Jon Levy
Why Not The Long Face? Don’t Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth?
The US Men’s National Team has a center back, and his name is Aaron Long. You may have heard this from fans of Harrison, New Jersey’s New York Red Bulls. In general, these folks aren’t shy about making their opinions known.
You may have heard this from fans of his story that admire his rise through the untelevised ranks of American club soccer’s “pyramid.” Soccer writers like myself are more than complicit on this front; we love a good story.
You may have heard this from marks for the verbal “tactics porn” that we regularly get from new national team manager Gregg Berhalter. They want you to know that it’s not just about Long being good, it’s about a tactical fit. They’re absolutely not gonna come across as obnoxious when they really hammer on that word “fit” as they harangue you about this.
I fit into two of the aforementioned buckets.
I may not be a Red Bulls fan, but I do write about soccer, which automatically makes me a mark for Gregg’s “On Stratagems” one-man show, right? Sure. But these aren’t the arguments I’m here to make today. The bar is much lower.
When’s the last time an American center back had three good games in a row for the national team? Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
…
You’ve probably taken a few seconds to conclude that this might turn into an indictment of the team’s best center back, John Brooks. Not so fast. He’s half the answer to the question posed above. Sadly, the “when” part of the answer is “Copa America Centenario.” That’s a soccer tournament that was contested in 2016. The last couple years in the shirt haven’t been good enough out of the guy that sometimes seems poised to be a superstar (especially if you watch him carry his club, Wolfsburg, defensively), and sometimes seems to have no idea what his responsibilities are on the pitch.
The only other guy that’s got a shout at possibly having strung three good games together anytime recently is Matt Miazga, and as much as I want to give him bonus points for short-shaming Diego Lainez, I don’t think my relatively modest criteria for consistency has been met. But I do have to point out, if you didn’t know club soccer existed and only watched national teams, you’d be convinced Miazga was a better player than John Brooks at this point if you’d only watched the US national team since late summer 2016.
Of course, neither of these guys has been done many favors by their central defensive partners. Omar Gonzalez’s USMNT defensive form has been a roller coaster for a few years, well before his catastrophic performance in Couva.
John Brooks had to play a number of matches next to Ventura Alvarado (I feel bad having to bring this up… you’d probably achieved inner peace by forgetting Ventura Alvarado). And the now U23 blue chippers, whose names don’t belong in this “bad CB play” paragraph, have yet to force themselves into the lineup consistently.
The uneven play, to put it nicely, from American center backs, has been an underplayed part of the USMNT’s failure story.
From one perspective, we got an unheeded warning shot in the summer of 2017. And who can blame Bruce Arena and his staff for sticking their heads in the newly won CONCACAF Gold Cup and going “na-na-na we can’t hear you, we won, all is well, the defending is fine!”? Well, all of us, now.
Now,, in the face of continued central defensive uncertainty, springs forth a fully formed center back from the fabled sea foam of the Garden State. Aaron Long is in prime, and he’s turning in comfortable and impressive performances for Gregg Berhalter’s USMNT. Right now that’s enough for me, and given relatively sorry state of CB affairs I’ve detailed above, it should be enough for you too.
From here I could write about the suspect strength of attacking competition Long’s faced in the last few matches. Or I could wax poetic about him shepherding skilled dribblers away from goal. I could loop in Long’s tactical and possible positional flexibility. I could even force a comparison to late-20’s Jay DeMerit, and believe me, I can make that one work.
But I’m not going to do any of that.
The only thing I’m trying to convince you of today is this: Aaron Long has already proven he’s a steady USMNT center back, worthy of a call for the foreseeable future anytime Berhalter selects a squad. That might seem like faint praise to fans that still view center back as a position of relative strength for the USMNT historically, but “historically” is the operative word there. Aaron Long is competent at the very least; for a team that’s started Ventura Alvarado in competitive matches in the not too distant past, that’s something to celebrate.
Jon Levy is Co-Founder of The Yanks Are Coming. Follow him on Twitter @TYAC_Jon.