“Three thoughts on the United States’ 2-1 loss against Jamaica in a World Cup qualifier on Friday… • The U.S.’s lack of width and possession were killers. The Americans were always going to have to deal with the injury-related absences of Michael Bradley and Landon Donovan, but their inability to possess the ball meant that some degree of width in the attack was necessary, and that width wasn’t there.” SI

“I’m going to say something that may bother you: The rise of Mexican soccer is only a good thing for the United States. That’s not to say it’s easy right now if you’re a fan of the U.S. men’s soccer team. In fact, it’s probably painful, a sharp and enduring ache that feels like a punch to the gut. The U.S. meets its greatest rival, Mexico, in an exhibition here on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN2/3, Univision) — I’m sure as hell not calling it a ‘friendly’ — and the gap between the two countries is bigger than it has been in more than 20 years. Just last Saturday, Mexico won the Olympic gold medal, outplaying a star-studded Brazil team that will provide much of that nation’s 2014 World Cup squad. The U.S., by contrast, failed to even qualify for the Games.” SI

“Let’s come right out and say it: Clint Dempsey is having the best season ever by a U.S. international in Europe. With his late equalizer against Chelsea on Monday, the Fulham sniper now has 16 Premier League goals this season. The only Premier League players who have more goals in all competitions than Dempsey’s 22 are Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero.” SI

“The first time I meet Marco Vidal, he tells me I need to hop on YouTube. If I want to understand why he willingly lives in the world’s most dangerous city and why he plays for the Indios of Ciudad Juárez fútbol club and why he feels the Indios are a special team, then I’ve got to watch what happened after his Indios defeated the Esmeraldas of León back in 2008. Juárez and León (a 440-year-old tannery town in the exact center of Mexico) had played a two-game series, home and home, for the highest of stakes. The losers were to stay in minor league obscurity, earning little money and waiting at least a year for even a chance to change their station in life. The winners would rise into the Primera, Mexico’s top league. International TV every week. Big-time paychecks. Home games against glamorous clubs like Chivas of Guadalajara and road trips to such soccer shrines as the 105,000-seat Estadio Azteca, in Mexico City.” Grantland

This Love Is Not For Cowards: Salvation and Soccer in Ciudad Juárez
“More than ten people are murdered every day in Ciudad Juárez, a city about the size of Philadelphia. As Mexico has descended into a feudal narco-state-one where cartels, death squads, the army, and local police all fight over billions of dollars in profits from drug and human trafficking-the border city of Juárez has been hit hardest of all. And yet, more than a million people still live there. They even love their impoverished city, proudly repeating its mantra: ‘Amor por Juárez’.” amazon

“When the NCAA men’s basketball tournament takes center stage in about a month, we’ll hear plenty usage of the term “blind résumé.” It is a comparison method for decision-makers to look at the body of work for teams on the tournament-field bubble without being clouded by predetermined bias linked to a school’s name or conference affiliation. While it is far from an exact science, the blind résumé provides a meat-and-potatoes breakdown of who merits consideration for inclusion based on tangible accomplishments, leaving name and reputation out of the equation.” SI

“With the European transfer window back open, there’s no better time for the annual tradition of taking inventory of which Americans could be on the move over the next month. The only thing is, there’s not really that many that need to go anywhere at all. In contrast to last year at this time, most top-tier American players find themselves situated in favorable and productive club situations, and instead of using the winter months to plot moves for more playing time, they’re preparing for the next phase of their respective seasons.” SI

Zak Whitbread
“It would be easy for Zak Whitbread to look back at the last nine months and think about what could have been.With better-timed good health, the 27-year-old Norwich City center back may already be on his way to the international career that has yet to materialize. In the midst of helping the Canaries earn promotion to the Premier League last spring, Whitbread was called in for the United States’ friendlies against Argentina and Paraguay in March, only to be forced to withdraw with a back injury. Not only did he miss a chance to acclimate himself with the U.S. setup for the first time on the senior level, but he missed what would’ve essentially been a tryout for the U.S. Gold Cup roster.” SI

“Next Wednesday is one of the most important days of the next decade for soccer in the United States. That’s when bids are due in Zürich, Switzerland, for the U.S. broadcast rights for World Cups ’18 and ’22. ESPN, NBC and Fox are expected to bid for the English-language rights, while Univisión and NBC-owned Telemundo are expected to be in competition for the Spanish-language rights. After the bids are submitted on Wednesday — there will be no formal presentations, as there were for the Olympic rights bids earlier this year — the FIFA executive committee will meet on Thursday and could reach a decision on the winners as soon as that day.” SI

“Could they please just let her dance in flats? That’s what I thought as I watched Hope Solo fight her way through a jive in high-heeled converse sneakers. Letting Solo dance in flats would make this whole Dancing With the Stars thing less anxiety provoking. Who isn’t worried about her turning her ankle? Those joints are of national importance! I have been so preoccupied by her feet I’ve scarcely noticed this season’s gender drama.” From A Left Wing

