Everyone plays the 'this should be our starting 11' game

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Everyone plays the 'this should be our starting 11' game

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Here's the best USMNT starting XI heading into final round of World Cup qualifying

https://us.yahoo.com/sports/news/a-look ... 34755.html


Fabian Johnson, Christian Pulisic and Sacha Kljestan should start against Mexico on Nov. 11 (Getty Images)


More than five years into Jurgen Klinsmann’s meandering tenure, we have ventured into new territory. For the first time, there’s a clear view of what his best team looks like. Of which players fit in where, and where, more or less, they stand on the depth chart.

It’s easy to forget now, but for half a decade or so this was all very different, as Klinsmann shuffled through formations, lineups, defensive pairings and midfield tandems. He tried something, tinkered with it and then moved on to something else. Again and again, he seemed to be throwing out what he was working on and starting over.

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That’s why, three years in, his starting lineups at the 2014 World Cup were surprising, with Omar Gonzalez suddenly pulled from the team in favor of Geoff Cameron, in spite of playing throughout the final round of qualifying. And that’s to say nothing of Kyle Beckerman starting during the group stage and Brad Davis beginning a game against Germany. For the round of 16 match with Belgium, Klinsmann shuffled the deck again.

This is more or less how it’s gone throughout his time as United States men’s national team manager, with players emerging into and fading from the picture – and re-emerging and re-fading – so fast it would make your head spin. But peek at the recent lineups, and an actual discernible pattern emerges.

We might indeed have an ideal XI, or something closely resembling it, backed by clear alternatives and options off the bench. With World Cup qualifying ramping up in earnest less than a month from now, with a home game against fellow CONCACAF duopolists Mexico on Nov. 11 and an away game at World Cup quarterfinalists Costa Rica on Nov. 15, this development is well-timed.

And it seems to – or should – look something like this, in a 4-4-2 formation:

GOALKEEPER

Tim Howard: For a while there, Brad Guzan had finally wrested the job from the longtime starter, capitalizing on Howard’s year-long national team sabbatical following the 2014 World Cup and then retaining the job through last summer’s Copa America. But with Guzan slipping out of the starting job at Middlesbrough and Howard striking, at 37, a rich new vein of form with the Colorado Rapids, it seems like the two-time U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year might add to his 110 caps.

DEFENSE (from right to left)

DeAndre Yedlin: The 23-year-old has evolved from a speed merchant into a more well-rounded right back. Klinsmann remains enamored with the idea of him as a winger, even though he simply isn’t good enough on the ball. But he is now the best option in the back and can contribute going forward with overlapping runs. While he isn’t quite a regular at his new club Newcastle down in the Championship, he plays enough to keep starting for his country.

Geoff Cameron: It became plain during the Copa that the Cameron-Brooks partnership is now the first choice. And rightly so. The Stoke City stalwart – when you’re in your fifth season as a starter for a middle-of-the-pack Premier League team, where the turnover is endless, you get to call yourself that – is a strong passer and a good one-on-one defender. And at 31, he’s in his prime.

John Brooks: It took time for Brooks to settle in with the U.S., looking shaky during the 2015 Gold Cup when he and fellow center-back-for-the-next-decade Ventura Alvarado made mistakes aplenty. Alvarado was eventually dumped, but Brooks, now 23, broke out with Hertha Berlin, grew into a first-rate defender in the Bundesliga and held onto his USA starting spot. He has cut out the gaffes and plays a good long pass, complementing Cameron well.

Fabian Johnson: For the longest time, Johnson’s versatility meant that he was a man without a positional home, shuttling between both wing and the two outside back positions. And the thing was this: He was the best player in pretty much all of those spots. But with Yedlin claiming the right back job and good options finally emerging elsewhere, Johnson has been able to settle in at left back, where he, too, offers a lot going forward.

MIDFIELD (from right to left)

Alejandro Bedoya: It took Klinsmann a long time to figure out what to make of Bedoya and how best to utilize him. He eventually put it together and Bedoya did yeoman’s work at the Copa America, shuttling between the defense and the attack. He covers lots of ground, shields the defense, builds attacks in transition and helps provide width on the flank. He seems like an automatic starter now.

Michael Bradley: The 29-year-old captain is surely the first name on the team sheet. He can play any role in central midfield, but lately he has been assigned to more of a box-to-box job after a spell as an attacking midfielder – meaning he has been less influential going forward lately. The thing is, with Jermaine Jones injured a lot and Kyle Beckerman aging, Bradley will likely be reverted to a holding midfielder eventually. In this formation, he would do a lot of defensive work to help compensate for his midfield partner.

Sacha Kljestan: That would be this man, who has been playing as a high playmaker for the U.S. (just as he does for the New York Red Bulls) with immense success in the last four games. At his last club, Belgian powerhouse Anderlecht, Kljestan was more of a two-way central midfielder, but Klinsmann had no use for him in that role. After making just one appearance in all of 2014 and 2015, Kljestan was brought back in from the cold. With Clint Dempsey out for the year with an irregular heartbeat, the team badly needs a creator in midfield, and Kljestan probably edged out Darlington Nagbe. He doesn’t quite have the engine to consistently contribute on both offense and defense in a two-man central midfield, requiring more covering work from Bradley, but his ability to dispatch the forwards in the absence of Dempsey compensates for that.

Christian Pulisic: Inexplicably, there is still a subsection of the fan base that believes Pulisic should not be starting on account of his age – he just turned 18. Never mind that in the nine U.S. games he has played thus far, he was the most dangerous man in about half of them when he was on the field. And that Borussia Dortmund, an inarguably stronger team than the USA, does think he’s old enough to be relied upon. Good enough equals old enough, as they say. And more than that, Pulisic’s attacking verve and fearless runs at opposing defenses are badly needed to keep technical and possession-based teams like Mexico and Costa Rica honest. Just as Kljestan needs to provide danger up the middle, Pulisic needs to keep the outside backs busy and pinned in their own half to create room for others. On days when Pulisic is ineffective – which will occur with a young player – Julian Green might provide a solution, considering his revival.

FORWARDS

Jozy Altidore: Starved of service, he was kept scoreless by Cuba and New Zealand. But that shouldn’t eclipse the fact that he has scored six goals in the first six World Cup qualifiers of this cycle. He missed almost all of the 2014 World Cup and the entirety of the 2016 Copa America and his absence was keenly felt. There is no backup for Altidore’s muscular hold-up play and increasingly efficient finishing. And he’s that much more effective with a striker partner.

Bobby Wood: And in almost a decade with the national team – by age 26, no less – no partner has suited Altidore as well as Wood since Charlie Davies, whose USA career was derailed by a car accident seven years ago. In the six games they have started up front together, Altidore and Wood have combined for 10 goals. Wood’s speed, movement and tenacity give opposing defenders a different look from the more static Altidore, occupying lots of attention and energy.

This team has balance and boatloads of knowhow, with seven players taking part in at least one World Cup. With an average age of a shade above 27, it also has a nice blend of youth and experience. It contains four Bundesliga starters, a Premier Leaguer and a Championship player. Yet it also represents Major League Soccer well with a delegation of five.

It feels like, at length, Klinsmann has built the framework for a real team, not just a big bunch of disparate national teamers who are thrown into lineups willy-nilly. This feels like a team that could stay together for several years at least, with only Howard and Cameron older than 30 and in need of eventual replacement.

But then again, Klinsmann is liable to reboot tomorrow anyway.

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