One last time.
Jon Levy
Welcome my friends, to the Landon Donovan testimonial match. A match in which we hope to celebrate the heights of US Soccer’s past through perhaps the team’s biggest ever star, while watching some new American stars in the making.
That’s the storyline we’re supposed to be selling for this one right? I’m actually okay with it; I feel no need to rage against the hype machine this time. After all, this match should be about Landon. I just wish the USMNT could give Lando a truly proper testimonial match, like the ones European clubs put on to honor their greatest players… cue my dream sequence…
Landon leads the US out onto the pitch wearing the captain’s armband, attended closely by Claudio Reyna and Clint Dempsey. Clint Mathis, Brian McBride, Oguchi Onyewu, and Eddie Pope follow, and their smiles turn to scowls as Mexico’s El Trí All-Stars of 2000-2013 make their way onto the pitch, Oswaldo Sánchez draped in his brightest neon lycra, knowing that America’s hero will torment him for 90 minutes, one more time.
Okay, you get the idea. But instead we’re playing a good Ecuador team, and y’know, that’s pretty cool if we’re going to keep things grounded in reality.
Just because it’s Landon’s last match doesn’t mean we’re skipping the usuals. Here they are:
Series: 12th meeting. Ecuador leads 5-2-4. That said, the Yanks haven’t lost to Ecuador this millennium. As occasions go, this is probably the most interesting one, although Tim Howard made his US debut, and earned his first clean sheet, in a 2002 match with Ecuador at historic Legion Field in Birmingham. Eddie Lewis snagged the match winner on that day.
Weather: Autumn in New England. 50’s, crisp, clear, pleasant. So sweater weather and the leaves are starting to change. Really doesn’t get much better than this.
Joe Gyau is in the first team at Dortmund. Is this real life?
What to watch for from the Yanks:
Jurgen Klinsmann talked about using this match and the upcoming game with Honduras to take a “snapshot” of the player pool. That means bringing in new faces like Minnesota United attacker Miguel Ibarra. He’s a MLS castaway who shouldn’t have been a MLS castaway. He’s lightning fast. He’s set the NASL ablaze. And with Julian Green sent home, it’s highly likely he’ll play a good bit.
Beyond Ibarra, taking a snapshot of the player pool means reevaluating players that have performed at youth level, but haven’t yet done it for the national team (or even consistently at the club level) like Luis Gil. It means hoping against hope that Joe Gyau’s recent Dortmund success is a sign he is ready to make good on at least some of his potential instead of breaking our hearts yet again. And it means making all those guys compete against the mainstays of the US Men’s National Team so we can be damn sure the likes of Mix Diskerud, Omar Gonzalez, and Jozy Altidore still deserve all the starts that are likely coming their way.
But individual performances aren’t what I’ll be watching for in this match. No, I’ll be looking for Jurgen Klinsmann’s charges, young and old, to duplicate the kind of midfield fluency that they, and some of their even younger counterparts, were able to create on European soil against solid opposition in the opening half against the Czech Republic. I’m looking for the kind of ball retention and movement that Klinsmann has been righteously practicing and preaching since he took over the program. The style of play he talked to the media about, then taught the team, then cowardly abandoned for his biggest match in charge, an elimination game at the World Cup. Maybe he needs to see that every man in the pool can successfully execute his particular Germerican version of tiki-taka (fritz-frank? hans-and-franz?) before he trusts it in a big spot against a more talented team. Well if that’s the case then let’s see it, because I don’t need to watch another clam job in a zero-zero game anytime in the next four years. Got that Klinzy? Good.
Your Biggest Fan, This is Stan, err, Jon Levy
P.S. I’ll save my thoughts on Donovan for the “player to watch” section. You had to know that was coming.
Tactically, I’d expect a US formation that looks something like this (link is to ASN Starting 11).
Guzan will be in the goal. He’s not in the United States to watch Bill Hamid or Nick Rimando start.
Morales didn’t start against the Czech Republic which left the US without anyway who could really hold the ball. I doubt Klinsmann does that again but I do expect him to continue his experimentation on the wings. The midfield three will be the stable part of this cycle. It won’t ultimately be this group of three: but Klinsmann seems to pick rosters knowing who will be in the middle of the park and it isn’t high level chemistry figuring out that Diskerud, Bedoya, and the in-form Gyau (no whammies, no whammies!!) are those three players. Joe Corona around the 60th minute, unless Klinsmann drops a striker when Donovan exits around minute 30, in which case, Ibarra around the hour mark and Corona earlier than that.
