By Jeremiah Paschke-Wood
At 8 p.m. Saturday (I’m on Pacific time, folks), the U.S. men’s national team will give some time on the pitch to some prospects as they take on Chile at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. Oh how I wish I could go. USMNT coach Bob Bradley called up a team comprised mostly of younger talent from the U.S. pool. The entire team has 23 caps between them, the most from midfielder Alejandro Bedoya, who has six. They’ll be taking on Chile, praised for being one of the most stylish teams at the 2010 World Cup, at least until they were tanked by Brazil. Chile are coached by Argentinian Marcelo Bielsa, who led them to the World Cup, then resigned in unhappiness over the appointment of Jorge Segovia as head of the Chilean football federation. But apparently he’s still the coach? I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe he’s coaching, maybe he’s not. Find out on Saturday! Here are three reasons to watch the match if I haven’t sufficiently whet your whistle so far.
1. The U.S. is, well, not great, but getting better. I know it’s annoying to hear people champion the U.S. national team, and then nonsoccer/football fans like yourselves spend two hours you could use watching replays of the Insight.com Bowl only to see the U.S. lose a match against a team from a country you’ve never heard of (Ghana is in Africa, by the way). But with that said, Brazil didn’t win five World Cups with the help of Brazilian apathy and complaining. The U.S. team has come on in leaps and bounds since, say, the 1998 World Cup where they finished 32nd out of 32 teams. In 2002, we beat Portugal and were sort of cheated by the Germans in the quarterfinal, and in 2006 … well, we drew with Italy, which counts for something, right? In 2010 we topped a group that included England. The point is, we shouldn’t look at every sport like if we don’t win, it’s not worth watching. We dominate every country in everything else, enjoy us actually having to compete in a sport for once.
2. The U.S. has some good young players. I am a firm believer that we’re only a few years away from a point where we’ll have several U.S. national team members performing at the highest level on the world stage. Already, players like Tim Howard (Everton), Jozy Altidore (Villareal) and Stuart Holden (Umm…Bolton Wanderers) are competing for strong teams in some of the world’s best leagues. Could the U.S. have a Messi or Ronaldo coming through the pipeline? Well, don’t be someone who comes late to the party. Players like Omar Gonzalez (22 years old – the MLS Rookie of the Year), Mikkel Diskerud (playing in the Champions League with Norway’s Stabaek) and Juan Agudelo, and 18-year-old who scored in his first appearance for the U.S. national team, will all get the chance to show what they can do. You should watch.
3. Chile aren’t too bad. Though they won’t be featuring the talents of mercurial players like Alexis Sanchez (“Sorry guys, I’m playing against Inter Milan this weekend”) or Bayer Leverkusen’s Arturo Vidal, at this match, both due to European league play, Chile are still, apparently, coached by Bielsa, who is renowned for his tactical moves and attacking play. They are currently ranked No. 15 in the world and will use this match to blood some young player with limited experience. But don’t think this mean’s they will be tentative. The squad will still feature players like Esteban Paredes (35 goals in 52 matches for Chilean powerhouse Colo-Colo) and Fernando Meneses, who has scored six times in 30 matches for Universidad Catolica. In fact, the entire Chilean midfield is made up of Universidad Catolica players, which begs the question: Is the Universidad Catolica team better than the U.S. second team? Find out on Saturday!
Only Love Soccer 