Stock rising: Sporting Kansas City’sTeal Bunbury

We all know the U.S. national team has a problem. A couple of them, in fact.

The real head-scratcher is at striker, which is why the U.S. scoring over the last five games (just three goals) hasn’t been this meager since 1998. And we all know that 1998 around the U.S. national team was about as much fun as a cold sore.

Jozy Altidore just isn’t confident currently. It’s not just that he isn’t scoring. He’s not even doing the little things that made him slightly more useful last year in South Africa – pinging around, making trouble for defenders, applying some pressure that might lead to a mistake, etc. His slump demonstrates once again how critical it is for young Americans to identify the best possible club situations for themselves. Altidore hasn’t played regularly since 2008. Consider that for a moment and you realize: it really isn’t that surprising that he hasn’t significantly improved in the three years since he left the New York Red Bulls.

Juan Agudelo certainly is promising, having manufactured an impact in his first three U.S. appearances. He looked slightly more ordinary as a starter last week, but that’s no huge surprise either. The young man is just 18. And as one U.S. Soccer staffer once asked me rhetorically: “How many good national teams around the world rely on strikers who aren’t even 20 years old yet?”

Yes, it happens. But, no, it doesn’t happen often. Agudelo isn’t the answer just yet.

I talk a little more about all this on a piece at SI.com, about what we’ve learned from the last two U.S. matches. But allow me to introduce another element to the conversation, something that I didn’t write about it the SI.com piece (because it’s about something that happened over the weekend): the element in question is Teal Bunbury.

Bunbury and his place in all this is topical because of events over the weekend in Vancouver. The expansion Whitecaps rallied for three goals, including two in stoppage time, to manufacture a memorable 3-3 draw with Sporting Kansas City. It truly was intoxicating to watch it all unfold.

But here’s what we’d all be talking about if Vancouver had not rallied so heroically: We’d be going on and on about Bunbury’s pair of well-worked goals.

You can see all the game’s goals here: Bunbury’s first effort was a real striker’s special, a little something from not much at all. A tidy little turn seems benign enough, as two Vancouver defenders are there to close the space, about 20 yards from goal, not at a particularly threatening angle. But from nowhere, Bunbury lifts his right leg and curls a shot into the far corner. It’s the kind bold improvisation, borne of confidence and audacity, that’s missing from Altidore’s game at the moment.

Bunbury’s second strike is even sweeter. He gets the ball off a clever, well-timed little run. He then completely flummoxes Whitecaps’ defender Greg Janicki, opening up room to easily beat the Vancouver ‘keeper from close range.

Remember, too, this is six weeks after Bunbury lie in agony on Phoenix, Ariz., field after painfully dislocating his elbow. I was there that day, listening to his agonizing groans as the preseason game moved to an adjacent field while an ambulance pulled up to carefully ferry him to a nearby hospital.

I remember thinking this is bad for Kansas City and a real setback for Bunbury’s national team aspirations. I had talked to him just a day earlier, joking around with him about this and that, asking about his father (a former professional player) and how often dad got to see him play. Bunbury struck me as a quality young man, and I hated to see him go through this.

(By the way, he's 6-2 and looks like one of the NFL free safeties I've stood next to in former days as a newspaper man.)

But here we are just six weeks later. Bunbury and Charlie Davies lead the league with three goals each. (Two of Davies’ strikes are off penalty kicks.) A few more goals for Bunbury, assuming good health, and I won’t be a bit surprised to see him called into camp in late May as the United States begins prepping for the Gold Cup.

Bunbury has two appearances, both off the bench, for Bob Bradley's national team. He debuted last November against South Africa, then hit his first international goal from the penalty spot in January against Chile. Along with Agudelo, he really helped pep up the attack that night in Carson against the South Americans.