On outside backs

The New York Times's soccer coverage is frustratingly intermittent but today they have a nice feature on Heath Pearce, the player in the US squad mix whom most American fans know nothing about.

Pearce makes a very good point about the importance of outside backs: in competing 4-4-2 systems, they tend to see a lot of the ball, since there really isn't an opposing player whose natural role is to mark them. They have the time to look at the field and make a measured decision on who to pass to. One of the reasons David Regis had a lock on the outside back role in the first part of the Arena era is that for all his faults as a defender, he had great vision and was a good distributor. If you look at any England game in which David Beckham plays on the right, you'll notice that the most important player on the field becomes Gary Neville; the opposing defence pays so much attention to stopping Beckham from crossing that the Neviller gets the ball with time and space.

Frankie Hejduk has done yeoman's work as an outside right back, but in this regard Steve Cherundolo is a significant upgrade. On the left side, it's between Dunivant, Pearce and Lewis. Bocanegra is a good choice there only if you really aren't planning on actually attacking. Really, I think the best choice would be a healthy John O'Brien, but since that's not an adjective that is often appended to O'Brien's name I don't see it ever happening.

P.S. I grew up in England but never understood this: why do they call outside defenders "fullbacks" and central defenders "center halves". I know, tradition, yadda yadda yadda, but in today's game the nomenclatural logic makes no sense: the fullbacks are, after all, never fully back (since they're expected to push forward).