Klinsmann Assembles His First U.S. Roster For The Mexico Match Next Week

We are less than a week away (August 10) from Juergen Klinsmann's head coaching debut with the U.S. men's soccer team next Wednesday in Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field against Mexico.

Today, Klinsmann named his 22-man roster for the friendly between the two blood rivals.

The most notable names that were left off were Jozy Altidore (who's still recovering from his hamstring injury from the Gold Cup) and Clint Dempsey (who's playing with Fulham in Europe and getting ready for another EPL season). Also, Alejandro Bedoya was curiously left off. Maybe they're just letting him get his feet under him with his new club, Rangers (Scotland).

“One of the goals of the roster for this game and moving forward is to create competition at each position,” said Klinsmann. “There are many players who are established as well as many players who will get opportunities, and we want there to be a healthy contest for spots on the roster. We will get a good look at where each player is as quickly as we can during the short time in camp, and we will finish with an exciting game against Mexico.”

The roster delivers a combination of experience and youth at virtually every position. In goal, Tim Howard enters with 65 caps to his credit and is joined by 20-year-old Bill Hamid, a U.S. Soccer Development Academy product who was the first D.C. United Academy player to sign with the first team. Two-time World Cup veteran Carlos Bocanegra is just seven games shy of reaching 100 caps. He will patrol the center of the park along with 2010 FIFA World Cup teammate Clarence Goodson, the newly named captain of Brondby in Denmark, and two young players in Tim Ream and Michael Orozco Fiscal. Hannover 96 captain Steve Cherundolo returns after an injury forced him out of the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup final, while fellow Bundesliga-based right back Timmy Chandler is making his second appearance in a national team camp after debuting against Argentina in March. Chivas USA defender Heath Pearce and Edgar Castillo make up the options for the left side of the backline.

Central midfield is packed with experience, including four players from the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Michael Bradley has nine goals in 59 appearances for the full team, with eight of his goals coming in official competitions. Maurice Edu comes from three-time defending Scottish Premier League champion Rangers, and Ricardo Clark and Jose Torres make their first appearance in the squad since the World Cup in South Africa. Jermaine Jones has reached double digits in caps for the U.S. after competing in his first official competition earlier this summer, and has rejoined Schalke 04 after a loan spell with Blackburn Rovers. Real Salt Lake contributes captain Kyle Beckerman and FC Dallas sends Brek Shea, who is currently in third place in scoring in MLS this season behind Landon Donovan and Thierry Henry as the 21-year-old has netted nine goals in 22 games.

The USA’s all-time leading scorer, Donovan leads the attacking corps with 46 goals in 146 international appearances. Donovan is the only player on the roster who has experience with the new coach, having played for Klinsmann in 2009 at Bayern Munich during a loan spell. Both Freddy Adu and 18-year-old Juan Agudelo are coming off significant contributions in the 2011 Gold Cup, Adu having started in the final against Mexico while Agudelo appeared in five of six matches. DaMarcus Beasley returns to the squad with 93 caps to his credit that include stints in the last three World Cups, and Edson Buddle travels from FC Ingolstadt after his great run of form in 2010 led to a spot in the team in South Africa.

A total of nine professional leagues in eight different countries are represented on the roster. MLS contributes seven players, while German-based players number six total from the top two divisions and the Mexico first division sends four. New York Bulls contribute two players to the roster, the most from any single club.

U.S. ROSTER BY POSITION - Detailed Roster
GOALKEEPERS (2): Bill Hamid (D.C.United), Tim Howard (Everton)
DEFENDERS (8): Carlos Bocanegra (Saint-Etienne), Edgar Castillo (Club America), Timmy Chandler (FC Nürnberg), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Clarence Goodson (Brondby), Michael Orozco Fiscal (San Luis), Heath Pearce (Chivas USA), Tim Ream (New York Red Bulls)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Kyle Beckerman (Real Salt Lake), Michael Bradley (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Ricardo Clark (Eintracht Frankfurt), Maurice Edu (Rangers), Jermaine Jones (Schalke 04), Brek Shea (FC Dallas), José Torres (Pachuca)
FORWARDS (5): Freddy Adu (Benfica), Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls), DaMarcus Beasley (Puebla), Edson Buddle (FC Ingolstadt), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy)

I'm interested to see what Hamid, Castillo and Fiscal do (assuming they play) since I've never seen them before. Chandler definitely deserved a spot, hopefully he can build off his promising debut with the U.S. I can't get too excited about any other young guys that play in the MLS since my thinking is that if they were any good, they would already be out of the U.S by now.

