4-1 (and the one was a fluke)

I took yesterday afternoon off to watch, between a dentist appointment and picking up Planet, the Deutschland-USA friendly from Frankfort. After a decent first half, in which the US was outclassed if not outscored, KA-BOOM!

Can we puh-leeze end the Jimmy Conrad on the backline, Eddie Johnson on the frontline experiment? Conrad sucks on Kansas City's backline, (how he was named Defender of the Year in MLS 2005 dismays me) and there's a reason FCD traded Johnson and his me-complex to Kansas City. Most revealing moment on Johnson (who missed a sitter, albeit by a great Oliver Kahn save): on the fluke goal, when Johnson collided with Kahn and the ball bounced untouched through both into German goal, Johnson lifted his hands to take claim for the goal.

Ching sucked on front line too. Twellman never got a chance to play - I wonder if Arena was giving Johnson and Ching a chance to play themselves on or off (OFF!) or whether Arena just doesn't believe Twellman has it.

This isn't a clarion signal that US won't advance through group play this June. They were playing without many of their Euro-based pros and some US-based players (Donovan especially) were out with knacks. The German team was far fitter than the MLS players on US (whose domestic season starts weekend after next). But the difference in technical skills between the Germans and Americans was shocking. Even more shocking is how the Germans physically beat the crap out of the Americans. And this was a German team who just got blasted by Italy, which just happens to be in the US' round robin group. Oy. A clear wake-up and warning.