?
That is a tough one. For me, the deciding factor is how well he plays in the Brazil game if he doesn’t play then he is not ready and should go with the U23.
Sean Johnson…LOL
How many countries in the FIFA top 20 have a black goalkeeper?
Get out of the 1960’s. Racism is ugly. It never ends well.
Ignore…it’s the same guy from yesterday or the day before.