It All Comes Down to This

Yes, I am back. I have returned from my six day scouting trip of Wyoming only to come home empty handed, with no gallivanting pacey right winger in my grasp to send to Bob Bradley. Though hope may still be in tact for the soccer prospects of southern Wyoming, as there was a bucket of size 3 soccer balls on sale for 2.99$ at the Wal-Mart in the small town of Laramie. Clearly the grassroots movement is about to blossom out there.

But enough about that, we have things to focus on now, in the form of a 5 a.m. ET tilt against team Nigeria, with a place in the quarterfinals on the line.

Recent house sitter, and regular correspondent, Brooks, pretty much summed up the situation with this letter directed to the American contingent out in Beijing. You could say that with Stuart Holden’s “tackle” they already “effed up” this one. But negativity only breeds bad results, and we all know that the stars of the U-23’s read this blog bi-daily, so we’ll just leave it at that.

While there is reason to be nervous, as this is a USA soccer team in a meaningful last group game with advancing on the line (see World Cup 2006 vs. Ghana), it’s not all doom and gloom in the run-up to this one.

For one, as Brooks mentioned, two of Nigeria’s first choice back four, Olubayo Adefemi and Onyekachi Apam, are out due to yellow card accumulation. This could play out as the perfect situation for Jozy Altidore and Brian McBride to overpower a tournament foe and hopefully steal some goals. Remember, while all the USA needs is a tie to advance, a victory wins them the group, ensuring they avoid Argentina in the quarter-finals. So while advancing is obviously priority one, this isn’t exactly the game you want to pack-it-in for the nil-nil draw.

One problem heading into this tilt will be the absence of Freddy Adu and Rage Boy (Michael Bradley), arguably the two best players on the entire squad. To make up for this, Nowak will need to juggle the xi a little bit, obviously according to the situation the USA has at hand. Here is what I see him going with…

———–McBride———–Altidore—————-

Holden—————————————–Kljestan

—————Feilhaber—-Szetela——————

Orozco——Edu————Parkhurst———-Wynne

———————Guzan——————————-

Some notes…

-I think you have to keep Edu in the back. He has been solid and our only real depth lies in the midfield positions, so it’s best to use it in a situation like this.

-As mentioned before, McBride and Altidore should get the start up top together to try and take the advantage against a weakened Nigerian back line.

-Feilhaber looks to get his first start of the tourney, hopefully providing the creativity and eye for the devastating pass that will be missing without Adu.

-Szetela also moves into the center of the park to provide the Italian version of the New Jersey bite that will be missing with Bradley out.

So, don’t forget. 5 a.m. ET, on USA network, or other online options if that doesn’t suit you.

Thoughts?