Right. Lots of Interlull action today in the way of WCQ games. The biggest of which for us ‘Mericans is tonights romp with Costa Rica. Most of us will catch the match on ESPN at 7pm PST (I myself will have to probably record it as my Wifey’s mum is in town and we are hitting up happy hour and possibly a movie). Have no fear, I will have post match analysis once I get back from the movies after watching it.

There has been a lot of hub bub made regarding Jurgen’s line up moves, no cohesiveness, dropping Bocanegra, etc. etc. While I agree we can’t, or shouldn’t, F up our WCQ chances I tend to agree that the USMNT needs to take that next step and often that can end up meaning we have to take a step back first. Our national team, and quite frankly our players, need to step it up to the next level in order to compete on the world stage regularly. I realize that tactical prowess from our head coach is a big part of proper preparation and adjusting at half time but at some point the talent just needs to step up and play. Now, perhaps ol’ Jurgs is really casting out a bad lot when throwing players out there with what seems to be no logical reason but I tend to give coaches a long leash when it comes to coaching and installing their system before I just say “one more loss and he should go”.

Another possible issue that no one seems to be talking about is that perhaps we just aren’t that good. I know I know, hard to fathom but do we really think that running out a team that consists of mostly mid level season players is going to compete with the top level players on France, Spain, England and the like? I mean, come on, if Santi Carzola barely gets sniffed for his national side and he is a starter in a top 5 club in the BPL doesn’t that say something about the general quality of the US product at this point? Hell, the MLS is still in its infancy, they are barely rolling out feeder academy’s and still relying on the college system to be their main source of player income. So long as that stays in effect the US just isn’t going to compete on the world level. Sorry.

On a completely unrelated note, there are some games I am very interested in watching today that I believe are on ESPN 2 or 3: England v. San Marino; Spain v. Finland; France v. Georgia (not the state but good lord that would be a fun watch). Crazily enough, Israel tied Portugal (PORTUGAL!) today 3-3 in what had to have been a crazy experience at Tel Aviv. If not for a stoppage time goal by Fabio Coentrao this might have been one of Israel’s biggest wins of all time (Old Testament victories aside).

Ok, well that’s enough here.