Not Entirely Unexpected

I'll admit, I thought the US Men's National Team would be able to steal a point from Costa Rica on Wednesday night, but that was largely out of ignorance of the facts of the history between the two teams. When I made my picks for my weekly prediction league, I didn't know that the US has never won a qualifier away to Costa Rica, nor that the team hadn't scored a goal there in nearly a decade. In the face of those pesky details, I might not have been so optimistic.

Still, I wasn't expecting the USA to struggle quite as much as they did. If I were to reduce the evening to the starkest issues, I would say that the biggest problems were that DaMarcus Beasley was clearly shaking off rust early, and that Pablo Mastroeni was absolute crap. It was a heavy touch from Beasley that turned the ball over in the second minute, but Mastroeni missed a tackle badly to allow Costa Rica room to score the first goal. Then it was Mastro half-assing it again on the play that led to the second goal, although I have no idea why Oguchi Onyewu was pinched up so high when he and Marvell Wynne blew the coverage on the give-and-go that sent Costa Rica through and forced Carlos Bocanegra to leave his mark on the far post to try to help.

Those clearly weren't the only problems. As much as attack-obsessed US fans might have liked the idea of a 4-3-3 formation, the reality was that Costa Rica had way too much space in the midfield. With only three midfielders, that shouldn't come as any kind of surprise, especially when one is playing as poorly as Mastroeni. And those attackers were not able to get many touches on the ball for the greater part of the match. Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, in particular, seemed nearly invisible, and reluctant to track back further to receive the ball as lots of forwards do in that situation. Jozy Altidore was a bit better, but like Beasley, I think it took him the early part of the match to work through the rust.

Were there any silver linings? I actually thought that the insertion of Freddy Adu and Charlie Davies finally sparked the US offense, which looked a lot more dangerous in the final ten minutes of that match. But at that point, Costa Rica may also have been content to sit back and absorb pressure. Beasley and Altidore did get mostly unrusty by the end of the match, which didn't help in San Jose, but will help for the next match.

The insult to injury aspect of this one is that Michael Bradley and Sacha Kljestan -- whose name I spelled right on the first try! -- both picked up yellow cards and will miss Saturday's home match against Honduras in Chicago. With Maurice Edu injured, that means Mastroeni will be "rewarded" for his abysmal effort with another start in a match that the US cannot afford to lose.

I would include John Harkes' color commentary as part of the insult added to injury, but that doesn't even begin to describe how painful he is to listen to during a match. Could someone at ESPN please forgive Eric Wynalda and get him back in the booth?