It was a tournament that displayed the highest highs and the lowest lows of American soccer. A tournament where we saw everything we dreamed about and everything we feared. The first two games were displays to be forgotten. After a tough 3 – 1 loss to Italy and another stupid red card we were still [...]

That hurt. In a way it would have almost been better to lose the way the first meeting between these two teams went. But to so dominate the first half, hold a 2-0 lead, then watch it all slip away was tough to take. Bob Bradley’s management of the second half was certainly questionable at [...]

Here we go — USA vs. Brazil for the most important cup final going on today, and perhaps the most important cup final the US has ever been a part of. Daryl and company will be liveblogging below, so enjoy and hope that the US takes the South African people’s advice…
Brazil vs USA Confederations Cup [...]

Well, the Confederations Cup final will be a rematch of USA vs. Brazil, which, uh, didn’t go so great the first time around. But this time, the US is rocketing off a convincing win OVER THE BEST TEAM IN THE WORLD and Brazil is sneaking away from a 1-0 win over South Africa.
Michael Bradley [...]

Here’s the US starting XI:
Howard
Spector, Onyewu, DeMerit, Bocanegra
Donovan, Clark, Bradley, Dempsey
Davies, Altidore
(4-4-2)
Wow. Not only did Bob remember that the 4-4-2 worked, but he leaves Charlie Davies in, and gets the now fit (I guess?) Boca in at left back. Wow.
Of course, he had to leave Ricardo Clark in there just to satisfy his deep [...]

Alright. The reality of the situation has finally set in and now it’s time to get down to brass tacks.
We all know how good Spain is and how they haven’t lost in their last, like, 112 games, but you know what? They’re not taking this game lightly. Kind of. Says Xavi:
“It will not be [...]

I have no idea what the hell just happened in those two matches, but I do know this:
1) We need to play the 4-4-2 all the time.
2) Charlie Davies needs to start more often.
3) Bob Bradley still needs to be fired. I hope that doesn’t get lost in this madness. But it will.

Here’s the starting lineup for what will almost certainly be the US MNT’s final Confederations Cup match (and hopefully Bob Bradley’s final match period.) via the USSF Twitter:
Guzan; Spector, Onyewu, DeMerit, Bornstein; Donovan, Clark, Bradley, Dempsey; Davies, Altidore … a 4-4-2.
So Charlie Davies and Brad Guzan get rare starts, which could be intriguing, but Egypt [...]

Further thoughts later, but…ugh. What a nightmare.

Since Barack Obama bought us all one way tickets on his crazy train of positivity, it’s been difficult to be morbidly realistic when looking ahead to big matches like this (after the fact? not so much), even just two days after that 3-1 loss to Italy.
But this lack of hopelessness is not without its [...]