Come on, you know you missed us.
It isn’t that there weren’t capable, smart and entertaining USMNT match previews (We see you, Total Soccer Show, Jeff “The Goat” Carlisle and so many others) recorded and written in 2018; it’s just that for two World Cup cycles y’all got accustomed to reading “the TYAC preview” and it never really felt like a World Cup cycle without one, right?
What’s that? It did. Fine, but we’re just asking you to work with us here.
We’re back- or Jon is, after a fifteen month long self-care sabbatical– with Neil happy to hear it.
Ironically, we make our return to freshly-crafted, detailed, artisanal and hot from the oven US Men’s National Team match previews with a Panama match, the same opponent as one of the last previews we wrote and by our count, aside from Honduras and Mexico, the opponent we’ve previewed more than any other in a decade of US soccer storytelling.
THAT Panama match was in Orlando, just days after the far too soon death of Tom Petty, and it was billed as “the game” the US had to win to assure it’s 2018 FIFA Men’s World Cup dreams were safe. Behind a masterful Christian Pulisic and a menacing, active Paul Arriola, the US won that game 4-0 in one of the greatest soccer environments I’ve ever seen in person. Afterwards, there was a collective sigh of relief and much rejoicing, Panama were vanquished and everything was supposed to be fine.
Sure, it was a bit disconcerting that Bruce Arena acknowledged the day prior to the match that “he hadn’t even looked at Trinidad and Tobago,” the tiny Caribbean island nation already eliminated from qualification and the only opponent standing between the US and an 8th consecutive World CUp appearance.
But the Soca Warriors had called in a “B” team largely comprised of NASL and lower-level Mexican league professionals. They weren’t a threat, right?
Days later, after Sol Campbell delivered Bruce Arena a tactical education, an Omar Gonzalez own goal and a lifeless performance in the Caribbean mud, the unthinkable had happened.
The US spent a year wandering the wilderness, both as a federation trying to find its way in the aftermath of the nation’s most colossal athletic failure in generations and as a soccer team trying to take inventory of what went wrong and what could be done to avoid a similar fate for Qatar.
The year opened with a bitter US Soccer Presidential election that exposed the American game’s many fissures and divisions. By the time Earnie Stewart took over formally in the federation’s newly-created “GM” position this summer, little progress had been made on reshaping approaches to development, appointing a U23 coach for another run at Olympic qualification and worse, there still was no clear outline, at least publicly, in what the actual responsibilities of the GM job entailed.
With little movement on those issues, progress on other, more systemic problems, such as pay-to-play culture and increasing access to the game in underserved communities, was a dream blowing in the wind. Never was the lack of movement on these issues more obvious than when Clint Dempsey, the dynamic player who best demonstrated the access gap in American soccer, retired in August.
On the field, led by an encouraging, talent new generation of players, the US started with promise, but by autumn, had been playing under an “interim” manager for almost a year. They languished in tough autumn friendlies, looking uninspired and out of ideas.
Which leads us to tonight in Phoenix.
The usual TYAC preview, then? Why not?
First, Van Halen:
Series: 20th meeting. The United States leads 12-1-6.
Panama’s has one victory in regulation and one in penalties. Both have both come in Gold Cups and on US soil. The first, a stunning win over Bob Bradley’s USMNT in the group stage of the 2011 Gold Cup in Tampa, foretold the end of the Bradley era and was, in many ways, the “coming out” party for the group of Panamanians who would change their small country’s fortunes in the world’s game. The second win came in penalties over Jurgen Klinsmann’s US in Philadelphia, a game that saw Panama dominate throughout only to be held at bay until penalties by a masterful Brad Guzan, who made thirteen– 13!!!!- saves.
Weather: Perfect, more or less. Highs in the 60s at kick and dipping into the fifties by the second half. Clear. Doesn’t get much better.
Neil on What to Watch for from the Americans:
Not going to write about tactics here, which I suppose is a bit different. There will be time for that– I promise we’ll do it for Costa Rica.
