Catching Up

Due to a combination of work, travel, and sheer laziness, I missed about a week of blogging, a week during which the US national team's future either looks very rosy or very bleak. Your perspective literally depends on which direction you look.

Down south, the US meekly fell out of Copa America by falling 1-0 to Colombia. Bob Bradley sensibly gave everyone who hadn't seen the field yet time against Colombia but the performance was more or less the same.

What do we take from the Copa? The point of the whole exercise was to gain experience even as we get obliterated. The problem is that such gains are pretty much intangible; it's hard to say whose future play will benefit by this tournament and by how much. I agree almost entirely with Steven Goff's big picture take on the Copa and the Gold Cup, possibly with the exception of his opinion on Marvell Wynne who, with the right coaching, could take his game to a higher level. I think that Wynne is essentially Frankie Hejduk ten years ago, and that the right sort of development could see him as a future factor for the US.

Up north, the U-20s have gone from strength to strength, beating Brazil 2-1 and winning their group. They face the Uruk-hai in the round of sixteen on Wednesday. It's hard to handicap this match, but assuming that the young Uruk-hai share their older compatriots' propensity for mindless violence, I think the US will be up against it. They'll need to make the most of the inevitable free kicks that their opponents concede and be prepared to use Altidore and Szetala's strength effectively to hold their own.

So a tasty set of international games this week as the U-20 knockout games start tomorrow and the Copa semis begin tonight. Anyone know if the Asian Cup is being broadcast anywhere in the States?