Sacha Kljestan is Good

Sacha was BY FAR the best player on the field last night. Rarely do I watch international games where one player completely dwarfs both the competition and his teammates but Sacha did just that. He was strong on the ball and nearly perfect with both short and long passes. He also played with a confidence I have not seen out of him since he started getting call-ups. His positioning was nearly perfect as well with his ability to transition between offense and defense at a level I have not seen from him. He also had a number of very solid tackles and also tactical fouls that kept Sweden from doing much of anything in the midfield. Then obviously his striking of the ball was as good as I have seen out of a US player in recent memory. As Brooks stated that free kick was absolutely outstanding…

I apologize for my gushing but damn this kid gives me such hope for 2010…especially with LD blowing up at Bayern…our midfield is shaping up much better than I expected at this point in time.

I hope that nice play by Ching on Kljestan’s third goal doesn’t earn Ching a start against Mexico. Here’s my Mexico starting 11.

GK Howard
RB Cherundolo
CB Onyewu
CB Bocanegra
LB Bornstein
CM Bradley
CM Kljestan
RAM Dempsey
CAM Donovan
LAM Beasley
ST Altidore

Unfortunately, Ching was pretty good all night. Your lineup above is great, but ching may be there instead of Altidore. Also, I would start Wynn at RB over Dolo. Speed kills, and Wynn’s got it.
Also unfortunately, Franken-Coop did nothing after he came in.

Is it too soon to start asking for Adu over Beasley?

Yes, I think it is too soon. Bring Adu in for situational play, but Beasley is still such a good two-way player that I don’t see him being displaced by anyone at this point.

My question is LB. I think it has to be Pearce at this point, but he’s not playing on a bad team in the 2.

What might make sense down the road is moving DMB or Boca to LB, and sliding someone else at CB (Demerrit/Califf?) or LM (Adu/Torres?)

In my opinion the Sweden performance by Wynne was the best I have ever seen him play. He utilized his speed when he needed to and played fairly solid positional D. He would look MUCH better next to boca and onyewu as Wynne doesn’t do much in the air and with carlos and oguchi back there he won’t have to do much. He is, in my opinion, the best option in terms of an attacking player from a defensive wing position that we will have come 2010. With Dolo being 31 years old when the world cup comes around I don’t see him as the answer.

However, I have seen some very positive things from bornstein and if he continues to improve he could be the answer.

I love Wynne. He’s one of my favorites. I’ve been on his bandwagon for a long time. I wanted to write his name in, but in a game like this I think I’d have to go with Cherundolo. If we were playing anyone else I would have selected Wynne.

Is the criticism that Cherundolo is 31….Guess what? He’ll only be 32 next year……worry about SC’s age in 2014.