“What could have been a landmark weekend in the seasons of three first-choice U.S. national team midfielders turned out to be nothing more than a wait-till-next-time occasion. Jermaine Jones remained an afterthought at Schalke despite not being moved during the recent transfer window; Michael Bradley failed to see the field in his first game as a member of Chievo Verona in Italy; and Stuart Holden’s anticipated comeback to Bolton’s first team was put on hold for at least another week.” SI

“Three quick thoughts following the U.S.’s 1-1 tie against Mexico in a friendly on Wednesday night …” SI

“American patriotism is a heart on sleeve affair. As a visitor to the United States there is a sense that you’re never more than a few hundred yards from a flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes. American children pledge allegiance to the flag at school, and the national anthem is sung at all levels of sporting events, not just show piece finals. There is then perhaps an irony that America’s main spectator sports provide little opportunity to cheer on American national teams in major sporting events. Enter football to fill the void.” In Bed With Maradona

“U.S. Men’s National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann has named a 22-player roster that will travel to Philadelphia in advance of the match against regional rival Mexico on Aug. 10 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. The match will be the first for the former FIFA World Cup and European Championship winner at the helm of the U.S. Men’s National Team since being named head coach.” US Soccer

“On Saturday night, the United States men’s national soccer team lost 4-2 to Mexico in the final of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the regional championship of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Between Mexico’s early dominance, Team USA’s shocking surge ahead, and the Americans’ post-halftime futility, the match was a weird miniature of recent domestic soccer history. The United States was terrible (1950-1990 inclusive), then suddenly pretty good (2002 World Cup), then prone to squandering leads (2009 Confederations Cup final vs. Brazil) and stalling (USA-Ghana 2010) after exciting moments (USA-Algeria, also 2010).” Slate – Brian Phillips

Mexico exploits porous U.S. defense
“Breathless, frenetic, utterly absorbing: Mexico was a 4-2 winner in the Gold Cup final, a score line that didn’t seem quite to reflect its superiority, yet so open was the game that the U.S. had enough chances to have itself won the game by a two-goal margin. This was thrillingly end-to-end, a game in which midfields barely existed, settled by the porousness of the USA’s back four. In the end, it simply presented too many chances to Mexico.” SI – Jonathan Wilson

Mexico claim Gold Cup glory
“Pablo Barrera scored twice as Mexico came from 2-0 down against USA to win a dramatic CONCACAF Gold Cup final 4-2 at the Rose Bowl. USA appeared to have taken control of the game as Michael Bradley and Landon Donovan put them two goals to the good inside the first quarter of the game, but Barrera and Andres Guardado levelled before the break and the former struck again before Giovani Dos Santos clinched victory.” ESPN

U.S. player ratings against Mexico
“U.S. player ratings vs. Mexico (scale of 1-10).” SI

YouTube – USA 2 Mexico 4

Clint Dempsey
“They are the three most famous players in U.S. men’s soccer — Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey and Freddy Adu — and on a night when their team needed them most, they combined on a goal that helped each player overcome a personal challenge in addition to the one from a pesky Panama team in a hard-fought Gold Cup semifinal.” SI

United States 1-0 Panama: Donovan and Adu come off the bench to help break the deadlock
“Clint Dempsey scored 15 minutes from time to put the US into the Gold Cup final. Bob Bradley kept faith with the XI that overcame Jamaica – Jozy Altidore went off injured in that game, and his replacement Juan Agudelo started here. This meant that Landon Donovan was again on the bench.” Zonal Marking

“Here’s what Tuesday’s U.S. game was supposed to be: a meaningless Gold Cup group-stage finale against Guadeloupe (9 p.m. ET, Fox Soccer, TeleFutura), a tiny Caribbean island that (as part of France) isn’t even allowed to compete in World Cup qualifying.” SI

“Tomorrow night, in Kansas, we’ll be able to enjoy one of those fixtures that makes the Gold Cup such a pleasure to some of us, and a rather mystifying affair to many others. Indeed, the Gold Cup competition, while it takes place year after year in the U.S., seems to largely fly under the radar for many in this country — except, of course, for fans of the Mexican national team, and for those of the Central American and Caribbean teams for whom it represents perhaps the most important international competition.” Soccer Politics

“You’ve Never Heard of Chicharito?”
“That was the dismayed, slightly disbelieving, question posed by a fan of a Mexico team last night to the North Carolinian worker at the food stand getting him a beer and hot dog. We were at the Carolina Panthers stadium (actually named, of course, after a large financial institution, the Bank of America), and it was clear that the phenomenon of tens of thousands of people needed to go to the bathroom and buy food during a sharply circumscribed fifteen-minute period was strange and overwhelming to a system set up for U.S. football.” Soccer Politics

Gold Cup 2011: US Falls To Panama 2-1, and this was a player’s loss
“What follows is the match recap I wrote last night for The Shin Guardian. The only changes are a few links I thought I would add, and one more disclaimer. Below where it reads ‘This loss isn’t on Bob Bradley’, after a spirited comment discussion at TSG, I’ll amend slightly. Yes, Bob Bradley’s tactics weren’t perfect. But he had a plan (attack Panama’s right flank, (Try) to establish width. His substitutions were (with the possible exception of Goodson off instead of Ream) spot on.” Yanks are coming

