This was the summer that U.S. Soccer turned the corner, but the scenery still hasn’t changed.
Thanks to ESPN’s saturating coverage of the 2010 World Cup and the drama encountered by the U.S. at every turn in South Africa, a niche sport transformed itself into the stuff of front pages, back pages and water cooler talk everywhere. Tuesday’s highly anticipated friendly against Brazil (8 p.m., ESPN2/Univision), the first U.S. match since the World Cup, is meant to preserve its standing in the American sports landscape for a bit longer.
It should also serve as a reminder that the U.S. underachieved in South Africa when it had the chance to do better, still lacks depth as a program and has work left to overcome its continued limitations.
The Brazil match is a victory tour, of sorts. It’s far easier to celebrate winning Group C than agonizing over a bevy of questionable lineup decisions, the two quickest goals against of the tournament and an overtime exit in the round of 16 despite a favorable road to the semifinals.
It’s also easier to fill the 82,500-seat New Meadowlands Stadium when Landon Donovan is the headliner, not a group of fresh-faced youngsters vying for a place on the U.S. roster for a World Cup four years from now.
Marketing doesn’t mean much to the Brazilians, of course, who’ve put together a team with more future stars like Alexandre Pato (20), Neymar (18), than so-called veterans like Dani Alves (27) and Robinho (26). But hey, it’s Brazil.
And when it comes to playing Brazil, no matter who they bring, sending out an untested U.S. team against them in this kind of setting could lead to an embarrassing blowout.
To be competitive, U.S. head coach Bob Bradley will instead lean on a lineup heavy with World Cup veterans like Donovan and Tim Howard.
But can Bradley overcome his own baffling choices, which repeatedly hindered the U.S. in June? Ricardo Clark isn’t on the roster, so that helps, but Robbie Findley remains.
If Bradley doesn’t give Edson Buddle or Maurice Edu a chance against Brazil, it’s clear the lessons he should’ve learned since his return from South Africa haven’t sunk in.
And it would mean that despite the surge in popularity, U.S. Soccer is no better off than it was before the World Cup began.
