I’m watching a replay of the Bayern-Lille Champion’s League game. And with a central midfield of Javi Martinez, Bastian Schweinsteiger, and Toni Kroos, Bayern has the sort of possession based, tempo setting lineup that could (maybe?) think about going toe to toe with Barcelona. Especially when you toss in Lahm, who right now is a better fullback than Alves, and Ribery who likes Iniesta right now, except he plays wide rather than centrally and has a burst of pace that Iniesta lacks.

Should note that Javi hasn’t really grown into the team yet. At Bilbao he was a combination of Franz Beckenbauer and Andrea Pirlo. But the generalissimo role he played there belongs to Schweinsteiger at Bayern. The logical solution is to let the German player push a little higher while Javi plays the regista but that shift will take time.

Hyperbole? Probably. There’s a freaking hurricane! I’m bored.

Roberto Mancini was let go by the management at Inter Milan for his failure to do enough in the Champion’s League. He was a near sure thing to lead the side to domestic titles, with AC Milan on a downward stretch (which is now threatening to become less merely downward and more downright plummetous) and Juventus taken down by dubious match-fixing scandals, but never seemed to really threaten the big guys to reach the next level.

But he was a good bet for the oil-rich sheikhs to take on at Manchester City. He knew how to handle expensively assembled teams and could achieve that critical first step of domestic dominance. He was also a good bet to flounder when it came to big matches in European competition.

Mancini doesn’t know how to take it to the next level. And when he tries, the results are often tragicomic.

For a stretch at Inter Milan, he knew that the talented and egotistical striker, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, could get them the points, week in and week out in those workaday games the team needed to win to stay top of the league. But come those midweek games in the Champion’s League, when every game is against the best teams each league has to offer, where every team has the players and tactical nous to isolate Ibrahimovic, he stumbled regularly.

And it’s happening again.

When Jose Mourinho took over Inter Milan, he got rid of the big striker in favor of harder working, team players who, while less outrageously skillful, would also buy into a tactical scheme designed to build create multiple danger points so that opposing teams would struggle to close down them all.

Mancini has done some important things. Reinventing Yaya Toure as a new kind of no. 10, surging from deep as what some commentators have taken to calling a ‘plongeur’ (plunger), using physical force to drive through and create space. Toure also uses his underrated passing skills, but he’s certainly no artiste de pass like your classical trequartista (Totti, Zidane, Sneijder).

But mainly, he has depended on a handful of super talented players to bail the team out. When the player he’s depending on has a bad game or worse, a bad patch, he is at a loss for ideas.

Actually, that’s not true. He has ideas. Just bad ones. The only good idea he ever has is to toss Edin Dzeko onto the field and hope the talented striker bails him out. Mancini has famously been experimenting with a 3-5-2 formation. While he theoretically has the players for it, the players never looked prepped for it, with the result that the team looks scared and uncertain.

He knows he needs to take the team to the next level, where they can go toe to toe with the best teams in the world with something approaching regularity. He’s not doing that and he’s taken the approach of throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks. They’re not sticking.

I sat down with some soup and cheap table wine and later some cheese and crackers to watch the USA-Jamaica rematch. And it was much more fun than last time, I can assure you.

Obviously, there was Clint Dempsey making that face (see video):

But there was also some nice tactical decisions by Klinsmann to get the some good, intelligent play out of his team, as well as address the tactical issues of the last game.

Dempsey was kept in a central role behind the striker (though he tended to drop deeper than last game).

Zusi and Torres were kept on the wings, but rather than playing as traditional wingers, running up and down the sidelines, burning the field with pace, the took on a slower roles, more focused on tempo than speed. They played operated as outlets on the wing, slowing the play down and picking out passes. They maybe played a little narrowly, but definitely as outside midfielders.

Actually, that’s very similar to the 4-2-2-2 formation that Klinsmann’s predecessor, Bob Bradley played. But Bradley played Donovan and Dempsey as the middle ‘2.’ They played as somewhat narrow wide midfielders, but each is more of a driving player, using acceleration, quick first touches, and the ability to ghost in the area to attack. Zusi and Torres played much slowly, focusing on possession and also being more willing to play longer passes (though not long balls, per se).

In the midfield, only Danny Williams was tasked to stay deep and defend, while Jermaine Jones stayed around the center circle.

For the first time in a long time, Torres looked good for the USMNT. He was a steady, patient outlet for teammates who were under pressure and played some decent balls into dangerous areas. He wasn’t as good as Zusi, but Zusi benefitted by playing with Steve Cherundulo behind him at fullback, whose smart runs gave Zusi a lot more cover cut inside slightly while Cherundulo overlapped. Fabian Johnson on the left didn’t make nearly as man good runs from fullback, so Torres had to be more careful about coming inside.

