Forward Thinking

June 2nd, 2006 | by: Daryl | Comments Off

In a recent(ish) ESPN article Ives Galarcep makes a convincing argument that Eddie Johnson’s recent return to form is crucial to USA’s chances at the World Cup. I’d go even further and argue that Johnson performing in Germany is crucial to long term success.

McBride is the number one striker, and we still may go with just one up top, but at 33 (and 34 by the time we play Ghana) he can’t be expected to play every minute. He may even retire from international football post-World Cup (though he hasn’t announced anything, that I’m aware of). Johnson looks to be next in the pecking order and a good World Cup, maybe even a big move to Europe, would leave me a lot more confident in the future of the USA’s forward line.

Though his performance against Latvia wasn’t flawless, it was enough to earn some (gasp) unqualified praise from Bruce:

“Eddie, his last two games were really good. We’ve had a real tough time with him over the last five months and I think he’s starting to break out of it now. Although he didn’t get a goal tonight, I thought he had some real good moments and played quite well. I think they might have missed a couple of calls on him, offsides, where I think he did quite well to position himself to get behind the Latvian team. Eddie did a lot of good things tonight and on Friday, so that’s a real positive.”

He may not be a big name player yet ( a certain English newspaper definitely doesn’t think so) but a good World Cup will change that. There’s always one player who makes their reputation at the tournament, and if Johnson can score against the Italians or Czechs then we can finally forget about who all his previous goals were against, and look forward to a McBride-less future without too much worry.