United States Men’s National Team’s Developing Storylines

By Ben Triana
at Internationaled.org

Published: November 4, 2010

Since the October friendlies are over and the players have returned to their club teams, it's a quiet time for the U.S. Men's National Team.

Which is why it's a good time to be a fan, as all one can do is speculate and deliberate.

So what follows are a couple of storylines that may or may not take center stage as the next friendly approaches against South Africa, on their turf, on November 17th.

The Midfield Question

Jermaine Jones' emergence as a viable center midfielder adds even more intrigue to an already crowded midfield player pool.

The only problem is the similarity with so many of the players, and it couldn't have been more evident than during the Colombia friendly.

Maurice Edu, Michael Bradley, and Jermaine Jones all stood next to each other, all reluctant to push forward, all wanting to be the first pass from the defense to the offensive line.

Edu and Bradley already struggle to avoid each other's role in the midfield, but now that Jones has been added to the mix, it's become overkill.

And even when one of the three ventured forward, he inevitably ran into a centrally drifting Stuart Holden, or later in the game, a in-cutting Clint Dempsey and Benny Feilhaber.

Considering Landon Donovan's ability to run inside as well, whoever ends up playing in the midfield will have to make a conscious effort to recognize spacing and width (something they should be doing anyway).

But seeing that the team struggled with these concepts in the Columbia friendly, and that the player pool has few true outside midfielders challenging for a starting position, how the team handles its recent penchant for overplaying in the middle of the pitch will be a continuing concern.

Still, Jones added a new dimension to this team. His ability to drop a long ball onto the foot of another player demonstrated the level of skill necessary to...

Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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