Where Are They Now? USMNT Edition

Image via Complex Original

Age: 35

Current Club: Everton

FIFA Rating: 82

The “Secretary of Defense” isn’t quite down from his World Cup high. After being given the greatest goalkeeping nickname ever, Howard has enjoyed a late-career renaissance. Four months ago, Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan were the two faces of the USMNT that were preparing for the World Cup. Since, Donovan’s been cut, Dempsey has seized the American soccer mantle, and Tim Howard has charged into the level of star who appears in Marriott ad campaigns. That's amazing.

He parlayed an amazing performance against Belgium into a huge window of opportunity for that second stage of life: One as a regular dude who can no longer excel at a thing they got famous and rich for. It’s opened quickly too. Howard has now got a memoir on the way and has a fat new contract that’ll keep him playing through his 39th birthday. He’ll retire once that contract is done, then he’ll slide right into more announcing gigs, and maybe go on Dancing With the Stars. What a life.

He’s even cool enough to reject hugs from strangers, and announce that he’s going to chill out and leave the USMNT for a year. He’ll miss the Gold Cup and have to earn his spot back, which should be simple, as there’s no young hotshot keeper in the pipeline. Brad Guzan is good, and five years younger than Howard, but Howard’s way tougher. With Everton playing European soccer this season, Howard’s fitness and ability should continue to advance in ways that only afflict dope keepers (See: Edwin van der Sar, the man whose play coincidently pushed Howard out of Manchester United’s squad). Howard isn’t likely to get chopped like Donovan did after he took a leave of absence from the USMNT. The road ahead for Howard: cashing checks and chasing the Champions League.

Age: 21

Current Club: Hertha Berlin

FIFA Rating: 71

Every restaurant owner in America owes John Anthony Brooks one dinner. Should that happen (it should), 2014 would be a fantastic time to date Brooks—free dinner, anywhere in America, whenever. Brooks is an inspiration—he dreamed about scoring his winning goal against Ghana two days before it. The kid is a dreamer, and we’re all being dared to become believers.

Brooks wasn’t even at his full height when the United States U-23 team (basically the Triple-A ball club of the national team structure) first capped him in 2011. He’s a spindly kid at 6-4, but weighing in at just over 170 pounds, he can definitely get his weight up and become yoked. He’ll spend this season starting for top-flight German club Hertha Berlin and eating schnitzel until he grows to a dominating playing weight.

Age: 19

Current Club: Hamburger SV (on loan from Bayern Munich)

FIFA Rating: 67

Julian Green “da Gawd” is in good company. There aren’t a lot of teenagers who’ve scored in the World Cup. Lionel Messi, Pele, Tostao, and Jose Altafini are among the 18 who have that bullet on their CV. Green is 19, which can either be an excuse or something to tout (we don’t know).

The Bayern Munich-owned Green will spend his season on loan at Hamburger SV. A full season of top flight soccer in one of Europe’s big four leagues makes him part of an even more inclusive club. If Green can simply survive the season in one piece (he has all of 24 club appearances to his name), that’d be, well, really damned impressive for a 19-year-old who wasn’t even a professional soccer player when Jurgen Klinsmann took the U.S. job.

But truth be told, Green is out of the promise bin. He’s positioned to make an impact quickly, whether it be on loan or back at Bayern.

Age: 27

Current Club: Sporting KC

FIFA Rating: 73

See this guy? Remember his face? It’s because after all of those last-ditch clearances in the United States’ final third, the camera would cut to an exasperated Besler, who would look like he’d seen an attempted murder. In Brazil, Besler asserted himself as a competent and intelligent international defender, becoming the United States’ leader at the back.

English Premier League clubs Sunderland and Fulham made moves for Besler after the World Cup. He rejected all outside offers to continue captaining Sporting Kansas City—a safe, but respectable move. It’s a missed opportunity for Besler, but leaving second-placed Sporting KC for the dread and drool of Sunderland and Fulham isn’t for everyone. 

