Aston Villa's Brad Guzan will replace Tim Howard well...unless the backline fails the U.S. again. |
There's been a lot of trepidation over the past month of what the United States team was going to do with a major injury to one of its top three players. It wasn't so much in the sense of literally "What are we going to do," but more metaphysically. The injury to Tim Howard, the psychological and physical backbone of the United States National Team, is, on the surface, a major blow to an already questionable United States defense. But a loss of a goaltender is about all the United States can whether or at least that's where many believe the USMNT's depth lies. Welcome to the grand stage, Brad Guzan.
Before introducing Guzan I have to say that the Americans have four goaltenders with a wealth of Premiership experience even though one, Brad Friedel, is pretty much on his way out of the game with a final stint at Tottenham. The other three, Howard, Guzan and Marcus Hanemann all have had their ups and downs in England's Premier League. All in all the USA's most experienced, and probably best, position is goaltender. So welcome one more time to the grand stage, Brad Guzan.
Guzan's 28 years old, a multi-year veteran of the Premiership and English soccer as a whole, though he hasn't gotten much starting time. It's quite funny to think that Guzan has spent much of the last three years at a mid-to-upper level English team, Aston Villa, behind his American teammate Brad Friedel. Once the 41-year-old Freidel had a chance to cash in on his opportunity to play for a top-5 side like Tottenham, he took it allowing Guzan to finally get his chance to start for Villa. Unfortunately, Guzan is playing for one of the worst Villa sides in recent memory and a lot of it is on him to save them from relegation (they currently sit one spot outside of the first relegation spot). Many analysts and soccer people say that without Guzan this team would be dead last, another stellar word of praise for an American keeper playing on a lowly Premiership side.
I'm in the camp that says the United States will be fine in net without Howard for these two games. Guzan might not make the one or two miracle saves that Timmy has been known to make, but he's still going to give the US team an opportunity to win. America will be fine between the pipes when we lace up the boots against Costa Rica and Mexico in a few weeks; that's far from the issue that's truly at hand.
Our backup goaltender might not be the issue, but the back four that protect him certainly are. Honduras sliced and diced the backline of Timmy Chandler, Fabian Johnson, Geoff Cameron and Omar Gonzalez with Howard in the lineup and I don't expect any goaltender to be able to bail out the U.S. defense if they play that horrendously again. I can't believe I'm saying this but, I hope the calming and experienced presence of Carlos Bocanegra returns to settle down these young guns who clearly seemed overmatched for World Cup Qualifying play. Mexico and Costa Rica also present a much more difficult challenge than Honduras did and that worries me.
But either way, there's no reason to panic about Tim Howard's injury. If the backline can get their act together then Guzan will lead us to the appropriate four points we should get out of these next two games. If not, expect the U.S. twine to get a ton of action in a couple of weeks, no matter Howard or Guzan.
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