Goal Blog: The Brazilians Are Coming

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By Jeffrey Marcus

Tags: Brazil, Concacaf, Conmbeol, United States

The United States will play Brazil on Sept. 9 in Chicago, the United States Soccer federation announced. The match is being billed as a “Clash of Champions,” after the Americans won the Concacaf Gold Cup this summer and Brazil, the five-time world champion, brought home the Copa America from Venezuela.

The two regional championships are not exactly comparable. The United States team had to make its way through Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, El Salvador, Panama, Canada and Mexico. The Americans did so by outscoring their opponents by a combined 13-3. That was the United States A team. When Bob Bradley brought his B team to Venezuela, the Americans went three and out at the hands of Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay. They mustered only two goals, giving up eight.

Brazil won the Copa against competition with World Cup pedigree, dispatching Ecuador, Chile (twice) and Uruguay before defeating Argentina convincingly in the final. Strange enough, the only team to beat Brazil at the Copa was Mexico in the first game. Over all, the Seleção proved that even without its singularly monikered superstars Ronaldinho, Kaka and Adriano, there is a well-stocked locker room of top footballing talent that can execute the national team coach Dunga’s efficient, if very un-Brazilian, game plan to great effect.

The Sept. 9 game was added to replace the scheduled friendly against Mexico that was called off because of financial problems. The United States has three more games scheduled for 2007: Aug. 22 against Sweden in Goteborg (Fox Soccer Channel and Galavision); Oct. 14 against Catalonia in Barcelona (FSC and Galavision); and Oct. 17 in Basel against Switzerland (FSC and Galavision). The Brazil match will be on ESPN2 and Univision.

Concacaf qualifying for the 2010 World Cup begins in 2008.

I do not know how anyone can even call this match “clash of the champions”. The USA’s A team no matter that they did bring a B team to the Copa America would have not even mattered. USA plays weak teams(aside a decent but on and off mexican national team). The match between them and Brazil should be a wake up call for most american journalists that give the US national soccer team more credit than thats due. I will be watching both matches of Brazil vs USA and the Sweden vs USA matches. Finally the USA can get a wake up call and gain much needed experience so they can do some damage maybe in the next world cup.

†Posted by cliff

It’s a major bummer that the game against Mexico is canceled but this almost makes up for it. Now if only they’d hold one of these friendlies in NY…

†Posted by Ben

I dunno, Cliff, I’d be delighted to think that “most American journalists” needed a wake-up call about the quality of US soccer. As it is, I think most American sports journalists need a wake-up call about the existence of US soccer. And as far as I can tell, most US sports journalists who know something about soccer are at least as likely to be overly despairing as they are to be overly optimistic.

I’m looking forward to the US-Brazil friendly, of course, but as with all friendlies it may not turn out to be especially informative. Given that it’s not an official match, it’ll be likely hard to call up US players from MLS or (especially) abroad. And Brazil may not bring its best either. The way I see it, unless we field something like a full-strength squad, the game will really only tell us something if the US plays thoroughly dazzling soccer. If we play mediocre soccer, it’ll be hard to know whether it’s because we’re looking at a three-quarter-strength squad that hasn’t played together competitively (”competitively”) since the Copa America or because the US plays mediocre soccer right now.

That said, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for dazzling. Maybe (dare to dream) a senior-level repeat of the U-20s.

†Posted by Jon E

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