Defensively, this is an interesting match. Yedlin should start because he’s playing the best of the group right now- but if he starts- do you invert Chandler or do you give Garza a start? Remembering that Jurgen always wants to win because he’s German and because he’s now given us three years of pragmatic lineups saying he wants to win– it’s probably Chandler inverted. Orozco-Fiscal may have made the World Cup team (does the US beat Ghana in that scenario?) if not for a late leg injury- he’s earned the right to start over the other CB’s in camp, including Bolton player of the year Tim Ream, who hasn’t played meaningful minutes for the US internationally in a very long time. Omar Gonzalez, one of the more familiar faces for Donovan in this camp, starts in the other spot– and he’ll be tested against the pacy, physical Ecuadorians. Which is a great spot to ask…
Dynamo Moscow tough man Christian Noboa mans the central midfield.
What will we see out of Ecuador?
Ecuador is essentially doing the same thing with their squad that the US is doing for these two October internationals. They’re leaving at least half their regular roster at home, and the uncapped contingent is sizable. They’re even waving goodbye to national team legend Iván Hurtado, but he’s only slated to play the El Salvador match, so no worries about stepping on Donovan’s toes.
If you watched them in the World Cup, you know Ecuador is a talented and physical team that easily could have advanced to the knockout stage playing at a simple style of soccer. Now they’re under the direction of interim coach Sixto Vizuete. Vizuete isn’t exactly South America’s greatest footballing mind, but he’s a nice custodian while they find a permanent answer and if this mixed roster builds on the balanced style of play established under Reinaldo Rueda, we’re looking at a nice measuring stick against well-matched opposition.
In truth, it was somewhat surprising to see the Ecuadorians play so well in Brazil. Under Rueda, they were a giant (22 points of a possible 24 in CONMEBOL at home!!) when they played in the comforts of home altitude and rather pedestrian when they played at low altitude (Glad you asked- altitude at Rentschler Field is 40 feet.) How pedestrian away from home? Well, they managed only three draws last cycle away from home, and their victory in Brazil was their first that didn’t come on home soil in a competitive match in over four years.
And yet, in Brazil, Ecuador abandoned the tactically simplistic (open) 4-4-2 that, along with altitude, took them to the World Cup, and played a 4-4-1-1, which led to a thrilling match with Switzerland they narrowly lost, a confident win over Honduras and a grind-it-out and be proud result against France that saw them just miss the knockout rounds.
The question for the Landon finale, then, is which Ecuador do the US see, especially given the young team at Vizuete’s disposal?
Over the last four years, when Ecuador have been poor, they’ve been so because they are overwhelmed through the center, usually by superior technical teams. If you dinged in on “the US doesn’t really fit this bill”, you win- although Ecuador’s center backs in particular will be challenged by any sort of Gyau, Donovan, Altidore, Diskerud quartet.
When Ecuador have been good- they’ve done so by being accurate in distributions and direct, with quality forwards like Felipe Caicedo and the late Chucho Benitez able to beat you with both height and speed, and with pacy drifters like Enner Valenica buzzing around the channels and pressuring CB’s who take too long to move the ball (a Gonzalez speciality, and another argument to play Fiscal).
Typically, Ecuador’s most potent options, since Benitez’s death, have come from width, but those players aren’t in this team. Dynamo Moscow midfielder and World Cup tough guy Christian Noboa is the primary facilitator, whose passing and defense were steady in Brazil is in this team– but can he become more than a facilitator in the absence of the likes of Antonio Valencia, and if not, then how deep does Enner Valencia have to play to connect the center to the top of the spear? Noboa’s midfield partner, the very young Carlos Gruezo, went from uncapped to on the World Cup team, starting against Switzerland in a blink– but he was back on the bench for the Honduras match and doesn’t add a great deal in attack.
Up top, should the ball spend a great amount of time there, Ecuador may have more answers. Valencia was sensational in two of Ecuador’s World Cup matches, and even without Caicedo at the top– he should be able to work with Real Salt Lake’s Joao Plata, who is making a second consecutive appearance in the Ecuador team and has shown a great deal of improvement for RSL in the absence of Saborio this season. Plata isn’t Chucho Benitez, but he is tall and deceptively quick, two things that will make life difficult on any combination of US center backs in this match. I’d bet on a couple of dicey Gonzalez moments trying to decide whether to stay on Plata or peel off on a late running Valencia. In truth, this is a great test for Yedlin and Garza/Chandler– because Valencia will float all over the field behind the tip-of-the-spear– can the American fullbacks play help defense and not get lost in the channels?