It's nice to see Clark back in the fold, no idea why he fell out of favor with Bob Bradley after a nice World Cup 2010 performance. Ditto for Jose Torres. Finally, DaMarcus Beasley is back on the map after being MIA for the last few years (for the most part). Good luck trying to figure out who should start up front beside Donovan, I say it should be Freddy Adu.

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Smell Ya Later Bob Bradley, Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

You know how you wake up some days and you have no idea that it will be a great day? Then other times, days you look forward to for weeks fail to meet lofty expectations.

I've stumbled onto one of the former cases today as I found out on Twitter this afternoon-while I watched the Red Sox game-that U.S. men's soccer had fired head coach Bob Bradley.

Being currently unemployed, I can't gloat too much about Bradley's departure even though Shimer and I (along with most knowledgeable fans) have been clamoring for it for a while now. It has felt like the team needed a change since they got bounced by Ghana last summer in the 2010 World Cup, played listlessly in friendlies and most recently, lost to Mexico 4-2 in the Gold Cup Final (after leading 2-0).

It seemed like Bradley's time in charge had run its course and rather than getting better the team was at best spinning its wheels and at worst, falling behind the form they had been showing they were capable of the last few years.

As boring as he is (I can tell you first-hand, I've sat through a couple of his press conferences), my bigger gripe with Bradley is that he lacked any imagination or creativity in terms of picking a roster, filling out a lineup and making in-game substitutions. Bigger picture, U.S. soccer needs to bring in a European (cough Juergen Klinsmann) that can help rebuild our cultural identity from the youth program up to the national team.

Yes, it's a lot to ask of one guy but the U.S. has a chance to hit a home run here if they hire the right person. The U.S. men are good but they will never make a jump to great and one of the top teams in the world without some drastic changes. That might sound crazy but think about it; with the right program, who's to say how good the U.S. could be in a few World Cup cycles.

In his 4.5 years (Jan. 2007) on the job, highlights of Bradley's regime included winning the 2007 Gold Cup, beating Spain in the 2009 Confederations Cup then losing to Brazil in the final 3-2 and winning their group in last summer's World Cup. On paper, his resume looks pretty damn good. Especially when you consider that he had the second-most wins as a U.S. head coach.

However, this was long overdue. Goodbye Bob, thanks for your hard work and best of luck in your future endeavors.

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Would you like a swift kick to the nuts?

Finding out after the fact is never good in anything. So as much as I'd like to ignore it, it's too big of a story to simply bury my head in the sand when I found out how close the U.S. men's soccer team was to hiring Juergen Klinsmann.

I was beside myself reading the German legends comments so I can only imagine Shimer's (hopefully he'll weigh in soon as well).

Juergen Klinsmann said he negotiated with the U.S. Soccer Federation for nearly a month to become coach before ending talks when the USSF wouldn't put his authority in writing.

The USSF rehired Bob Bradley for a second four-year stint after ending talks with Klinsmann, who coached Germany to a third-place finish in the 2006 World Cup.

"We had conversations, maybe about three or four weeks period of time, and very positive conversations. But we didn't get it to a positive ending because we couldn't put into writing what we agreed to verbally," Klinsmann said during an interview broadcast Sunday on the Kansas City Wizards' pregame show.

"It's obviously always about authority. When you have conversations with a club team or a national team, it's who has the last word in what issues, and that's where we couldn't get into the written terms," Klinsmann said.

"Verbally we agreed on that the technical side is my side, and I should have a 100 percent control of it. Written terms, they couldn't commit to it. At that point I said, 'Well then, I can't get the job done because I have to have the last say as a head coach for my entire staff, for all the players issues, for everything that happens with the team.' Unfortunately they couldn't commit to that, and that was basically the end of our talks, and then they agreed then to continue with Bob as the head coach, and that's totally fine."

Klinsmann also held talks with USSF president Sunil Gulati in 2006 but ended them when he wasn't guaranteed access to top Major League Soccer players for both the CONCACAF Gold Cup and Copa America the following year.

In announcing the decision to rehire Bradley last month, Gulati wouldn't discuss whether he spoke with other candidates.

We like Bob Bradley and we support him but as we've said multiple times, he's the safe choice. He's a taskmaster and he's done a fine job since he took over. Still, what is his ceiling? Does anyone else feel like we've gone as far as we can with Bradley so we might as well look for someone that can take us to another level?

There are so many questions that will be left unsaid but I guess after digesting this garbage, it's best to move on. However, this one will stick in the back of my mind for a long, long time. Particularly when I watch Bradley do anything but win every game 5-0 from here on out.