If you thought the U.S. national team had lost any of its confidence during its three-game tour prior to its World Cup qualifying series with Barbados, then guess again.
The USA's impressive performance in their scoreless tie on Sunday at Giants Stadium with Argentina, the top-ranked men's team in the world, had to squelch anyone's doubts as to whether they are prepared for their next challenge.
Goalkeeper Tim Howard undoubtedly was at the top of his game, holding off the goal-hungry Argentineans in the early going with seven first-half saves -- some of them spectacular -- before the rest of his teammates helped to pitch in in the final half.
As the game wore on, the 21st-ranked U.S. got stronger, possessed the ball more, attacked more and had a couple of close encounters that could have swung the international friendly their way and made major international headlines.
Even though the U.S. failed to win a game or score a goal on the tour, Sunday night's result was encouraging. The U.S. started off on the wrong foot, playing poorly in a 2-0 loss at Wembley to No. 9 England May 28. They improved in a 1-0 defeat to fourth-ranked Spain in Santander June 4 before Sunday night's surprising result.
"I thought the performance was very good," said Howard, the USA's man of the match. "If you look over the last three games, we've gotten better and better. We played to a high level. If we can do that against Barbados, I'm quite confident we'll get the job done. We made ourselves accountable, we didn't back down and we stuck our foot in every challenge."
In fact, the U.S. players sounded quite confident entering the Barbados matches.
"It's great for team confidence, obviously," midfielder Freddy Adu said. "We were a little bit disappointed in the last two games, but getting this tie against the No. 1 ranked team in the world is awesome. I think we really deserved a tie and in some ways we might have even deserved a win because we created some great chances at the end of the game."
Added midfielder Clint Dempsey: "We've prepared ourselves as well as we could. We just need to go into that game next week with the same mind set that we showed these past few weeks and I think things will take care of themselves."
If you want to get technical, when you put Barbados -- the 121st-ranked team in the world -- up against Argentina, it is like comparing apples to watermelons.
After playing in three consecutive matches in which the team was the overwhelming underdogs, the U.S. sees itself in a new position vs. Barbados -- the overwhelming favorites. If the U.S. doesn't win and advance to the CONCACAF semifinals, which begin in August, it will be considered an upset of epic proportions.
The U.S. is trying to qualify for their unprecedented sixth successive World Cup. Barbados advanced to the CONCACAF semifinals during the 2002 qualifying competition.
So, Barbados definitely will offer the U.S. another challenge. The Caribbean side is expected to pack it in during the first leg of the series at The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. on Sunday (ESPN, 5 p.m. ET).
The fewer goals Barbados allows on the road, the better it will be for the Caribbean side.
U.S. coach Bob Bradley undoubtedly will remind his team what transpired four years ago, when Grenada packed it in against the U.S. and made the hosts sweat in Columbus, Ohio in their aggregate-goals first leg. The USA managed a 3-0 victory, scoring twice in stoppage time.
If you host the first leg, goals -- preferably lots of them -- are mandatory to avoid a potential road upset in the second leg. With a three-goal margin entering the second game in 2004, the U.S. rolled to a 3-0 advantage en route to a 3-2 victory in Grenada.
"It puts a premium on our ability to be good with the ball, our ability to vary our attack," Bradley said. "You have to always in these games to find some balance between pushing the tempo but also being patient. We've had games like that in the past. Even though we've played three very different teams in a row, we can still use the experiences we've had in the past against teams that will sit back a little bit more and use that to be ready for the first game against Barbados."
Bradley, who plans to field as strong a team as possible against Barbados, also will try to find solutions to some of the a pair of his team's most pressing concerns -- getting more creativity from the midfield and finding someone who can score up front.
"When you play against a team like England or Spain, you don't expect to get a dozen chances in those games," Bradley said. "You get a couple. We had a couple in those games. We still feel there's a lot of improvement to be done -- understanding, timing, the right passes at the right time and just pure finishing. It gets worked on with the players that are in and there's a constant (search) for other players who we think are ready to step in and challenge for a position."
Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516@aol.com. Views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
