Yeah, Spain was a big surprise for me. I think that England is going to join them on the plane home after today's game. Given current form (and maybe desire), you may have a bit more national pride to carry around after your boys slap Spain around for 90 mins :0)
I'm with you, it certainly seems like Donovan should still be at or near the top of his game. Other than the game that I attended there was a small bit in one news story that mentioned that in the past Donovan had dominated on one of the physical fitness tests that our national team uses, but that in the run-up to this cup he fell well short of those previous results. If true, this certainly lends credence to the coach making the right call. Most people seem to be on the extremes of the issue, they give full support either to Donovan's skill or to Klinsmann's coaching. Either way, as you said, we are a bit thin at forward at this point and maybe Donovan could have helped. The counterpoint is that Klinsmann designed his strategy around having a big, physical forward to hold the ball. Altidore is the only forward in our system that could fill that role. We have a couple other taller forwards that weren't included in the team, but they don't have the physical stature or necessarily the skills to play that style. So, even if Donovan or one of those other guys had been called in, I think that we would still be facing a problem at this point since we either have to slot someone into a role that they cannot effectively play or change the strategy to something that they haven't been practicing.
Just to put an additional layer of second guessing onto the pile...we have two or three guys in Brazil that may or may not have deserved a spot. I would like to reserve judgment until we see how far the team can go and if those guys have either a positive or negative effect, but from the outside it doesn't look good.