Ecuadorian Player to Watch: Enner Valencia
While The Amarillos certainly aren’t arriving in Connecticut with their best possible squad, they are bringing their first choice striker, and he’s shifty enough and talented enough to worry every defender on the American back line. Enner Valencia started his career as a winger/wing defender, but his knack for cutting inside and scoring gave former national team coach Reinaldo Rueda the idea to try him as a striker after the tragic passing of incumbent Christian “Chucho” Benítez. Since then he hasn’t stopped scoring. He bagged 18 goals in 23 games for Pachuca, and he’s got eight goals in fifteen appearances for Ecuador. In fact the only team he doesn’t have a great strike rate for is his current club, West Ham United. But that can be attributed to his deployment as a complimentary striker, along with the fact that he’s only on his fourth Premier League start. That said, if you’re going to score one goal in your first handful of EPL matches, it might as well look like THAT ABOVE, or THIS…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GBF6yeTC5E
I give you all this background on Ecuador’s “Other Valencia” not JUST because I’m a West Ham fan, but because his multi-position background provides some context to his menacing movement all over the attacking third. And that wandering tendency might be a detriment to Enner if he didn’t consistently recognize developing scoring opportunities, and wasn’t so quick to dart into advantageous positions. And of course the ability to score from distance, or out-jump taller players, as Honduras (hardly a weak set piece team) found out the hard way at the World Cup, doesn’t hurt either.
I’m hoping the USMNT finds a way to keep Enner Valencia quiet, while taking special care not to injure him.
Look at that beautiful hair.
US Player to Watch: Landon Donovan
I’ll go back to Jurgen Klinsmann wanting to use these next two games to get a “snapshot” of the American player pool, because for the better part of a decade Landon Donovan was US Soccer’s “snapshot” to the world.
And given the decade during which this was the case, Landon’s role as poster boy had to be earned more than ever.
We’re not talking the mid-90’s when the immediately recognizable Alexi Lalas and Cobi Jones broke the American mold and took their haircuts to Italy and England after gaining some fame in the 1994 World Cup. Landon became the worldwide face of the American game during a time when fellow American greats like Claudio Reyna, Steve Cherundolo, and Brian McBride were already established productive players in big European leagues.A couple national team goalkeepers would follow that lead, and so would USMNT stars like DaMarcus Beasley and Clint Dempsey.
But a funny thing DIDN’T happen on the way to full-fledged international respectability: Landon Donovan was never supplanted as the most revered American field player by the rest of the world. And that majority opinion was shared by fans, sports writers (as our list on great writing about Landon Donovan demonstrates), front office execs at football clubs across the continent. The diminutive, gradually balding guy who was never the fastest man on the field was universally recognized as the best thing the Americans had going.
Now some of that stems from Lando being the out-and-out most skilled player on the team for years. Some of it is down to his knack for coming up big in big matches. But we should never discount the heart that Donovan showed in every match. The grit. The tracking back (10,000 meters 100 times as a US international) and menacing opposing wingers. Without those last few attributes no player could ever embody US Soccer. It’s because of all these reasons and more that we love American soccer hero Landon Donovan. It’s why he remained the face of the franchise in The States too; the only name that every casual fan and soccer hater knew by heart.
Now that Landon’s career is coming to an end everything freezes, and becomes more legendary as the years pass. I have no doubt that I’ll argue fervently for why he should have been included on the 2014 World Cup roster ten years from now. I’m sure I’ll relay the story of Landon’s unsuccessful stop-start European loans to my kids, before telling them about his days at Everton in a lesson on perseverance and self-belief. Around the time of Jozy Altidore’s final MLS All-Star game TYAC Editor Neil Blackmon and I will wax poetic about Landon’s swan song goal to give MLS victory over Bayern Munich and a fuming Pep Guardiola.
And during every single World Cup from here to eternity, no matter which astral plane I’m occupying, I’ll relive that moment that a dark, depressed living room with the curtains drawn exploded into screaming, jumping, and great big man-hugs because Landon Donovan had just won us the damn World Cup group.
He pens another chapter in Hartford on Friday night. Don’t miss it.
Prediction: USA 2 – 1 Ecuador
Big surprise, I’m not going to pick us to lose the Landon Donovan match.
Donovan scores. Donovan cries. Somewhere Bruce Arena is bawling. I’m gonna try and keep it together.
Enjoy the match, and Go USA!
Jon Levy is Co-Founder of The Yanks Are Coming. Follow him on Twitter at @TYAC_Jon.