World Cup Points

The US had to come from behind to knock off El Salvador at home, a slightly worrying fact. In the three qualifiers before that, they lost to Mexico in Azteca (no shame there), but they also had to recover from a deficit against Honduras at home, and were blown out in Costa Rica. It seems as though beating Spain and giving Brazil all they could handle in the Confederations Cup has covered up an otherwise dreary six-month stretch for the American side. I like watching them better with Donovan playing a more midfield distributor role and Altidore up front (and I believe it was the beginning of this year when they switched primarily to said style), but I'm not sure it's made them better.

Argentina looked jittery and unsure of itself in the 3-1 home loss to Brazil. As has been the case the last few times they've played, Brazil's physicality seems to have bothered Argentina, and Messi didn't get as many touches as you'd like. I don't know how much of the blame should be laid at Maradona's feet, but the Argentines haven't exactly gelled under Diego's tutelage. Now they find themselves in an unenviable position: firing Diego while qualification is still a likelihood would throw the team into turmoil with only a few months to recover and would presumably provoke a public relations disaster. At the same time, how is it possible that a team with Argentina's talent looks like it is nowhere near ready to compete for the Cup next year?

Mexico's 3-0 win in San José was the best win for the national team since, since, since, I guess since the 6-0 win over Paraguay in the Copa America in 2007. Dos Santos keeps getting better and better, and figured prominently in every goal. It seemed weird at the time that Aguirre wasn't starting Guardado, but in retrospect that worked perfectly. I'd say the defense actually looks better without Rafa Márquez, whose offensive pretensions often slow the attack. It should also be pointed out that Mexico didn't really dominate the flow of the game, nor did they have dozens of quality chances: they just played tight defense, and took advantage of the few opportunities they saw, which is a lot more than could be said of el Tri under Sven-Goran.