We realize that the respect that the Americans have at this point in time is small. Everything we earn, we have to earn on the field and that's fair enough. |
We really didn't have much to look at in preparation for this match. |
We see in Eddie a player with great potential, and certainly the injury put him back. He acquired a reputation that people expected a lot out of him, and I'm not copping out of that. We do expect a lot of Eddie, but at the same time he's a young player and he's getting there. His best soccer is probably for the next World Cup in all honestly. He's got a bright future, and we're hopeful he's moving forward. |
We view this camp and the games in January and February as critical towards our preparation for Germany. |
We want to give some promising players some opportunities and start to formulate some strategies for 2006. There is no easy way to establish a player at the international level. The easiest way is to get them on the field. |
We wanted to look at different combinations of players. We did achieve that. |
We went through an important year in 2005 where neither Eddie Johnson, John O'Brien, Claudio Reyna nor Cory Gibbs were around much due to injuries, and those are four players that you would think are clearly going to be on our roster for Germany. |
We were able to use this game as an opportunity to see some players. The part that I felt was valid was that we watched our players have to deal with coming from behind, being down a goal. |
We're going to have to see how quickly he makes it back and whether he positions himself again to be in contention for a position on our roster. |
We're not going to ignore anybody at this point in time. The league will be operating in early April and we'll have a chance to look at those games to see if any of those players are a possibility for our April game or are still considerations for our roster. |
We're prepared to play each and every game and, hopefully, I think one could look at our record over the last couple of years and realize that our guys are prepared to play every game. Obviously this is a big game and they'll be ready for it. |
We've accomplished that before anyone else. That's fantastic. |
We've been together as a group for a long time, and I think the group that we get on the field on Sunday is going to do fine. I expect that, I see it out of these guys every day in training, so hopefully it carries over on the field on Sunday. |
We've come a long way since 1998. |
We've got a bunch of guys in Europe as well as in MLS who want these opportunities to show that they belong on our next World Cup team. So we're going to put a pretty good team on the field for the next three games. |