The US maxed out its 2014 Cup effort. Now its time to be defined by quality not courage and commitment.
In Brazil, though, our matches against Germany and Belgium will be the most valuable markers. Close scorelines aside, we were comprehensively outplayed for the entirety of our final two matches, and no amount of grit, determination or endless hustle can mask the truth.
Those are just microdetails, though. The macro picture is the one that really matters as the U.S. continues the hard climb toward the world’s elite, and that picture in 2014 shows that in our last two matches, the opponent had the 15 most talented field players on the combined rosters. Probably more.
In this Cup, our outside midfielders, collectively, weren’t even close to good enough. Michael Bradley, played out of position as an attacking midfielder, wasn’t good enough. Geoff Cameron, both against Portugal as a center back and out of position vs. Belgium as a defensive midfielder, wasn’t good enough. Wondolowski clearly wasn’t good enough. So for all of the positive contributions of the Jermaine Joneses and Fabian Johnsons and DeMarcus Beasleys of the world, we’re still severely short on talent.
Whether it’s seeing Julian Green or DeAndre Yedlin blossom, or landing more (soon-to-be) dual nationals like Portland’s Darlington Nagbe and Arsenal wunderkind Gedion Zelalem, or having youth pipeline products like Joseph Gyau and Luis Gil morph into the real deal, the U.S. has to start churning out world-class players. Then injuries and travel itineraries and weather won’t matter quite as much, and top foes won’t be able to dictate entire matches, either.
There’s no shame in our giving it everything we had, but somewhere down the line, we’ll be grateful that the Germans and Belgians showed us so clearly that what we had wasn’t nearly enough
allowed 94 shots over 4 matches. Shots allowed by quarterfinalists:<s>#</s>COL
64<s>#</s>ARG
51<s>#</s>CRC
50<s>#</s>BRA
49<s>#</s>BEL
47<s>#</s>GER
45<s>#</s>FRA
42<s>#</s>NED
36
