The future looks bright: Diaby signs new long-term contract and Flamini is looking forward to a new contract. The spine of the team is young, experienced, and looking ahead: Adebayor, Flamini, Fabregas, and Diaby!

As I’ve usually done for the past year or so, I have all kinds of intentions of keeping up the blog entries. But as the busyness increases, my chances of getting something written go way down. I’ve taken on some extra projects and I’m trying to spend time with family; it has depleted any time and mental energy I might have to write.

For all you keeping track of the Premiership, Chelsea and Man United are running away with the league, while Arsenal continues to lose points at home as they get used to their new stadium. I haven’t given up hope but I’ve said from the beginning that next season is Arsenal’s. After another spell of seasoning all the new blood and working his fine-tuned machine, Arsene Wenger will have a truly great team next year. I’ve also predicted that this season wouldn’t be the same for Chelsea and that, by default, Man United would win it all. There’s a long road ahead, but it looks like my prediction is coming true.

More later.

In a Washington Post article, After Lackluster World Cup, Donovan’s Focus Is Galaxy by Steven Goff, Landon Donovan acknowledges that he didn’t play well in the World Cup and explains how too much criticism has been given to him personally when the finger should be pointed to the whole team. While I agree that he didn’t play well, the criticism he’s received is not, in my mind, too much. He was the “play maker” of the team, the midfielder that sits right behind the forwards, and distributes the ball. If he plays bad, the whole team plays bad. That’s the reason for the criticism. In my estimation, the criticism has been mild. In any other country, there would be petitions to ensure that he never puts on the jersey again.

The article is telling because Landon himself diagnoses his own problem but doesn’t see it as the reason for not playing well. He says,

“I should’ve been more aggressive,” he said. “I just felt like half the time I was out there I was just going through the motions. What’s the point of being there?

“That’s really disappointing for me because I thought I was smarter and I thought I would realize that more. I didn’t until it was over, and that’s frustrating because you can’t go back.”

Want to know why Landon wasn’t more aggressive? Because, in MLS, he’s not expected to be. When all you’re expected to do is “get into the playoffs”, the level of play is degraded and players aren’t held to a higher standard. Landon himself says that his aspiration, by staying in MLS, is to simply be a good player. Not a great player, just good. He continues,

“My world, I’m not on this Earth to go be in Europe and become the best soccer player in the world. My life is about being happy. I want to enjoy it, and I think I can balance all of that and still be a good soccer player.”

Thanks for the clarification Landon.

The 2006 World Cup is over for the United States team. And while we want to blame bad decisions on referees and bad luck injuries, our guys didn’t come with the same passion as underdogs that they did in 2002. We needed some help from the Italians and we needed to beat Ghana in the last game. The Italians beat the Czechs so it was in our hands; beat Ghana and we go through. We lost 2-1.

We were in, arguably, the hardest group of the whole tournament. Some will point to group C (Argentina, Netherlands, Serbia & Montenegro, and Ivory Coast) as the group of death but I would argue that Argentina and the Netherlands had a pretty easy time with the other two and, therefore, our group, group E, was the hardest.

It didn’t do us any good that the Czechs realized the importance of game 1 and came out firing against us. We expected to sit back and wait for our chances (which didn’t come) and we were easily beaten. So, just like going up 3 goals on Portugal in game 1 of the 2002 World Cup gave us the momentum to narrowly escape with a victory and get out of the group, going down 3-0 in game 1 against the Czechs took any hope away; it took the wind out of our sails for the remaining games. Yes, we did well against Italy and that’s something to take away from the tournament, yet, I just can’t help but think that we went into the whole thing with blinders on. We had too much swagger and not enough guts.

Much has been said of all the cheerleading that was done in the build-up to the World Cup. Because of our run in 2002 and the FIFA rankings (which everyone knows is lame), we came into the tournament with the following false expectations: the Czechs were old and slow - easily beatable, we could draw with the Italians, and we could easily win against Ghana because Michael Essien was the only player we’d ever heard of.

Let’s be honest. We’ve never come close to being the 5th best team in the world. Maybe, the 25th best team is more realistic. The only European teams in the Cup that we could possibly be better than are Poland and, although they didn’t live up to how well they qualified, Serbia & Montenegro. We are not better than any of the South American teams in the World Cup. And, several of the African teams are better than us, especially Ghana.

And while Landon Donovan is a huge part of my Los Angeles Galaxy, I don’t want to see him wearing the USA jersey for a while. He was a no-show in all three games and I think his play has deteriorated while playing in Major League Soccer. He came into this tournament talking, almost exclusively, about how much confidence the team had. Sorry, but confidence doesn’t win games. Over the past couple of years, he should have been challenging himself in Europe and bettering himself as a player, not “building his confidence” in MLS. Otherwise, go back to being the “best player in MLS” and stay away from the National team. Its not fair to the rest of the team and to all US Soccer fans to wear the captain’s armband (when Reyna doesn’t), living his cushy life in California, and playing like that.

US Soccer has a beautiful history and a bright future. We just need to realize that we’re not going to beat the world. There’s always the same sports writers that come out at World Cup time to write the “Has Soccer Arrived Yet in the USA?” or the “Soccer will never make it in the USA” articles. Football (its rightful name) has arrived, it arrived awhile ago, and its not going away. Right now, we need to concentrate on just playing the game and having our teams play against better competition. Brazil isn’t the best because they had a plan to beat the world. They did it by making it their own.