U.S. player ratings conundrum; my simple solution

KANSAS CITY – My SI.com assignment last night was to generate our expanded player ratings, a meaty chunk of text on each player’s performance rather than the skinnier version we sometimes do.

For the grades themselves, you can go here and see for yourself. The espresso shooter version from the United States’ 1-0 win over tiny Guadeloupe is this: defenders scored highly, the midfielders fairly average and the pair of forwards received two very different grades.

Here’s the thing: assigning a numerical grade was a little tougher than usual.

Typically, I look over my notes for the night, write the text about what each player did, didn’t do, how they performed their role, how their night fit in the bigger picture and how they performed relative to their level of expectation. Generally speaking, I then go back and assign a grade without much internal debate. Once you sort things into context, using the (very) rough formula above, the grade itself comes fairly easily.

Except, last night it didn’t. Read on for more …

The funny thing about last night is that, individually, most players did OK. In terms of doing anything wrong, there were only two players you could identify who stumbled. Clint Dempsey, obviously, had a night to forget. Even then, Dempsey had a great night of getting himself into scoring positions and making things happen on the attack. So, that one was a little tricky.

And in my opinion, Chris Wondolowski was a little too static in his movement. Plus, he didn’t convert near goal, which is always job one for any striker.

From there, individually, there wasn’t a U.S. man who had a stinker. From Tim Howard to Jozy Altidore, all nine starters handled their individual chores adequately at least. And the initial grading reflected as much.

So I filed the piece and then, as always, went back to take one more quick look. Once the pressure of deadline is lifted, sometimes you spot something you might have previously missed.

What I saw and thought was this: These grades are way too high for a team that just gave us a fairly dreary result. Just 1-0? Over Guadeloupe? Man, they don’t even have their own national anthem! (It’s the French anthem, as Guadeloupe is a French department.) So, while the individual grades weren’t wrong, exactly … they were still wrong. Not wrong in a technical sense, perhaps, because individual grading is just that – individual. But considering the unimpressive outcome, they seemed “wrong” like the way your buddy asks out the girl you just broke up with. “Dude! That’s just wrong.”

So I sent a quick note to my editor, asking him to drop specific grades by one number.

It seemed like a reasonable solution, if a bit simple. After all, this all subjective and far, far more art than science.