“The US national team is part of that élite group referred to in England by their demonym rather than by the name of the country. At the last World Cup, for instance, England were shut out by Algeria after drawing against the Americans. They beat Slovenia but they lost to the Germans. It could be regarded as something of a badge of honour, like being criticised by the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Last summer, an English football website published a link to footage of American fans celebrating Landon Donovan’s goal against Algeria. Readers were advised to ignore the ‘obnoxious’ chanting of ‘USA! USA! USA!’” The Carvalho Peninsula

“Earlier this month, Major League Soccer proudly announced the launch of the Castrol Index to ‘objectively’ rank its players’ performances. As if the modern game was not already burdened with enough useless statistics, we can now enjoy the benefits of this ‘proprietary technology’ that purports to track around 1,800 player movements per game, and then produce a league table of ranked individuals. The first monthly table told us what we possibly already knew: Thierry Henry is the best player in MLS.” WSC

“The moment when the Pacific Northwest succumbed to soccer nirvana came during—what else?—a steady downpour at 8:03 p.m. last Saturday at Qwest Field in Seattle. On the night the Seattle Sounders and the Portland Timbers resumed the fiercest rivalry in American club soccer, a sellout crowd of 36,593 watched in awe as the Emerald City Supporters unveiled a 23,000-square-foot display of nine green-and-blue banners telling the pictorial story of the Sounders’ DECADES OF DOMINANCE over their Oregon neighbors—like cave paintings of a modern-day sports culture.” SI

“This infographic about Real Salt Lake’s road to the two-legged final of the CONCACAF Champions League is pretty damn awesome, and more than worth glancing at ahead of tomorrow’s second leg in Salt Lake, with the Americans tied 2-2 on aggregate with Monterrey of Mexico. It’s informative for the newbie, and interesting enough for the nerd.” Pitch Invasion

“It took decades, but in the end it was just a short journey to find something seemingly so far away: the transcendent football experience. On a Sunday morning in April, soccer fan Dean Mitchell leaves his home in San Diego and heads south towards the border. The barren desert geography doesn’t change much between his home and Tijuana, Mexico, but nearly everything else brightens once he passes that wall, including Dean’s mood. Crossing the border on foot it takes literally one step to enter a completely different world – away from a soccer niche to a land hot with football fever.” this is american soccer

“Charlie Davies has seen the photograph. Taken on the morning of Oct. 13, 2009, it shows the back section of a gray Infiniti SUV, sheared clean in half by the impact of a horrific one-car accident on the George Washington Parkway in northern Virginia. One passenger in the vehicle died. Davies, a blazing striker who had emerged as a vital piece of the U.S. World Cup puzzle, was in the back. Partway through the ride he had put on his seat belt, a move that probably saved his life. ‘When I saw the car, I thought, Was I really in there?” says Davies. “How could someone just six inches in front of me die and I’m still alive?'” SI

“The orchestrated crescendo of Parisian boos that greeted Kasabian front man Tom Meighan as he walked onstage at the L’Olympia in the French capital. Adorned in the red of England’s latest away shirt, the stunt on the surface appeared to be little more than a brazen example of jingoistic marketing, designed to appeal to the white-van-driver that lurks deep within every England fan.” In Bed With Maradona

“And so it began with A Gentleman’s History of the Stanky Legg. An opportunity to use goal celebration dances to learn about ourselves and share some of what we are with our friends around the world. I know, it’s just a game, right? Well, it doesn’t have to be just a game.” Nutmeg Radio

“This David Beckham character has the world in his palm. After successful stints at Manchester United and Real Madrid, Beckham decided to pursue a new challenge in America (the North one). As part of Beckham’s unique deal with MLS, he was given the option to purchase an MLS club if he stays with the LA Galaxy for the remainder of his contract. That’s a good deal for Team Beckham. And now, long-time Daily Mail football writer Martin Samuel wants to give Beckham English football.” Nutmeg Radio

“Goal scorers have pumped fists, stripped down, slid on the ground, assembled in Voltron-like formations with teammates, climbed on top of teammates, screamed at television cameras, pointed to the heavens, made out with their team badges, assaulted corner flags, paid tribute to pregnancies by giving birth to soccer balls, displayed shirts with birthday and freedom messages, planted corner flags like an explorer, snorted end lines, and sprinted off into a corner to share a few dance moves with an adoring or enraged public. Anything and everything goes after scoring a goal. That’s the beauty of the soccer celebration.” Nutmeg Radio

“Many of us have watched our team drift away from the clubs with big cash and thought; this isn’t right, is there an alternative? Screw the cash, revolution is in the air, here’s Nick Rosano on the MLS.” In Bed With Maradona

“Michael Bradley; he’s a household name to the frequent visitors of this distinguished soccer blog. It is kind of weird to actually type out the full name that Bobbo saw fit to give him though. Junior, MB90, Coach’s Kid, whatever you want to call him, Bradley’s a top performer for a Yank in Europe, and at 23 years old, he’s just entering his prime. So where will the future take the young midfielder? And why must he get out of Borussia Mönchengladbach as soon as possible? Let’s kick the ballistics.” (Yanks are coming)