Age: 27

Current Club: Borussia Monchengladbach

FIFA Rating: 74

Fabian Johnson is a prototypical modern fullback. He’s a powerful winger with bags of pace, and he’s also aware of his commitments at the back. Before he went down against Belgium, Johnson was the USMNT’s best 1v1 player. Defenders couldn’t contain his dribbles and speed.

This season, he’ll continue to solider away at German club Borussia Monchengladbach. Barcelona showed interest in signing him after the World Cup (someone had a nice run of form in Brazil). It’s safe to say that Johnson may be spending his last season in Germany.

Age: 32

Current Club: Houston Dynamo

FIFA Rating: 65

DaMarcus Beasley is the only surviving member of the 2002 World Cup squad, which speaks to how much we’ve improved as a soccer nation in 12 years. Although the past three American World Cup teams haven’t advanced further in the tournament than that 2002 team, the current talent pool is superior to a generation of players who should be coming down from their primes. Jermaine Jones and Kyle Beckerman are the same age as Beasley, but the former is a Champions League midfielder, and the latter just got invited to the party like yesterday. Neither were involved in 2002.

We’ve made our existing players better and, in Jones’ case, have gone out of our way to haul in exciting dual-nationals. As the last man standing from the 2002 squad, Beasley’s resilience is a testament to his own ability to reinvent himself and adapt as his once-blinding pace has dissipated. Beasley’s a step slower these days, but he can still defend his position at leftback and get forward well.

Beasley came back to the MLS to play for the Houston Dynamo after the World Cup. He’ll make $780,000 this season, which makes him one of the top 20 paid players in the league. Not a bad swan song for him. 

Age: 28

Current Club: Sporting KC

FIFA Rating: 73

“Zus God” and his amazing flow are—it feels so good to write this—now totally available for public consumption. Graham Zusi was a little-known MLS All-Star (with incredible hair) who was maybe going to get some playing time in Brazil. After putting in some classy passing displays, Big Z is widely known and loved. He assisted John Brooks on the Header Heard Around the Internet and played the final pass to Clint Dempsey against Portugal for the winner that wasn’t. His Wiki lore knows no bounds. He’ll keep bossing it up at Sporting KC, but he’s only 28 years old—it would be surprising to see him remain in MLS.

Age: 32

Current Club: Real Salt Lake

FIFA Rating: 74

One of the most encouraging parts of Jurgen Klinsmann’s tenure as USMNT overlord so far has been his willingness to bring exiled team members back into the fold. Beckerman was once seen as a representative of a type of player that we want to see less of in an American shirt. He tries hard, runs fast, and knows how to maintain possession. He’s not a needle-threading box-to-box man or a crunching tackler who can also pop up in attacking positions. Even as the USMNT will look to take Beckerman-like players and add more technical ability to them, his willingness to do the dirty work as a midfield pivot will keep its value.

Age: 24

Current Club: Sunderland

FIFA Rating: 74

As much as Jozy Altidore can sometimes suck for sustained periods of time, he’s often an important cog in the sides that do indeed feature him at center-forward. After he got injured immediately at the World Cup, the USMNT sorely missed their target man. Altidore’s physical, roaming presence would’ve carved out channels for the American attack to charge through. He’s kind of like the colossus titan in Attack on Titan. He smashes the wall down so dudes like the armored titan could bomb through and wreck things.

It’s too bad that doesn’t always lead to scoring club goals. For as decent as Altidore has been for his country (he scores about once every three matches), he’s been horrible for bigger clubs. In 62 English Premier League appearances, he has two goals. Hull City and Sunderland aren’t exactly desirable destinations for central strikers who need to be on the ball in dangerous positions, and as he’s proven in Holland (he bagged 51 goals during his two seasons with AZ Alkmaar) that he can score when given the right opportunities.

In summation: SOMEONE PLEASE SAVE JOZY FROM SUNDERLAND BECAUSE I DON’T THINK HE CAN SAVE HIMSELF. He needs consistent playing time, somewhere, and it’s just not going to be at Sunderland. Our 24-year-old Great American Striker deserves better.

