» Nick Green's 100 Percent Soccer blog

Nineteen years on from securing its first World Cup spot in four decades, the United States is at an awkward age when it comes to the global soccer stage.

More gangling teenager late to exit adolescence than youngster on the cusp of adulthood, the U.S. showed its immaturity on and off the field in the last two World Cup qualifiers.

Against Costa Rica on Wednesday, the U.S. froze before a hostile crowd on a dreadful artificial surface against a speedy, skillful opponent accustomed to the conditions.

Ill-conceived tactics and lineup combined with defensive instability, vapid midfield creativity and a limited attack contributed to a total breakdown in virtually every facet of the game and a deserved 3-1 defeat.

Against Honduras on Saturday, the U.S. again initially underestimated a supposedly weaker opponent urged on by a crowd in Chicago, where fans of the Central American country easily outnumbered fans of America. The U.S. clawed its way back into the game and the win column, though - after again conceding an early goal - more through its trademark determination and grit than anything else.

The result was a road loss, a home win and three points. Exactly halfway through the final round of qualifying, the U.S. is halfway to South Africa, sitting in a solid second place in a six-team competition in which three nations

automatically qualify for the World Cup and a fourth has the opportunity to join them via a playoff. It's a position any country except group leader Costa Rica would accept happily.

Yet there have been hysterical calls for Coach Bob Bradley's head and sweeping positional and personnel changes, an overreaction neither likely nor, for the most part, possible.

Improvement is required on the field and off, but wiping the chalkboard clean with the World Cup a year away is ill-advised and self-defeating. Self-imposed constraints two decades or more in the making will not be erased in 12 months.

The most fundamental weakness the U.S. faces is the ordinary quality of available players. Of those employed in the last two games, the Galaxy's Landon Donovan is the lone outfield player of undisputed international class.

In that respect, if anything, the U.S. has regressed. The 2002 World Cup team that so gloriously almost made it to the semifinals included Donovan, John O'Brien, Claudio Reyna and Brian McBride, backed up by the world-class Brad Friedel between the posts.

Aside from holdover Donovan and goalkeeper Tim Howard, this version possesses no comparable players with their vision, finesse, reading of the game and finishing touch in front of the goal.

Donovan lacks a supporting cast so that, as with the Galaxy, if he drifts out of a game, there is no one capable of stepping up to fill that role.

And the traditionally strong goalkeeping position aside, that is true of the defense, midfield and attack also, without exception.

So while fans might complain about Bradley, for instance, sticking with unconvincing fullbacks such as Heath Pearce, who was named to the Confederations Cup squad over the weekend, it is the only viable plan at this point.

That's what led Bradley to try the aging DaMarcus Beasley at the back, an unconventional and ultimately unsuccessful, though daring, experiment.

Still, Bradley is oft-criticized for the same conservative streak and perhaps overly loyal use of the same players as that of one-time mentor and predecessor Bruce Arena, but the quality and depth of the player pool is not exactly overflowing.

Let's hope the Italians on Monday and Brazil three days later take it easy on the U.S. at the Confederations Cup, where the Americans will field a very similar squad to that selected for the World Cup qualifiers.

Which brings us to the underlying problem the U.S. faces in its development: the lack of an ingrained soccer culture to support and nurture the national team that's seen elsewhere.

Most American fans don't live and die with their national team, as Brazilians, for instance, do. And unlike Brazilians, most American players don't spend endless recesses on school playgrounds kicking around a tennis ball or rock in unorganized pickup games until it becomes such second nature that doing the same with a regulation-size ball on a proper field is, well, child's play.

Even the soccer establishment blithely signals its disinterest. MLS continued its regular season without missing a beat last weekend. Is it any wonder so many Euro snob soccer fans have little respect for an inferior domestic product that undermines the national team and ignores the international game?

The U.S. is not going to win the World Cup in 2010, as once was suggested infamously . But then, neither are 30 other nations in the 32-team field.

The bottom line: The U.S. is doing about as well as could be expected given its resources. It could be worse; the U.S. could be in the position of Mexico, which has all the things going for it the U.S. does not and is still flailing in qualifying.

Now that's more than awkward.

nick.green@dailybreeze.com

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