Instead, I want to write about the opening of a new era in US Soccer.
Gregg Berhalter has plenty of personnel and tactical questions to address over the next few months and certainly, as Kartik Krishnaiyer wrote in this space this week, questions will linger over the process in which he was hired after a year-long delay and a search that seemed more formality than functional.
But one of the largest challenges for Berhalter, in my view, has very little to do with tactical decisions or personnel decisions.
Instead, Berhalter has to bridge, or rebuild entirely, an enthusiasm gap around this program and team that has been badly damaged/eviscerated in the aftermath of Couva. The fans that have stayed are hurt, divided and cynical. Worse, there’s a level of resignation and apathy at present with the US Men’s National Team that is extremely unusual, especially at a time when the country’s soccer cultures at large are expanding at extremely quick rates.
There’s work to be done before US Men’s National Team fans even “want” to believe, let alone before they are on board.
Evidence of that starts at the gate.
The latest reports on ticket sales suggest only 7,000 or so tickets were pre-sold, an astonishingly low figure for the dawn of a new era.
I’m not sure why the US Soccer Federation felt playing what is traditionally a B/C team friendly against a regional opponent in a huge football stadium that has hosted Super Bowls was the right play, but here we are. I know they have to make money; it just seems like this is a decision that opens them up to the embarrassment of empty seat optical eyesores at a time when they need to be “all hands on deck” in rallying behind a new coach and new vision for US Soccer as a program.
This speaks to the challenge Berhalter faces, one made even more difficult given the framing of the hire as “uninspired” or “insular” in many soccer circles. American soccer fans have always been jaded and insecure, prodded abroad for calling it “soccer” and jostled at home for caring about the wrong football. This is changing, of course, but in the aftermath of Couva, a soccer culture long tied to and united by the national team has now become increasingly defined by club affections and fractured by national team frustrations.
It’s a heady ask to place the job of fixing that on Gregg Berhalter’s shoulders. He has plenty to worry about as is. But that’s the job he signed up for, like it or not.
That challenge begins tonight with a fascinating “B” team in Arizona.
Jon on the US Player to Watch: Russell Canouse (DC United)
This might not be the first rumination you’ve come across on the subject of the DC United midfielder’s national team prospects, but maybe it’ll be the most honest.
Canouse is a viable option at precisely one position on Gregg Berhalter’s USMNT, and right now he’s behind at least two players on the defensive midfield depth chart. Working against Canouse, both those players are better than him. Working for Canouse, his name isn’t Michael Bradley or Wil Trapp.
Michael Bradley is an all-time USMNT great, but he’s also become one of the most polarizing American players of all time (so much so that I can hear half of you still cursing after reading the first part of that sentence).
And over the course of the last year and a half Wil Trapp’s become the new, young MB90 in so many ways. I never thought I’d see the Michael Bradley game-versus-nepotism early career skepticism play out again in any form, but Trapp’s rise has an eerily similar feel. His must-start status and eventual captaincy during Dave Sarachan’s tenure felt really forced, even if he was obviously a pretty good number six at the very least. It didn’t help that either Weston McKennie or Tyler Adams was missing in most of Wil’s matches, leaving everyone pining for that pairing and taking it out on the meat in the room. And now, after Earnie’s coaching hire (complete with nepotism skepticism!) Trapp’s seemingly lucked into a perfect situation with his club manager running the national team. Trapp is (well on his way to being) the new Michael Bradley.
But those knocks on Bradley and Trapp are basically just fan gripes and PR, right?
How does any of this actually create an opening for adequate ball-mover Russell Canouse?
The short answer is that the opening might not be there. But the slightly longer answer is also realistic, and more interesting.
