Skinny Diamonds

I finished watching the United States' 5-0 drubbing of Norway last night. On the one hand, good for Taylor Twellman. On the other, we won't see a defense give him that much space in Germany. Through my Fire-colored glasses, I'd say that Nate Jaqua pulled a defender with him that freed Twellman up for the capper of his hat trick, but on the other two, he simply split the difference between the Norwegian backs and none of them moved to close him down.

Nonetheless, the New England striker now has a leg up in the forward pool for the World Cup. Coming into this series of friendlies, the default striker corps was generally seen as Brian McBride, Eddie Johnson, Josh Wolff and Taylor Twellman, roughly in that order. As I mentioned the last time I talked about this, though, Johnson hs struggled with injuries, Wolff is a few years slower and often injured and Twellman previously had trouble scoring with the national team.

So of the non-McBride forwards, we can now say that if the World Cup started tomorrow, Twellman would be in. Wolff and Johnson still have to prove they're worthy, and both Jaqua and Chris Rolfe of the Fire are nipping at their heels. Brian Ching, not so much. And Conor who?

Overall, though, the thing I liked most about the match was how well the U.S. executed the "skinny diamond" formation, where outside midfielders Pat Noonan and Clint Dempsey were pinched in, allowing Frankie Hejduk and Todd Dunivant to push up and sometimes overlap out of the back. This was wreaking so much havoc on the right side in the first half, you almost wished Ty Keogh was there to say so. What's encouraging is that as much as Arena is trying players out for his system, he seems to be modifying that system to enable players to do what they're capable of, and I'm not sure that was the case lining up a 3-4-3 against Canada last week.

Speaking of missing Ty Keogh, though, ESPN brought in some guy named Dave O'Brien that I had never heard of before, and while he had the quintessential sports announcer voice, he didn't impress me at all. Particularly in the first half when he insisted on calling Josh Wolff "Jason" for some reason. 'Celo Balboa was not much better, and the two of them seemed almost unbelievably unprepared, relying very heavily on a couple of painfully obvious observations about wanting to punch a ticket for Germany and how great the weather was.

Again, with the Fire-colored glasses, but isn't it worth noting that Jaqua was earning his first cap? They mentioned that McBride is the only sure thing, but didn't follow it very well with the notion that this would leave at least three spots open, so saying Twellman is "on the bubble" is almost misleading. And how about speaking to the depth at certain positions, particularly how a guy like Noonan has almost no chance if he's going to be a left-sided midfielder?

It was one of those games where the announcing annoyed me particularly because I am absolutely certain that I could do a better job of it and be more insightful without being too "inside" or jargon-y. Fortunately, I may have an opportunity tonight to see where I stand on that particular path.