I was at the press conference in Germany where Claudio Reyna announced his retirement from international soccer. One statement he made intrigued me a little, though.
"We don’t have a major European championship or something where I felt in two years I could still be playing. But four years was a little too much. So it’s best just to stop now."
It was a large conference, and there were a bunch of journos asking questions, but even then, I nearly yelled out, "What about Gold Cup?" The obvious objection there would be that the strain of travel from Europe would be too much for Claudio.
Now that he's with the Red Bulls, though, that's not an issue. His ties to Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley go way back, so some persuasion there could be effective.
Though it doesn't get the respect of the European Championships, the Gold Cup is the regional championship for the U.S., the closest equivalent we have. It may be farfetched, but I think there's a chance Reyna might participate. I mean, if he implied he could still play internationally for two years, the Gold Cup is this year.
For any of those who think that the Gold Cup is a good time to experiment with young players, leaving Reyna out even if he wants to play, I disagree completely. This Gold Cup is the ticket to the Confed Cup, which would provide invaluable experience in the venues of the World Cup ahead of time. The U.S. should experiment at Copa America - the Gold Cup, we need to win. Reyna can still help the team do that. Especially against CONCACAF competition, I think it would be a nice hurrah for his USMNT career.
5 comments:
Please, no more Reyna. It's time to move on.
I do believe we've won Gold Cups without him before. We can do it again. It's time to let the next generation take over - Donovan, Beasley, Gooch, etc.
Thanks for your service, Claudio, but please stay retired.
(normally we don't approve anonymous comments, Luis is making exceptions here, I guess)
Anyway, though I know we've won Gold Cups, we've also lost them, and this one is important. The Confed Cup is in South Africa. Every regional competiter in CONCACAF will be licking their chops to have that inside knowledge of the stadiums and the added comfort level of a good performance in that country ahead of time. I think Reyna can be an asset to the team one last time in securing that berth.
I agree with you about the Gold Cup being important and the Copa being a place to test more younger players. Why is it that people feel differently about the Mexico friendly on 2/7/07? That is the ideal game to expose young players to a very competitive environment, but yet we will see experienced Euros, Pablo, Landon, etc. I know that Bradley is still interim and Mexico is the number one rival, but this sounds like youth team parents playing for the win and not growing their players.
Bradley still has quite a few young players in camp. He specifically stated that one reason he didn't plan on calling in young Euros to the Mexico camp was because there was so little time to train and integrate them to the squad. He said something about that it would be unfair to them to not give them the greatest chance for success by giving them that time to adjust.
You may not buy it, but that was his argument.
As to Reyna, it depends on his play. If he's still playing well and can LEGITIMATELY earn a spot in 2010, I don't see a problem with him being on the team.
Also, I see little relevance in the Gold Cup for actual improvement of the men's national team unless the overall level of play in CONCAAF improves dramatically. Thus, I'd send younger players to the Gold Cup and send the A-squad to the Copa America. It may not help the rankings, it will surely improve our play. Movement up the rankings will follow, if that is at all relevant to begin with.
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