Don't Be Scared Anymore

Now that the Confederations Cup is over, there's a lot to glean from the surprising second-place finish by the United States. Fans and pundits everywhere are recalibrating their snap judgment that this team was over after two early losses, and what I think we're going to see is that we can play with the big boys.

Sometimes.

There's be a lot of complaining about consistency for the U.S. team lately, and there's some truth to that criticism, but it's still being overblown. I think I'm going to differ with the conventional wisdom here, because I only really see two poor games from the United States in this last stretch, and those were in Costa Rica and in the first round against Brazil. Slow starts against El Salvador and Honduras weren't ideal, but the team got the result in the end. And you could count the early red card against Italy as part of a bigger picture of poor play, but then I thought the effort being down a man to the defending World Cup champions for so long outweighed that, despite the outcome of the match.

So, what you've really got, in terms of the consistency question, is one stinker every four or five matches. One of those was in Costa Rica, which is tough to prepare for, and the other was a result of playing scared against a major power, which we may have rectified with those last two matches of the Confederations Cup.

The optimistic view, though, is that we can compete with the big boys three times out of four even if we don't get the result. Those with a different view of the Italy match will say two times out of four, and those who are fans of Egypt will say either three or four out of five. But that's a more reasonable area to disagree than the knee-jerk bullshit that's mostly been proffered over the last six or seven weeks about Freddy Adu's lack of playing time.

Ultimately, I think the most important thing that comes out of this tournament is that, as I alluded to above, we don't need to be afraid of teams like Brazil, Spain and Italy. Which isn't to say we're going to beat those teams consistently, but we can give them a run for their money. While we're not at the head of the table, we clearly get a seat. Since the last big character-building loss -- the quarterfinal against Germany in Korea in 2002 -- the U.S. seems to have forgotten that. Hopefully the timing of this lesson is right to carry us back to South Africa next summer.

So, that's the big lesson. There are a bunch of other smaller lessons, too.

• Charlie Davies has moved way up the depth chart at forward. I've been going back and forth with a friend on what happens when Brian Ching returns, and my sense is that Jozy Altidore's spot is more vulnerable. To that end, we'll see how Ching and Davies play together in the Gold Cup.
• Brian Ching isn't the only player who will have a tough time winning back his starting spot in the lineup. Jonathan Spector did a fantastic job at right back, and you can't really begrudge him getting beaten by Kaka in the final. That's going to happen sooner or later. So Steve Cherundolo has his work cut out for him. Ricardo Clark made a strong case for pairing up beside Michael Bradley, but I still think that Maurice Edu will win out in that battle.
• Moving Carlos Bocanegra out to left back, coupled with Spector's effort on the right side, opened up an attacking option that the U.S. hasn't really used much lately, and that's the good diagonal ball out of the middle third of the field. Some of this might rely on who's up top, as Ching probably benefits more from overlapping runs to the corners and crosses in closer to goal, but at the very least, this is another way to mix things up.
• Bocanegra is going to have to make a case for left back, because I don't think Jay DeMerit is going to give up that spot in the middle any time soon. On a related note, I once again have to point out that Oguchi Onyewu played better than I've ever seen him play before. So I will again appeal to his agent to time the end of his contracts to coincide with important periods for the national team.
• Landon Donovan can score from the run of play! Who knew?

Not to cheapen the Gold Cup, but the next real test to see if any of these lessons stick will be against Mexico at Azteca.