Ugly win over Azerbaijan shows US team has some work to do

As the United States Men's National Team (USMNT) trudged off the pitch following 45 minutes of soccer at Candlestick Park in a pre-World Cup tuneup match against lowly Azerbaijan here on Tuesday night, the team's dominant first half against Mexico some eight weeks before seemed nothing but a vague memory.

Sure, U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann trotted out a diamond midfield formation similar to the one that wreaked a half of havoc on Mexico on April 2. Sure, after last week's painful cuts that included American soccer legend Landon Donovan, Klinsmann had his final 23-man World Cup squad playing its first official game together. Sure, Azerbaijan was supposed to be an easy practice match before the World Cup's lethal Group G.

But through 45 minutes in San Francisco, none of that mattered. The U.S. looked sluggish as Azerbaijan played conservative defense and the first half ended in a nil-nil tie. The team's star striker, Jozy Altidore, looked overeager for kind whistles from the refs. The Americans who showed the most signs of life — Chris Wondolowksi, Graham Zusi and Alejandro Bedoya — are role players, not the guys who will have to carry the U.S. team through a tough group-stage draw.

In the second half, finally, a pair of goals would come. After the game Klinsmann called the contest "exactly what we needed at this point."

The top level of Candlestick Park's press box offers a prime view of the "49ers Ring of Honor," a series of tributes that circles the top of the stadium and pays homage to Joe Montana, Steve Young, Ronnie Lott and other players who helped lead the red-and-gold to five Super Bowl titles when it called Candlestick home in the 1980s and 90s.

As a young man traveling the world in 1987, a Brit named Jon Champion visited this magnificently decrepit cement monolith for a look at American football. On Wednesday night, more than two decades into a professional broadcasting career that started at the BBC, Champion made his first trip back. The mission: To call his first game for ESPN's U.S. audience and prepare for his role as play-by-play man for matches from Brazil in June and July.

Later, inside ESPN's impressively decked-out production truck, producer Chris Alexopoulos would feed Champion cues and notes on upcoming promos and breaks. But the press box an hour before kickoff was a place for rehearsal, preparation and Sportscenter teaser segments. Champion opened a folder to show me his handwritten pre-match notes: Notes on the two teams, notes on important players, notes on referees, notes on broadcast partner Taylor Twellman and other notes he'd make note of during the night's ESPN2 broadcast.

"This is all done in a very different way from the way we'd do it in Europe," said Champion, who used to call soccer for ESPN's United Kingdom version. "From the lines of command, to the the way the pictures are cut, it's quite useful to go through now, rather than at the World Cup for the first time."

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. With 16 days until the World Cup starts on June 12, Klinsmann and company didn't come to Candlestick to get a win, per se. They came to get ready.

Bakudaily.az