Sweden 1 USA 0

The USA soccer team played Sweden in a friendly this afternoon and lost 1-0. Here are my player ratings for USA: Starters: -Tim Howard - 8.0 - made 2 or 3 good saves and didn't have much of a chance to stop Sweden's goal. He's really solid, which is nice after watching Paul Robinson (for England) and Jens Lehmann (Arsenal) make some horrible goalkeeping mistakes in recent games. -Jon Bornstein - 7.5 - stood out as our best defender today, though he never looked very dangerous coming forward. -Oguchi Onewyu - 6.0 - he fouls too much and is occasionally out of position but he actually did a decent job with a very tough matchup against Ibrahimovic in this game. -Carlos Bocanegra - 4.0 - out of position too often and doesn't have the speed to make up for it. I think he might be the type of guy who is good in Concacaf but struggles against better competition (him being at fault for both goals Arsenal scored against Fulham last weekend backs up this theory). -Steve Cherundolo - 4.0 - he is normally solid but looked overmatched physically today. -Michael Bradley - 3.0 - also looked overmatched, really didn't do much of anything. I really wish he wasn't the coach's son so Ricardo Clark would have a real shot to start in the center of the midfield. -Benny Feilhaber - 4.0 - also had a bad game but was playing out of position as a winger for much of the time. -Pablo Mastroeni - 7.5 - noticed his value way more after he was subbed out at half-time. They had almost no sustained possession in the first half with Mastro in there wreaking havoc, but with him on the bench in the 2nd half, we went through several minutes-long stretches where we didn't touch the ball. Very important player. -DaMarcus Beasley - 6.0 - looked dangerous in the first half but also blew a great opportunity in the first few minutes. I'm encouraged by his recent play, he's looking more and more like the pre-injury Beasley of a few years ago who was starting in the champions league semifinal for PSV. Also encouraging that he looks to have a regular spot with Rangers. -Landon Donovan - 2.0 - I want to give him a zero but that probably wouldn't be fair. The reason his rating is so low is because he is our best and most important player so he's held to a higher standard. When he plays like he did today where he's basically invisible and never really gets into the game, we basically have no attack. It sucks that such a talented guy is so inconsistent and is such a little bitch. -Clint Dempsey - 6.0 - played way out of position essentially as a lone striker. He looked dangerous with the ball at his feet but for some inconceivable reason we kept playing the ball in the air to him like he's Brian fucking McBride - I don't think he won a header the entire game. I blame Bob Bradley for this - we should've been keeping it on the ground and using our speed and the 1 on 1 ability of guys like Donovan, Dempsey, and Beasley. Clint did miss a great chance when he scuffed a one-time shot from 8 yards out but I thought in all he did pretty well given a tough situation. Sucks that our forwards are so bad that we have to play Donovan and Dempsey out of position so often now. We really need Eddie Johnson to step up (and Jozy Altidore to get called up). Bench -Bobby Convey - 6.0 - looked rusty but he was back out there and didn't get hurt which is the most important thing. If Dempsey is going to be stuck at forward then Convey should have a good shot at the starting wing position opposite Beasley. Hopefully he can also get some time with Reading where it seems like Stephen Hunt may have taken his spot in the 9 months or so he's been out with injury. It sucks since Reading has turned out to be such a solid team and Convey was one of their stars when they got promoted to the EPL two years ago. -Kamani Hill - 7.5 - out of the random young attackers who got in, he looked the best by far. -Sal Zizzo, Charlie Davies - both came off the bench and did nothing of note for the 15 or so minutes they played. -Jay DeMerit, Jon Spector - 5.0 - both were solid but unspectacular. In all, it was a pretty mediocre performance. We looked dangerous at times and had 3 very good chances that we didn't finish (Beasley, Dempsey from close range, Bradley header saved) but never had any sort of sustained attack. Watching us play then watching England/Germany (with both teams having several of their best players out no less) really emphasized for me how often we waste possession - I think this is the biggest difference between us and the really good teams. Our defense looked shaky at times, mainly because we couldn't handle Zlatan, but we didn't look terrible there either, just mediocre. Not a terrible performance, but far from a great one. Last thought, after watching all the Gold Cup games and friendlies, I feel like I'm finally getting a feel for the new players. My preferred starting 11 at this point, with everyone completely healthy, would be: Howard in goal, Cherundolo at rightback, Onewyu and Gibbs in the center of the defense, Bornstein at leftback (nice find by Bob Bradley), Dempsey and Beasley on the wings (with Convey in the picture as well), Mastro and Clark as the central midfielders (if Clark doesn't work out, I prefer in order 1) Feilhaber 2) putting Convey in as a winger and using Donovan as a central midfielder and Dempsey as an attacking midfielder/forward, and 3) Bradley), Donovan attacking mid/withdrawn forward, Eddie Johnson up top (and hopefully Jozy Altidore challenging for this spot soon).