Yes, I had to break out a face palm picture for this one, folks.

ZzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oh, I’m sorry. You caught me catching a little shut eye. After all, the match between the USMNT and Canada Tuesday kind of put me to sleep. Okay, “kind of” is a very polite term in this instance. Let’s be honest, most of us want that 90+ minutes of our lives back, thank you very much.

I’m not going to go through and pick this game a part because, well, where do I begin? And if you watched it, why would I want to make you relive that? Some might think such an attitude toward a friendly against Canada is a bit over the top or too dramatic. Some might think USMNT fans have too high of standards for their team in this particular situation. But I think the truth of the matter boils down to this.

This match came at the end of a long January camp, where the players were asked to come together in a short amount of time and prove themselves – something that is asked of rookie and veteran national team players alike. This friendly was the stage for them to say “Hey Jurgen, over here man, look at me!” And not a single one of them took that opportunity to its fullest.

The U.S. Men’s National Team plays its first World Cup Qualifying Hexagonal match in eight days. Against Honduras. IN Honduras. This is not a drill, people, this is game time. World Cup 2014 is just a little  more than a year away from us. And we just had a group of possible future players not even show up tonight. Okay, that might be too harsh. Some of them did.

Omar Gonzalez
Benny Feilhaber
Joshua Gatt

I like you three. Quite a lot right now, considering the few other players out there kicking some butt were Dwayne De Rosario and Kyle Bekker for the Canadians. So at least a few of the USMNT players put in – or attempted to put in some good shifts.

But really guys, did we need this before the next stage of World Cup qualifying? There are so many other issues that need worked on – the centerback issues, the finishing in the final third issues, Klinsmann realizing that 4-3-3 isn’t going to do what he really wants it to and we Americans kind of like the 4-4-2.

I guess it’s just my disappointment rambling, I don’t know. Do I think they didn’t work hard? Of course not; I’m sure they ran their butts off in camp. But it didn’t translate. That’s what’s so disconcerting.  I didn’t expect them to go out there and win 6-nil, and Hell, I might have even been happy with the 0-0 had they shown a little passion, a little initiative,  a little promise. But they didn’t. They were dull, uninspiring, uncreative and just generally boring. I wanted more. I expected more. And really, they should have delivered.