As you’ve probably gathered by now, both Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams need to be on the field for this new USMNT to be at its best. And in spite of Adams’ professed love for the DMF position, there’s a feeling that both key players will be deployed as true central midfielders. In that formation we’re looking at a single dedicated defensive midfielder sweeping up behind the wundertwins and in front of the center backs. Even if he’s still enjoying the back end of his prime, can Michael Bradley really be relied upon to do that job at 31? What about when qualifying begins and he’s 33? I’m not sure.
That said, Russell Canouse can be relied upon to run all day, commit defensively, and to stay positionally responsible. He’s also a slightly underrated passer. I’m just not convinced he’s better than Wil Trapp at any of that. But Wil’s had the odd ugly moment in the shirt over the course of the last year and a half. Can’t say the same for Canouse. Backup QB’s always the most popular guy in town. Besides, Wil Trapp’s the new Michael Bradley.
DISCLAIMER: TYAC still believes in Kellyn Acosta, but he’s not on the dedicated defensive midfielder depth chart anymore. Or the midfielder chart, apparently. Not a knock, just a fact.
Neil on Panama:
Another federation in the midst of change, albeit not the complex, broken and heart wrenching sea change occurring in the United States.
From my seat last summer, Panama was one of the biggest winners of the World Cup, even if they finished last.
When Panama lost its final game at the World Cup, a 2-1 seesaw affair with Tunisia that was, even if few watched, riveting; I saw, in my little corner of America, one of the things that makes this sport so special.
Watching the game in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, I was grabbing a beer when the game ended when I first heard the drums.
Thirty Panamanians, all clad in red jerseys of their homeland, marched and sang in a drumline, dancing and chanting in song. “Vamos Marea Roja!”, they would shout in between songs, joyful and proud.
It didn’t matter that they lost every game. An inconsequential group stage match with Tunisia was a World Cup final to them, and though they lost on the field, they captured the soul of the event with their support and their story.
Of course Felipe Baloy, 37, one of the oldest players at the World Cup, scored the country’s first World Cup goal (it came in that 6-1 loss to England that should have been worse). Perhaps no one more embodied Panama’s scratch-and-claw journey up the global soccer ladder than Baloy, who failed to lead his country to a World Cup at 33, when the team was younger and better, but refused to be denied in the final Hex, denying the Americans a spot along the way.
That Panama team was one of the oldest teams at the World Cup by average age, and the bulk of it and the bulk of what we know as Panama soccer: Blas Perez, the Baloys, Jaime Penedo, Adolfo Machado, even the ageless Roman Torres, are already retired or on their way out.
The team they’ve brought to Phoenix, entirely comprised of players who ply their trade in Panama’s fledgling domestic league, represents their own new beginning.
After a chapter as beautiful and just as the one that ended last summer in Russia, these players have a great deal to live up to. The federation knows that though, and has asked, for now, Gary Stempel, who coached many of these players in their journeys through the youth international ranks, to lead them.
Stempel’s story, like Panama’s, involves unlikely accomplishment in the form of a strangely compelling journey.
A former academy director at storied English club Millwall, Stempel is a dual English-Panama citizen who returned to Panama to coach youth teams in 2003. In 2009, he won the Copa Centroamericana with Panama, the first time Panama ever won a youth tournament. The team he accomplished that feat with became the core of Panama’s 2018 World Cup squad.
“He is one of the people who most helped Panamanian football,” Hernán Darío Gómez, known as El Bolillo, told The Guardian last summer.
Roman Torres agreed, telling TYAC, “we wouldn’t have been in Russia without Gary”, a sentiment that Blas Pérez shared “Gary was our first coach; he opened the doors to us at a very different moment in Panamanian football history and gave us knowledge. His management was phenomenal.”
A new beginning with deep ties to the past.
Sounds familiar.
Prediction: USA 1, Panama 0. These January camp games usually end with tepid, defensive affairs with both teams worried about getting cut out. I’d imagine that’s what we’ll see in Glendale tonight, with the US snagging a goal late. Give me a Paul Arriola and Djordje Mihailovic build-up and a Zardes finish for the W.