I didn’t get anything I wanted last time. Let’s hope tonight is better, else we’re looking at potentially missing out on the 2014 World Cup and there is no excuse for either the US or Mexico to miss out because of the relative weakness of our group. Seriously. Every four years, CONCACAF needs to send us, Mexico, and then one or two other random teams (probably some combination of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Jamaica, and Canada).

A lot of folks pointed out that the UMNT lacked width  against a team that doubled up on width by playing a hyper-aggressive 3-4-3 (with two wide midfielders/wingbacks and two wide forwards).

But I’m going to give Klinsmann some leeway here, because we simply lacked the players. Only Brek Shea, Clint Dempsey, and Fabian Johnson were healthy and also (reasonably) natural wide players (albeit, with different interpretations of the role). But Dempsey almost certainly lacked the match fitness to run up and down the sidelines for the game (who, in one obvious failure by Klinsmann, should never have been asked to play the full match) and Johnson was needed to help with our lack of decent left fullbacks.

So Klinsmann made a justifiable choice in trying to play through the middle. If done well, the Jamaican strength on the wings could have been nullified by putting pressure on their back line and forcing the midfielders to drop back and cause the team to lose it’s attacking shape.

We played in 4-3-1-2 formation (sometimes also called a 4-4-2 diamond, in reference to the diamond shape of the midfield), but we lacked the players (or the players lacked the instruction or the will) to play in the necessary style to make the formation work.

Dempsey could work as a trequartista, but it doesn’t seem like a completely natural role and he wasn’t match fit – which means that the key to the entire offensive output was put in the hands of someone who was almost certain to run out of gas and whose touch was likely to be a little bit off.

But he shouldn’t have been the key to the offense. There were three players behind him who should have been doing something useful, but weren’t.

Kyle Beckerman has long been one of my favorite MLS players. With his smart play, leadership, and those awesome dreadlocks, what’s not to love? But he is not of sufficient quality to play for the national team. And, at his age (29 or 30, I think), he never will. On paper, he seems like a great, deep lying midfielder; primarily there to break up attacks and make those tackles and interceptions, but also with an admirable passing range. The problem is that he has not shown that he can handle the speed at which these games are played. He gave away possession and conceded too many free kicks, plain and simple.

Jermaine Jones, on paper, sounded like a great addition, too. An experienced, hard nosed midfielder with experience playing as a regular in one of the Europe’s top leagues. But all he’s done for his national team is give away stupid fouls, spend entire games looking like a red card waiting to happen, give the ball away, and generally show decision making skills so insidiously bad that you assume there is some complex, Illuminati-esque plot at work behind it all, because, seriously, no one with his pedigree could play so consistently bad for his country and continue to be picked to play, right? I mean, that would be just crazy, wouldn’t it?

Maurice Edu is a player with huge upside and I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt because, while I can’t remember much he did, he couldn’t have had much time for anything else besides trying to staunch the hemorrhaging wound that was the other two thirds of the central midfield.

So, what do I want to see?

I want to see Dempsey not being forced to shoulder the entire burden for the offense and coming on as a substitute in the second half, rather than starting.

I want to see Maurice Edu played as the deepest midfielder, with Danny Williams and Jose Torres playing just in front – Williams being tasked with shuttling up and down the field, staying in motion and helping the defense and Torres spreading the ball around from a midfield position and also taking positions to allow him to be outlet to receive a pass and keep possession with other players are under pressure. I also want to see what Joe Corona can do by putting him on in the second half (probably for Torres, if we’re leading; instead of Williams or Edu if we’re not).

I want to see our three attackers bring some width and give our main strike, Jozy Altidore, some service by some combination of playing Hercules Gomez (and asking him to play wide, but knowing he’ll cut in and use his movement to create space for Altidore) and/or Graham Zusi (who will drift centrally and act more like a playmaker, but without the burden of being asked to play as a trequartista) and/or Brek Shea (to be a more traditional wide player, using speed, acceleration, and crossing ability to torment defenses).

Speaking of Graham Zusi, he’s been amazing for Kansas City in MLS and Klinsmann needs to give him a solid run out and see what he can do. He did a decent job for us in a friendly; some nerves, but that’s to be expected.

Of course, I’d rather not be having to do any of this in what is very nearly a must-win match, but the team is low on options. We could do a 4-4-2 with Shea on the left and a either a half fit and probably tired Dempsey on the right, but the options for substitutions are limited and would probably require changing formations half way through the game. Not ideal.

Oh, and finally, I want to see a g-d damn win!