Next up are the last two semifinal round WCQs.
9/2 @ St. Vincent & the Grenadines
9/6 vs. Trinidad & Tobago (in Jacksonville)
We are currently in second place with seven points from four matches after drawing T&T on the road and losing to Guatemala. Despite this, we will win the group by winning out. A win over SVG paired with a T&T win over Guatemala will allow the US to clinch advancement to the Hex with one game to spare.
Moving on from Copa America, it's time to make some changes to the squad. Time to jettison a few players with immediate effect:
- Beckerman - too old to be useful any longer
- Wondolowski - never was useful
- Orozco - moderately useful depth at times, but he's done now and that should have been obvious to anyone paying attention to Tijuana last year
- Castillo - good club player and not too old, but he's never performed for the US and Klinsmann clearly doesn't trust him in the slightest, so let's move on
GK
Guzan largely had a solid tournament and is a decent player, but against Argentina he showed again that he's not up to the standard of Howard/Friedel/Keller. He's still our #1 in my book, but his position is not unassailable if someone else steps up. I thought Bill Hamid was on track to be a regular part of the squad as the #3 or #2, but injuries derailed him. He's back now and I'd like him to get into a few camps. Ethan Horvath looks like a good prospect, but I think he's farther away from prime time. He already has over 40 appearances for Molde, but needs more experience.
RB
Yedlin has his ups and downs, but he's improved and is still 22. Chandler is around as depth. He's not favored by Klinsmann, but Eric Lichaj wouldn't be a disaster in a pinch, either. This is not an area of major concern at the moment.
CB
Brooks and Cameron look like a strong partnership for the rest of the cycle. I like Besler as depth, especially if he can fill in at LB in an emergency. I'm not sold on Birnbaum as actually being one of our best four CBs, but whatever. Omar Gonzalez is going strong in Mexico. Matt Miazga could enter the picture, too. We're okay here.
LB
Fabian Johnson is our only regular starter on a Champions League club. He didn't have the impact you would hope to see from a player of that status and that's because he's been forced to fill in at LB, which is not his best position. I'd really like to find a way to get him back into the midfield, but in order to do that we need to find an acceptable solution at LB.
With that in mind, I think it's time to give Jorge Villafaña an extended shot. He came into his own in Portland and was sold to Santos Laguna last winter, where he promptly displaced Adrian Aldrete, a 28 year old with 19 caps for Mexico. Villafaña is not a guaranteed thing (how many players doing well in Mexico have disappointed for the US?), but he has a strong enough case and we have a strong enough need that this experiment needs to happen.
DM
Bradley needs to step it up because we have no obvious replacements. There are a lot of decent CMs who have developed into box-to-box types with a different skillset from what Beckerman brought to the table - I'm talking about Danny Williams and Alfredo Morales here. Same with a young player like Kellyn Acosta.
Perry Kitchen is a highly unproven option, but stylistically he fits the bill. He wasn't able to get off the bench in Copa America, but Klinsmann was generally hesitant to use inexperienced international players, so it's hard to tell where he stands.
I've long thought that Dax McCarty would be worthy of a look. He's getting older (29) but I think is worth experimenting to see if he can be a short-term bridge until the next DM emerges.
CM
Jermaine Jones is still going strong, somehow. Darlington Nagbe hasn't gotten much of a chance yet and there are others who could be tried here too, when the time comes - the aforementioned Williams and Morales. Youngsters like Acosta and Hyndman. Transitioning from a force of nature like Jones to a normal human being might be a little bumpy because there are so many things that Jones does (and some that he doesn't), but we have many options and long-term I think we'll adjust.
AM
We need to develop more depth so we can beyond worker bee types like Graham Zusi who aren't all that effective going forward. A guy like Zusi still has some use as a late-game defensive sub, but he shouldn't be starting games and ideally, we should be able to push him off the roster.
I'd love to see Fabian Johnson back in the mix here. Otherwise, we have Bedoya who can be underappreciated as a "glue guy" and who has a tremendous workrate. Bedoya does a lot of dirty work that helps in possession and in defense, but isn't much of a north-south player, so sometimes you need more aggressive options.
Everyone obviously has a close eye on Pulisic, who looks like a contributor but not a starter just yet. Zardes started to win me over as the tournament went on. He's just....surprisingly good for a bad player, if you know what I mean. His workrate and industriousness make up for some sins and even though he makes you cover your eyes sometimes, he's weirdly effective. Being a legitimate option at RM and FW means that he's going to be on a lot of US rosters, especially because he doesn't seem to get hurt much.
Vancouver's Kekuta Manneh is
scheduled to get US citizenship in a few months and will be a wing option when he does so. He can super frustrating, but his speed (which is on par with Yedlin's) can really stretch defenses:
The defender he burned, Joshua Yaro, is not a slow player.
NYRB's Mike Grella plays with a certain combination of grittiness and panache that reminds me of Clint Dempsey. He's not as good as Dempsey or even the same type of player, but it makes me feel like he could translate to the next level. It's just too bad he pissed away most his career before taking it seriously.
In the longer-shot department, Joe Gyau is finally healthy again and we'll have to see what, if anything, the injury took away from him. Julian Green needs a move away from Bayern to take the next step.
FW
Wood and Dempsey are my starters. Altidore will perhaps look more appealing to people as an option off the bench rather than a lock starter. After that, we have more question marks. Aron Johannsson is a natural fit for the secondary striker role that Dempsey played in the Copa, but it remains to be seen how badly he's been thrown off by his hip injury.
For now, Jordan Morris should be a good speed option off the bench who can scare tired defenses. Seattle's roster right now is a discombobulated mess of mismatched pieces, but he's done alright. He'll need to improve a bit more to be more than a sub for the US.
Some others -- Rubio Rubin is healthy again and is possibly versatile enough to be a SS or wide attacker, but needs to earn his way in at Utrecht. Klinsmann likes Fafà Picault at St. Pauli, who finished last year strong. Dom Dwyer at SKC will be eligible for US citizenship in 2017.