After some administrative tangles, U.S. Soccer released its Gold Cup roster today. If you breathe the Twitter air, you already know all about it. So, here’s a little just-add-water analysis. The Ramen Noodle of roster breakdowns, I suppose.
Gold Cup roster analysis: Talking Adu, Rogers, Wondolowski and more
In a piece I wrote about for SI.com about 10 days ago where I predicted the Gold Cup roster. I didn’t exactly nail it, but wasn’t too far off. I only missed on three -- Freddy Adu, Chris Wondolowski and Robbie Rogers are in rather than Timmy Chandler, Alejandro Bedoya and Teal Bunbury. (I was predicting whom Bradley would select; in another part, I made the selections that I would prefer.)
As for Monday's roster release, I’d say that Adu and Rogers caught the most folks off guard. Honestly, I was never a fan of Bedoya, but I thought Bradley would want a little more speed on the outside. He did. He just didn’t want Bedoya’s speed. So, Rogers it is.
Rogers is the real head scratcher for me. And for anybody who has seen the Columbus Crew man continue to underwhelm in league play. Heck, you get the feeling that Columbus doesn't even value him that much. To me it simply demonstrates how desperately Bradley needs a little bit of speed on the outside. Past Landon Donovan, there just isn't much on the roster. Rogers as a soccer player … well, that one continues to be up for debate. But Rogers as a track star, he's always been able to check the box on that one.
Personally, I was pretty surprised at Chris Wondolowski’s selection. He has been scoring and creating chances for San Jose, so that part makes sense. But in all honesty, I almost got the feeling that Bob Bradley took Wondolowski to the January U.S. national team camp almost grudgingly. Somehow, I just always got the feeling that Bradley valued Bunbury’s abilities over Wondolowski’s. And in these roster selections, form certainly matters, but in my opinion form has never mattered as much as Bradley’s personal feelings on what certain individuals can contribute. I mean, if form was everything, Juan Agudelo wouldn’t be on the roster, would he? Because he’s just not playing that much with New York.
I also wonder if Bradley looked at the Gold Cup schedule and a very important part of Kansas City's season coming up, when Sporting KC finally gets into that new stadium – and attempt to salvage the season before it’s too late. Bradley may have looked at the two schedules and understood that these elements were in conflict. I don't know that Bradley would make something like that a major determining factor, but it certainly may have been a tiebreaker if he was torn on Wondo and Bunbury.
Plus, Bradley mentioned that Bunbury just hasn’t looked 100 percent sharp lately. A lot of that is down to Kansas City, which is struggling with the 10-game road odyssey to begin the season. Who wouldn’t struggle with something like that? Bunbury is like everyone else on that team right now … a little lost, probably always wondering what city he’s in.
I know a bunch of supporters aren’t overly excited about Jonathan Bornstein’s selection – to say the least. Bradley mentioned that Eric Lichaj is another option at left back, along with Carlos Bocanegra and Jonathan Spector. All proving once again that left back continues to be somewhere between a wasteland and a big ol' crapshoot in the national team scene.
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