I love you USMNT!

I'm heartbroken. I know everybody in America is. Or at least the ones who aren't anti-football douchebags(and I don't give a fuck about them).

I was expecting great things from USMNT Volume 2010. Especially after realizing we won the Group and were facing Ghana. Let's face it, we shouldn't have lost to Ghana in '06. But we DEFINITELY shouldn't have lost to them today. There was no excuse for that loss. It was just a combination of bad playing and bad decision making by Bradley.

Just a day or two ago we were all on the highest of highs. Landon Donovan had saved the country. He had done something incredible. Our country was united behind these 23 men. We were all watching, waiting for more magic from the 10-shirt.
Everybody remembers Captain America and his epicness while wearing the 10. Were we wrong to expect the same from LD? Absolutely not. He took his team over and saved their asses plenty of times. Granted, there was the issue of him disappearing several times in all 4 of our matches, we knew he would come through in the end. With the exception of the England match, Landon was directly involved in all of the moments where the US turned things around.
Against Slovenia? Twice. First his 'staredown the keeper' blast that closed the 2-nil gap. And then later in the match when Edu was robbed. Landon's freekick prowess led to that goal which was disallowed.
And, of course, the entire universe will remember Landon's last second goal against Algeria. Tim Howard throws the ball 50 yards to Landon, who passes it up to Altidore. Jozy lays it over to CD8 who runs into the keeper as he lays down to try to prevent the goal. The rebound rolls away and is just sitting there waiting for the ever-persistent Landon Donovan to come flying up the pitch and drill it into the net.
And, with that moment, everybody forgot about the fact that Landon had barely been involved in any plays during the other 90+ minutes of the match. But, it happens to the best of them. Just watch. The only exception to that rule MIGHT be Leo Messi. And that's because he's Messi. Nobody can stop that guy. Don't get me wrong. I love Landon. He's still my 2nd favorite American Footballer(Clint takes #1 cause he's that dude). And I'm convinced that sometime soon, somebody is going to throw a crapton of cash his way to play for them in Europe. May not be top level EPL but it'll happen. But he needs to get even better. He can't go the route of CRonaldo and Pre-WorldCup Messi. The magic needs to be there for 90 minutes in the Galaxy Kit and the USMNT Kit.


The question of the day has to be this: will Bob Bradley keep his job.
Obvious answer seems to be no. Why?
Reason 1. His stubborness directly resulted in the USA losing.
-Ricardo Clark should not have started. Plain and simple. We had a winning formula, and it didn't involve him. If he wasn't on the pitch during the England match Garrard doesn't score that goal(not so soon anyway) and if he wasn't on the pitch during the Ghana match then he wouldn't have gotten his pocket picked like a 9th grader playing with the Varsity team during one of those 'We don't really care about this match so we aren't going to start our big guns' match.
-Robbie Findley. Oh Robbie Findley. I'm going to TRY to be nice about this: You're not a Striker my friend. Not yet anyway. You're a Sprinter with half-decent Football instincts. You can't finish for crap( as made apparent by that shoulda-coulda-woulda goal that he failed to get against Ghana). We had plenty of other legit-Strikers who could have started in his place. Edson Buddle, Herculez Gomez, Clint Dempsey, Brian Ching(who Bradley left at home), Brian McBride(another one Bradley forgot). Point is we had some great options for attacking-threats that didn't involve Robbie Findley. He just wasn't ready yet.
Both of those players have 2 things in common: they started matches because Bob Bradley was too stubborn to admit that he was wrong. And by the time he finally did so, it was too late.
Reason 2. He clearly wasn't able to get the team prepared for matchday.
-If the USA had advanced I would've been a little pissed still. For 1 reason: I'm sick of us having to come from behind. I'm sick of having near heart attacks because our team plays like rubbish for 45+ minutes and then after Bob gives a rousing speech or gives the team a hit of cocaine or whatever the hell he did during halftime, they suddenly remember how to play football and realize they should probably try to win the damn match. There's no way in hell you could beat a Argentina or a Brazil or a Germany that way. It just wouldn't happen. By the time the guys were ready to play, they'd be down 5-nil. It just doesn't work like that Bob.
Reason 3. This is America. We always have to crucify somebody and run them out of town when things go badly.
This has less to do with Bob and more to do with the fact that Landon and the boys created a phenomena. And now that the nation is watching, they're going to want control over things. How often are coaches 'on the hot seat' in other sports. Non-footy fans who jumped on board during these past few weeks will want Bradley's head on a platter. For no other reason than they know nothing about the game. They only know what we tell them. So us saying "Findley and Clark shouldn't have started." to them means "Bob Bradley doesn't know how to do his job." That's only partially true. But it won't matter.

That being said, It's not all Bradley's fault. The players had issues starting matches and not conceding goals early. It took them over an hour to realize they're in a football match with the entire world watching them. That's not acceptable. Even if Bob didn't get them ready, they should've rallied around Landon, Clint and Tim and realized "Oh hey, this is the World Cup. We should probably get our shit together"

I'm proud of the USMNT, and I'll back them forever. My German-ness won't disrupt that.(unless the two sides meet. then all bets are off).


Here's hoping Klose and the boys don't let me down tomorrow. I can't take another one. I'm getting too old for this shit.
One of the plethora of heartbroken USA fans/now 100% Germany fan
,Mazzus Keesaji

Die Mannschaft!