"Act like you've been there before"

That's what my Dad always told me on the rare off-chance that I actually succeeded at something on the field of play. My entire soccer career from "the Lazers" through Creeping Death United, I only scored one goal. It was celebrated with a single fist pump and a congratulations of my fellow "Orange Crush" teammates in the Willowbrook Park District U-13 league. Act like you've been there before, sez the man who controlled my meager allowance. Had I known that would be the only goal I would score in at least the next ten years, I probably would have lived it up a little more, making a total ass of myself in the process.

Besides, acting like you've been there before is never fun. As such, on this blog, we've noticed we sometimes sputter in our predictions. Despite all our collective sports expertise, sometimes the games just don't play out the way we think they will, or the way we think they should. But this is one time where I was dead on, and I don't mind crowing about it, because it may be another decade before I nail a prediction this well. I'm celebrating like I've never been here before, and like I never will. [pop open champagne bottle]

Back in February, with US soccer fans bitching and moaning about the US staking the CONCACAF Gold Cup as its priority tournament this summer, instead of the glitzier Copa America, where the US would get a chance to slug it out with world heavyweights Argentina and Brazil, I dove inside US Coach Bob Bradley's head and figured it all out. And I couldn't have been more correct [cartwheels]. Say what you will about soccer and its relative importance in the US sports landscape, but as far as this blog goes, we didn't really have the best of success with our "Lock of the Week" in football season so we should take anything we can get.

Back in February I posited that Bradley would send his cream-of-the-crop team to the Gold Cup to earn a berth in the FIFA Confederations Cup 2009, a sort of BCS-style dry-run the year before the World Cup in the same stadiums. I then said the States would send a younger, B-team to Copa America that would then be coming into its prime in three years for the 2010 World Cup, during which time they'd have already played on the world stage. [shooting off fireworks]

Wouldn't you know? Team USA won the Gold Cup, defeating Mexico 2-1 in front of a pro-Mexican crowd at Soldier Field Sunday. [Firing six-shooters into the air]
Then, Coach Bradley released a Copa America roster with 16 players with 10 or fewer caps (appearances for the National team), but who look to make up the bulk of the 2010 World Cup team. While we may not know for sure how this will all shake out for three years, I think I've got a decent idea, and that's more than assholes like Jamie Trecker had.

So I hate to say "I told you so," but I kinda did, and on this blog, that comes not nearly as often as we'd like.

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Bob Bradley (like everyone) is smarter than Jamie Trecker

Several news outlets including the Joe Morgan to my Vinnie, Jamie Trecker at Fox Sports, apparently have some beef with Team USA's priorities.

With new USA coach Bob Bradley 2-0 and still with his interim tag attached, questions are abounding about this relatively unique upcoming summer in US Soccer. The Gold Cup, the regional championship of North America ends just a few days before Copa America, the regional championship tournament of South America, where the Yanks are invited guests along with Mexico.

There is a belief out there that the United States Soccer Federation is misguided in fielding two teams for the two tournaments (because clubs will be reluctant to release their players for so long), and that the US is wasting a chance to earn some serious respect in the international soccer community by sending its B team to Venezuela this summer to take on first round opponents Argentina, Paraguay, and Columbia, while its A team stays home to try and hoist the oversized Gold Cup at Soldier Field on June 23 (DAMN MY COUSIN FOR SCHEDULING HER WEDDING THAT SAME WEEKEND!!!!) The Americans are the favorites to win the 2007 Gold Cup and are also defending champions.

Isn't the point of being in Copa America to try and earn some respect by playing in front of an international crowd and get some experience in front of hostile crowds? Why not send the best team you can to Venezuela and try to win the tournament? Claim a scalp against Argentina, or maybe a second-round draw with Brazil? That would go a long way towards regaining the reputation the Stars and Stripes lost at the last World Cup.

True, but frankly, only to me and other people who visit soccer message boards. You can have all the respect in the world (cough, Spain, cough) and it still won't get you results at the World Cup.

Bob Bradley isn't stupid. He knows soccer is still a niche sport in the United States and that by and large, the success of the sport is hinged to the success of the National team, and the casual sports fan only tunes in once every four years in June for the World Cup Finals.

Bob Bradley's plan here is almost absurdly brilliant. Bring your A-team to the Gold Cup , win the North American championship, and earn yourself a place in the Confederations Cup, a tournament held the year before the World Cup in the same country, featuring the 6 continental confederation winners, the World Cup Champion, and the host nation. Send your B-team, full of young, untested prospects to Copa America and see if you can't claim a scalp or two while you're down there.

The team in their prime runs through a weak Gold Cup field (Guadeloupe? Cuba? Honduras? Canada?) and gets USA to the 2009 Confederations Cup, potentially getting matches with World Cup sides Italy, France, possibly Brazil again , and a hungry South Africa team in the same stadiums as will play host to the World Cup the next summer. By that time, the 2007 Gold Cup Champions will be too old to warrant serious consideration for the World Cup squad, but the 2007 Copa America team will be coming into their prime, having already experienced hostile crowds and high-pressure situations in Venezuela two years earlier. Even if let's say on the far outside fringe shot that the United States knocks off Brazil and Argentina to win Copa America, that still won't get them to the Confederations Cup in 2009 because as a North American team they can't represent South America in that tournament.

When the team arrives in South Africa the next summer, most of them will have already been there the year before, and that added familiarity can't possibly hurt on the world's biggest stage, the only international stage that Americans really pay attention to, and in a non-European World Cup, where history has shown that European teams traditionally underperform in, opening the door for US overachievement like in South Korea in 2002.

Bob Bradley's not stupid. He knows his job security depends on World Cup success, and he's aiming for it by serving youth in South America this July.

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