HOW DO YOU GROW A SPORT WHEN YOU DON'T TELEVISE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT GAME EVER?:

PREVIEW: MEXICO - UNITED STATES (Rich Fidler, August 11, 2009, Yanks Abroad)

Bradley will no doubt rely on a starting eleven that leans heavily on the roster that lead him to the Confederations Cup final. Tim Howard will undoubtedly be the starter behind a back four of Carlos Bocanegra, Jay DeMerit, Oguchi Onyewu and possibly Jonathan Spector.

Spector will battle regular first-team right back Steve Cherundolo, who missed South Africa due to injury, but is fully healthy and went the full 90 minutes in Hannover 96's 1-0 defeat over the weekend before flying across the Atlantic.

The midfield will pair Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan, a villain to most Mexicans for his goal scoring exploits, on each wing. The LA Galaxy midfielder has grown to enjoy the pressure of facing their regional rival.

Bradley will start his son and current Borussia Mönchengladbach ace alongside Houston Dynamo's Ricardo Clark - although more offensive minded Benny Feilhaber could see the start depending on Bradley's formation at 4:00pm EST tomorrow.

Up top the team will be lead by Brian Ching, who returned from an injury that kept him out of South Africa to captain the team during the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The second striker will be an intriguing choice for the head coach, either Jozy Altidore who recently joined Hull City on-loan or speedy Sochaux forward Charlie Davies will get the nod.

The strength of playing what's basically a 4-2-2-2 is that you basically end up with 4 very good central defenders in Onyewu, Bradley, Clark, and Demerit. It forces the other team wide and then Onyewu is such a dominant force on balls in the air that he can head a goodly number away--likewise Altidore on set piece plays.

The weakness is that you end up with almost no width yourself. You really need to have Spector and Donovan play towards the corners on the attack and then cross balls into the middle. More than that, Marvell Wynne eventually needs to be brought onto the starting 11 in place of Bocanegra, because he can make runs out wide and still get back to defend, which the captain can't.

The other problem with the line-up above is that there's no midfielder who can hold the ball himself and regularly looks to play it forward if you aren't starting Feilhaber. It would be better to move Dempsey up front with Altidore and bring Feilhaber into the midfield.

As a general matter though, there is no excuse (barring more ridiculous red cards) for the US not winning this game. And even though we should win, doing so will send a tremor through world soccer, coming on the heals of the Confederations Cup performance in South Africa. Soccer teams are so psychologically fragile that they routinely lose games they should win and any sign of mental toughness by your squad scares the bejeebies out of others.

The US isn't likely to be a World Cup favorite in 2010 but they aren't far from being the team the favorites would least like to have to face.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 11, 2009 8:37 AM