By Graig Carbino - ALBANY, NY (Mar 15, 2009) USSoccerPlayers -- It seems that far too often soccer fans, real soccer fans that is, think that their favorite sport is the be all, end all. They can’t watch pro baseball or the NFL because their precious free time is already devoted to the beautiful game. For the rest of us that have varied sporting interests, this time of year is our favorite part of the calendar.
Major League Baseball spring training is finally starting to wear down and the real games will kick off very soon. The NBA and NHL (who?) are moving through the second halves of their seasons and playoff races are tightening up all around the country. From a personal perspective, it really doesn’t get much better than the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament.
“March Madness” at its finest brings Cinderella stories and near misses to US living rooms for a few early spring weekends each year. You might not be able to get into hoops on a regular basis but if you cant get into the excitement of Siena beating the SEC’s Vanderbilt from last years tourney I feel bad for you.
We love underdogs in our game as well. We root for guys like Ronaldinho who came from poor upbringings only to succeed on the World stage. We cheered for Trinidad and Tobago when they managed to eek out a draw with Sweden in the last World Cup. Everyone loves the little guy, that’s true in life and in sports.
To pull all of this tournament fervor into our realm, we decided to put together a little March bracket of our own. Here is the idea: We’ll rank US players currently getting it done across the pond 1-16. Your usual suspects like Dempsey and Howard will obviously be involved. You can have some input as well if you think a ranking or two are way out of line.
After everyone is ranked, we (and you) decide who wins each match-up. The winners are determined based on what they have done up to this point in the season AND what we (and you) think they will do for the rest of their respective campaigns. One faces sixteen; two matches up with fifteen and so on down the line. We’ll play this out over the next few weeks and crown a winner at the end.
Obviously voting and winners/losers are highly subjective. This is meant to be fun so stay away from any USSoccerPlayers bracket office pools that might be floating around. Here is how we see one through sixteen to get things under way:
| 1. Clint Dempsey | 8. Jonathan Spector |
| 16. Sal Zizzo | 9. Maurice Edu |
| 2. Brad Friedel | 7. Steve Cherundolo |
| 15. Frank Simek | 10. DaMarcus Beasley |
| 3. Tim Howard | 6. Michael Bradley |
| 14. Luis Robles | 11.Jozy Altidore |
| 4. Carlos Bocanegra | 5. Oguchi Onyewu |
| 13. Freddy Adu | 12. Danny Szetela |
That is the first crack at what the pairings could look like. Note: Nothing as crazy as the RPI was used to select seeds. We thought about it for a few minutes and wrote the names in. Dempsey goes to number one because he has skyrocketed off the Fulham bench and is quickly turning into one of their most important players. Friedel is at number two because he is absolutely tearing things up in goal for Aston Villa this season.
Tim Howard slots in at number three because Everton barely signed anyone this off-season and they are still pushing for a European place. He seems to pull off a shutout almost every other game and, well, we think he’s good. Bocanegra comes in fourth because he starts every week for Rennes in France in his second favorite position (left back) and his form has been immaculate this season.
Five spot goes to Onyewu because he is the absolute stalwart of the Standard Liege back line in Belgium and, to be honest, we are afraid he might read this and not be very happy with a lower slot in the order. Six goes to Michael Bradley who has been coming on as of late for Monchengladbach in Bavaria.
Steve Cherundolo fills out the seventh slot because he is so consistent with Hannover and will always be in the line-up barring an injury. 8th spot goes to Jonathan Spector of West Ham United. He hasn’t played a ton this season because of nagging injuries but we expect big things out of the Illinois native as the season pushes forward.
Nine and ten goes to Maurice Edu and DaMarcus Beasley of Rangers in Scotland. Both have played some, but need more time to move up the list. Still, we can’t really call these national teamer’s true underdogs.
Spots 11, 12 and 13 go to a few young US national team players in Jozy Altidore, Danny Szetela and Freddy Adu. They all need more playing time to show their true potential. These three are ranked in the order that we see them heading in from now until the end of the season. Altidore should help Xerex, Szetela will play some for Brescia and Adu needs to work real hard for minutes with Monaco.
Fourteen goes to Luis Robles who is quietly having a real nice season in goal for Kaiserslautern. He took over in goal for the injured Tobias Sippel and hasn’t looked back since. Slot 15 is reserved for Sheffield Wednesday’s Frank Simek who has battled through injury for over a year and finally appears to be healthy. Sal Zizzo rounds out the field at number 16. Zizzo is a nice prospect that might have to wait until next year to truly impress with Hannover 96.
So there you have it. 1-16 and it’s time for a little Madness. Let us know what you think. Who did we leave out? Who should be ranked higher? Lower? We’ll take some suggestions and adjust accordingly, then we need to know who wins the match-ups and why. Have your say below and let's have some fun.