Age: 32

Current Club: New England Revolution

FIFA Rating: 77

Here’s one American who has had a bit of a saga since coming home from Brazil. Jones, who had spent the prime of his career playing for Schalke 04 in Germany, decided to join MLS for the first time. As something of a midfield destroyer, Jones' size and dribbling ability make him a tank going forward. He’s a unique American talent who should be able to pick whichever MLS club will court him, right?

Unlike every other 21st century professional sports league, MLS rules don’t grant a true free agency to USMNT players who want to sign here. The league’s single-entity structure gives them power to “allocate” these players to teams with the required salary cap space. There’s no decision-making process for the player—if a team can afford him, that team has a chance at landing him.

In Jones’ case, he wound up with the New England Revolution because they won a blind draw against the Chicago Fire. Jones will be making $4.5 million through 2015, and frankly, an envelope-picking contest doesn’t seem like the smartest way to force a lucrative job on a person. Hopefully this sticky situation that resulted in Jones conveniently winding up at the club that’ll actually make the MLS playoffs won’t happen again.

Age: 27

Current Club: Toronto FC

FIFA Rating: 80

Alright, so we need to talk about Michael Bradley guys. The supposed “best American soccer player right now” had a lackluster World Cup. Every time the ball came to him, we grew nervous that Bradley would screw up. After halftime of the Portugal game, Bradley mysteriously lost his mojo. Jozy Altidore’s injury forced Bradley into a more advanced role out of necessity, and it proved to unsettle him. The U.S. needed him to become a playmaker in the final third and a supporting attacker for Clint Dempsey.

Even with Kyle Beckerman ruggedly controlling midfield from a sweeper position, Bradley’s heat map for the tournament shows him chilling at the halfway line most of the time, just to the right of Beckerman’s starting position. He’s nonexistent in the final third. I want the Michael Bradley who bombed forward against Slovenia in 2010. I want the version of Michael Bradley that is hooked up on sports drinks and Young Thug mixtapes. The Michael Bradley at the 2014 World Cup struggled to pass the ball forward.

Another concerning sign: He’s only scored once and assisted once in 19 games for Toronto FC this season. Bradley could probably use a loan spell to Germany, Holland, or England in the MLS offseason.

Age: 21

Current Club: Seattle Sounders (will be sold to Tottenham in 2015)

FIFA Rating: 68

DeAndre Yedlin is the future of American soccer, except he has arrived either a little late or too early (we don’t know). You know those rhetorical, “What if LeBron played tight end?” questions? Yedlin deserves a, “What if DeAndre Yedlin played baseball?” He’s too short for basketball, not lanky enough for track, and doesn’t have the frame to put on the additional 50 pounds needed to play football. Yedlin would be a five-tool player and baseball’s most athletic man—hands down. Once he gets a work permit, he’ll be off to Tottenham.

A lot depends on what he grasps over there. If—given that Tottenham has Kyle Walker entrenched at rightback and still has Kyle Naughton, Younes Kaboul, Adam Smith, and Eric Dier all competing for that favored backup rightback position—Yedlin is given a chance playing further up the field, he could be the winger that Tottenham needs.

If he doesn’t show some development in his midfield positioning and passing, he’ll be shuffled back to defense. I want him to become an engine on the right wing. He’ll be the most interesting USMNT member to track between now and 2018, when he’ll be a 25-year-old star at some position.

Age: 31

Current Club: Seattle Sounders

FIFA Rating: 81

Clint Dempsey is simply “The Dude.” He’s the highest paid American soccer player by over $1 million (he makes more than Landon Donovan and Tim Howard combined), and because he scored those sick goals in Brazil and took a bloody nose for the squad, everyone in America loves him.

Playing for the Seattle Sounders is cool and all, but Clint—pardon, “Deuce”—we need that rap album from you.