Please Bob Bradley let's learn from these mistakes

I'd like to start out by saying Rich hit the nail on the head on just about every point I was going to make from the two U.S. friendlies over the last week.

Jermaine Jones introduction to the MNT was easily the highlight over the course of one thrilling draw and one of the more boring 0-0 games you could watch. I wish Jones was the playmaker that he showed on the brilliant lefty chip pass to Jozy Altidore, but the truth of the matter is Jones is another in the long line of fantastic U.S. defensive center mids -- a point I will touch on in my next post. Jones plays for Schalke, a perennial top-10 team in the Bundesliga (although they are not doing too well right now), and he is known for his toughness and bone-crunching tackles. There was plenty of evidence of that in the two games for the U.S. including the challenge he made just before he assisted Altidore.

What I love about Jones is the fact that he starts for a team like Schalke, plays big minutes, and is one of their best players. The U.S. needs more players that start on teams in the Big 4 of Europe -- La Liga, Italian Serie A, the English Premier League, and the Bundesliga. If you at the best 4 or 5 players from the U.S. in the World Cup they all started or played bigger clubs in those leagues -- Landon Donovan for Everton before returning to MLS, Steve Cherundolo for Hanover 96 in the Bundesliga, Tim Howard for Everton, Clint Dempsey for Fulham, Michael Bradley for Borussia Monchengladbach.

Stuart Holden absolutely showed that he is the future of this team when guys like Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan will be in their 30s come the next World Cup, Holden will be perhaps the biggest creative influence on the field for the U.S.

Jozy Alitdore continues to disappoint me. He finally, finally scored for the U.S., but he bungled a host of other easy opportunities against Poland and really for my money should have scored a hat trick no problem. In the game vs. Columbia I will mostly blame the formation Bob Bradley instituted -- a terrible 4-3-3 -- and the awful service he got from what I saw in the first half. I'll admit I turned off the game before the end of the first half because the game was so dull, but the U.S. were trying to playing long balls for the majority of the first half into Jozy and count on him to hold the ball up for a couple of seconds against 2 and 3 defenders - shockingly it didn't work.

I think the 4-2-3-1 could be a formation the U.S. look to go to in the future, however, let hope we don't see any semblance of the 4-3-3 in terms of formation or the players that were slotted into those positions for quite some time. The MNT looked good attacking wise against Poland, with the exception of about a 20 minute period in the first half where the Poles dominated and scored. I think the players in the U.S. pool right now fit the parts necessary to play a 4-2-3-1, the question is where will the defenders come from, but that formation could give the U.S. more cover on defense.

The 4-3-3 on the other hand looked terrible, as was talked about in this ESPN article, that experiment looked terrible. The U.S. failed to sustain any sort of regular attack and Columbia was not exactly a world-class opponent. Brek Shea looked over-matched and nervous. And the thing that I really did not like about that game was that Bradley tried to force three players that are essentially the same player in the 3 in the midfield - Jones at left mid, Maurice Edu at center mid, and Michael Bradley at right mid. Ultimately that team became too defensive and slipped into more of a 4-5-1 where Altidore was left alone without enough support much of the time.

Onyewu and the center of the defense looked shaky at best, terrible at worst again. Guch has to find a club in Europe where he can play, a point a whole-heartedly agreed with the announcers on. It's nice that Guch offered to play a year for free at AC Milan after he tore his Patella Tendon and had to miss essentially all of last season, BUT, and I emphasize BUT, HE HAS TO PLAY! He hasn't touched the pitch in a game this season and there's no reason to believe he will any time soon.

AND (sorry for the caps, but I need to hit these points home) Maurice Edu cannot play center defense. Edu tried the role in the U.S. friendly with the Czech Republic that Rich and I attended and he was absolutely exposed. Against Poland, Edu was better but not by much. He still looked lost back there and it's not surprising -- he doesn't play that position at all during the year, he plays defensive center mid for Rangers and that's where he looked very good for the U.S. during the World Cup.

Lastly I haven't touched on it at all but I was vastly dismayed and perturbed that again the U.S. Federation again failed to get the coach that would bring them to the next level -- Jurgen Klinsmann. Bradley has done a nice job for the U.S. to fill the void since Bruce Arena was let go, but traditionally coaches aren't given more than one term because they get stale and are seen as lame duck pushovers as Rich eluded to before.

See Arena, his tactics were fresh and vibrant going into the 2002 World Cup, but at a time when the U.S. was seemingly on the verge of a breakthrough in 2006 despite being slotted in the group of death with Italy, the Czech Republic, and Ghana, Arena's folded electing to play far too conservatively against teams he could ill afford to concede any ground. As a result the U.S. collapsed under the pressure.

I worry after another terrific WC performance -- which realistically should have been better -- that the U.S. could take another step back in 2014 when players like Dempsey, Howard, and Donovan will be the old guard, each into their 30s as a I previously mentioned, an age when soccer players are considered over the hill.