Question marks to the front, question marks to the back, the only other position besides goalkeeper that the USMNT can feel they will have substantial depth now and in the next few years is in midfield. It was only a few years ago that the thought of a prolonged absence by Landon Donovan or Clint Dempsey might have been insurmountable. Covering for the loss of Donovan or Dempsey for a significant period today is still a tough ask of the USMNT but when you look at the depth at midfield for the US you can see there are options and players who appear ready to be called upon.  Get used to a number of the faces you see now in the US midfield because few of them will change in the next Gold Cup and World Cup cycles.  

For starters, lets address the obvious choices after the jump:

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Since the US crashed out of the tournament against Ghana and US fans have directed their attention clubs certain players could end up next season and attempting to already predict the future. I'm not going to try and predict the 30 players and manager headed to camp in 2014. Taking a shot at the 2014 World Cup roster is a shot in the dark even the soccer version of Mel Kiper or Todd McShay would neven attempt (whomever they may be). But there are players in the USMNT player pool that US fans can follow and could expect to see feature in the next few years. Again, attempting to see this far out is a crapshoot. Mike Cardillo at thats on point asked the question "How many of us didn't have Freddy Adu on the 2010 roster back in 2006?" Plenty of us thought Bobby Convey and Eddie Johnson would only improve over the next four years and if you had Edson Buddle, Herculez Gomez, and Robbie Findley on your radar you're a liar.

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While it's evident that there are a number of questions on the horizon for the USMNT backline on position where the US is in safe hands is at keeper. The USMNT took Tim Howard, Brad Guzan, and Marcus Hahnemann were all brought to South Africa.

At 31, Howard is entering his prime as a keeper and barring injury or a dramatic drop in form Howard should be the #1 for the US for the next four years. Marcus Hahneman is 38 and we can assume he won't suit up for the much more for the US. Brad Guzan is only 25 and is the #2 at Aston Villa in the EPL behind fellow American Brad Friedel.

With Howard established as the #1 how does the rest of the talent pool at Goalkeeper for the US shape up.

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Today, The Guardian reported on a recent interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel where Michael Ballack's Agent, Michael Becker, alleged that there were a "bunch of gays" on the German National Team. According to the author, Becker continued his homophobic dribble when he argued that it appeared the German World Cup side had a lighter and elegant style of play and this style was influenced by the homosexuals who were apart of the team. Based on those comments, I imagine Becker would like to have us think he conducted a lengthy study into the sexual preferences of the German teams of years past.

 

However, Becker was not the first to bring to discuss these rumors. When Becker made his remarks about the "bunch of gays" writer Aleksander Osang believed Becker expected the ears of fellow journalists present to "prick up". "But they only nodded placidly," said Osang. "All sports journalists seemed to already know the alleged homosexual conspiracies enveloping Löw's team. The rumors accompanied our team to South Africa and evidently belong to the team."

 

But Becker's comments and the German media's understated reaction to one or more possibly gay footballers on the German national team encourage a different discussion. Should we really care about any athlete's sexuality? What does our approach to this topic as fans say about us and what can we deduce from our own feelings on the matter?

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In a twitter exchange with Giuseppe Rossi Jozy Altidore's twitter he returns to Villareal on the 25th. Should we be thinking Jozy will be in Spain this season?

FIFA World Cup Standings have been released. The US finishes 12th, while England finished at 13th, Italy came in 26th, and France 3 places from the bottom at 29th.(BBC)

The World Cup continued to set viewership records in 2010 with the final being viewed by 24.3 million (EPL Talk)

The Original Winger posts the ABC & BBC closing montages of the WC.

The story from the Sun re: Bob Bradley's possible move to Fulham seems a bit suspect. I'm not sure of the validity of this Fulham rumor but based on Ottomar Hitzfeld's resume he's a better choice than sweatpants. (Goal.com)

There were a 145 goals during the 64 matches at the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. The folks at theoffside.com have put together all the goals in one video. Which goals are your favorites of the tournament?

And apparently will eat your continent.

See More @ Nike Write the Future Photo Stream

It's 4:27 an I can say I have a bit of World Cup withdrawal. Im doing all the same things I've normally done, I've got my black iced coffee (i know, but it's too hot for regular coffee and I don't get down on cream and sugar). As I sit and recall the last month of soccer I was able to watch the best I can do to fill the void is put together my team of the tournament. The days after the World Cup serves as good opportunity to think about what we learned, who we should watch, who is passed their prime, and what could lie ahead (more of these thoughts to follow in a later post). But one thing I will reveal about what we learned is that for the time being the 4-4-2 might be dead. So to usher in the increasingly popular 5 man midfield I will present SWTCF's team of the tournament in a 3-5-2 formation.

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Spain walks away with the World Cup and the Fair Play Award.

Diego Forlan Uruguay wins Golden Ball (Best Player of Tournament) and joins the following company in World Cup history.

World Cup	Golden Ball	Silver Ball	Bronze Ball
1982 Spain	Paolo Rossi	Falcão	Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
1986 Mexico	Diego Maradona	Harald Schumacher	Preben Elkjær
1990 Italy	Salvatore Schillaci	Lothar Matthäus	Diego Maradona
1994 USA	Romário	Roberto Baggio	Hristo Stoichkov
1998 France	Ronaldo	Davor Šuker	Lilian Thuram
2002 Korea/Japan	Oliver Kahn	Ronaldo	Hong Myung-Bo
2006 Germany	Zinedine Zidane	Fabio Cannavaro	Andrea Pirlo
2010 South Africa	Diego Forlán	Wesley Sneijder	David Villa

Thomas Müller becomes the 2nd straight German to win Best Young Player (2006 Lucas Podolski)

Müller also becomes the 2nd straight German (Klose) to wins the Golden Boot (Leading Scorer) 5 goals (3 assists for Müller served as tiebreaker between Diego Forlan and David Villa