Snub-nosed Attackers

Everybody and their brother is going to try to stir the pot on the U.S. team that's been selected for the World Cup next month in South Africa. Ives cuts straight to the chase in his insipid end-of-post questions, asking "Which snub was the most surprising?"

My answer? Maybe Brian Ching, but it's not really a snub, it's strategy. Then again, I know Bob Bradley, I like Bob Bradley, and I'm not some insecure, reactionary basement dweller like a lot of folks who still hang out on message boards and think losing a warmup match where you're figuring out the last couple roster spots is some sort of national disaster.

Ultimately, you've got as many as three questions to answer for each player who didn't make the squad. Are they better than the guys who made the team at their position? If they're not better, are they different? And if they're not different, do you need consistent depth at that spot? So, one by one:

Heath Pearce. Had his moments over the last cycle, but at this point, there's really no question he was not our best option at left back. Or second-best option. Quite possibly third-best, either. No issue there.

Chad Marshall. Someone is going to argue that he's better than Clarence Goodson, but at best it's a tossup. Marshall just hasn't looked comfortable with the national team, pretty much ever.

Robbie Rogers Do you really think Robbie Rogers is better than an in-form DaMarcus Beasley? And before you push back on whether or not DMB is, in fact, in form, keep in mind that there may not be anyone else on the planet who knows what Beasley is capable of when he's at his best than Bob Bradley, and I trust Bradley to be able to recognize how fit and/or motivated the midfielder is right now, because he's been at training and you haven't. If you fundamentally don't trust Bob Bradley, then you're not going to be swayed by any arguments anyway, and are probably still mad Freddy Adu isn't on the team.

Alejandro Bedoya To be honest, I'm not sure which side he plays on, but if it's the left, see the Beasley argument. If it's the right, is he better than Stuart Holden? Right now we've got two different wing midfield configurations -- one with Donovan and Dempsey that will likely pinch in and let the fullbacks overlap, and one with Holden and Beasley that will play more wide. So being able to switch between those two alignments is clearly more important than depth at one or the other. Hence, one true "wide" mid on either side. Beasley and Holden won those spots. For the more central outside midfielders, Donovan and Dempsey were always locks.

Sasha Kljestan. This is another player Bradley knows really well, and the question here is if he's better than Torres or Feilhaber. I'm not on the Torres bandwagon, so it could have been a tossup between those two, but it's not something I'm willing to go to the mat arguing over.

Eddie Johnson and Brian Ching. These two have to be taken together, because the issue is the entire forward corps. Altidore was a lock. Findley brings speed that none of the other guys have, and that's almost certainly why he made the cut. Gomez has inventiveness and a nose for goal that this team sometimes lacks. So I don't think it was actually a choice between Ching and Findley. I think it was a three-way race between Ching, Buddle and Johnson, and Buddle won it. We'll hopefully get a sense of why in the final tune-up matches.

It may be that Bradley doesn't value aerial prowess in the run of play as much as he does on, say, set pieces, in which case you've still got plenty of big bodies who are good in the air. Or maybe it forces us to not repeat the tactical struggles of 2006, when too much of our alleged offense was hoofing balls up to Brian McBride and hoping something good happened.

Anyway, the post-Charlie Davis accident situation at forward was unsettled enough that it's hard to call any decision there a "surprise," and certainly not a "snub." The next question is who starts, but even then, there are only two or three spots that may be in play. That's for another time, though.