Damian Secore and I worked together in San Bernardino in an earlier life. He always has been a soccer guy, courtesy of his English mother, I believe.

He was my co-driver on a hare-brained scheme from 2005, our “drive across Mexico to see the U.S. play a qualifier at Azteca” event. So he’s not only about Manchester United.

He had a long and very thoughtful take on the U.S. national team’s disaster at San Jose on Wednesday, and I believe it deserves a wider audience — which I will attempt to give it via its own entry.

This is all Damian, below.

It’s very hard for me to keep this brief after that pathetic attempt to play soccer and compete last night in San Jose, but I’m going to try my hardest. Having said that, brace yourself for one of my typical responses.

Let me first start by addressing the major, broader-view topics — 1) the U.S. is not #14 in the world, more like somewhere between #25-30; 2) the WC qualifying player pool is too large; 3) the U.S. needs to better stress the importance of playing well against the better teams; 4) without more money available in U.S. Soccer and MLS, and a better supply of coaching, this country will never advance deep into non-CONCACAF international tournaments (i.e. World Cup, Copa America, Confederations Cup).

Some of this is the player’s problem. Some of this falls on Bob Bradley. Some of this falls on U.S. Soccer. And with the way we have conducted soccer in this country, it makes me wonder whether the U.S. will forever have inherent disadvantages while trying to improve the on-field product.

Point 1 — The FIFA rankings system will always positively weight the U.S. and Mexico because of the regular competition it faces within CONCACAF. Of course, there’s little the U.S. can do about the rest of the CONCACAF minnows, but it is guilty of not going out of its way to play in the Copa America and to schedule friendlies against real soccer nations. No, hosting Sweden’s domestic league all-star team, sans Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the like, for three years running does not constitute real European competition. If you want to better yourself internationally, you have to make the effort. Travel to South America or Europe during their soccer calendars and play friendlies against the best players of those nations. It’s the only way you grow in skill, adopting a faster speed of mind to play and character/mental toughness. You want a preview of the Confererations Cup? Losses to Italy and Brazil while sitting back the entire match just to try to maintain some dignity in the scoreline. A toss-up against Egypt in the battle to avoid the Group cellar. The U.S. needs to take chances and make efforts to play the best competition as regularly as you can. Never turn down a Copa America invite. Play the B squad in the Gold Cup when it conflicts with a Copa America year. If it takes restructuring the MLS season to fit the international soccer calendar, do it.

2) It’s a bad idea to use this many different players in these World Cup qualifiers. I think only 5 field players have featured in each qualifier thus far. That means half of your lineup is changing from match to match, not to mention players are being asked to move around and play in different positions. How can you build cohesion and chemistry this way? It shouldn’t be difficult to determine your best 18, or 8-9 players that deserve to start every match and stick with them and make your best lineup stronger. Playing for the U.S. shouldn’t just be for anyone having put together a few good games recently with their MLS or tiny European club. Playing for your country is only for the true elite. Bradley is guilty, like many U.S. coaches before him, of tinkering with lineups, players’ positions and rosters far too much. Look and see how often the top nations in Europe and South America change their lineups in qualifying or tournaments. You can almost always count on the same 8-9 players in a starting lineup each match. World Cup qualifying is not the time to tinker and give players auditions. Yes, the U.S. will still get to South Africa next year because CONCACAF is among the weakest regions in the world. But when you are in the bottom half of teams within the field of 32 at the 2010 World Cup, you need to build your team for that World Cup group you are placed in now, not a month before the tournament.

3) It’s so funny to hear how some people will take the focus away of Wednesday’s terrible loss by saying, “We’ll be OK. We have a home match with Honduras Saturday. We’ll win that and we’ll be on track to qualify for 2010.” When you’re in CONCACAF, that shouldn’t be the issue because U.S. qualification is automatic.

The issue should be analyzing how you are playing against the caliber of teams that are World Cup-bound and getting your teams up for playing hard and intensely in those matches. When are these guys going to hold themselves accountable and examine the “how” they play the game and not just rest on the line, “don’t worry, we’ll qualify.” Not only did the U.S. not show up to play hard and work yesterday, but Bradley treated it as an experiment — let’s give Wynne his first qualifying start, let’s play Beasley out of position in defense. Let’s thaw out Mastroeni from the ice chamber and let him start. You don’t pick a World Cup environment in Costa Rica to perform this experiment, are you kidding me? Too many on this team are too soft, too young, intimidated on the road and doesn’t get what it means to play in World Cup matches. They think they are entitled to the berth. No one put in defensive challenges or went to ground to put in a tackle. Instead, they’ll probably sit back and complain to anyone listening that the turf was too hard.

Look at all 3 goals, which could have been disrupted if anyone had the heart will and physical mindset to challenge the Costa Rican dribblers. Beasley gets caught too high up field on the first goal. Wynne gets spun around and Onyewu is caught too far up the field on the second goal. Bradley defends flat-footed and lets the forward, whose back was turned to Bradley while dribbling away from the goal intially, circle him on the dribble for the third goal without even trying to chase him down, while Bocanegra stands there and lets him get off the shot without stepping up to challenge, put a foot or a tackle in before the shot. If Bradley was tired in the 70th minute and couldn’t be bothered to run while trying to defend in a 1-v-1 situation, then that’s on him for not being conditioned well enough to play at this level. Sub him out before you make observers wonder whether there is a Little League-type of nepotism happening within the ranks.

Games are dictated by a team’s midfield and Bradley/Mastroeni couldn’t have been softer and couldn’t hold the ball to save themselves. They were scared to put in challenges and lost the ball far too easily each time they were pressed. If it takes a 2nd half yellow card to get Bradley out of the lineup, then so be it.

If you haven’t taken notice of the signs that this team may not be internationally ready for the big stage, remind yourself that in the World Cup qualifying process over the last 8-9 months that they lost to Trinidad & Tobago, gave up a first-half goal at home to Cuba, gave up 2 goals to El Salvador and lost that match apart from the fact that El Salvador’s approach in managing a lead was so feeble, born out of the fact that El Sal is not used to winning matches, and here they give up 2nd- and 13th-minute goals to Costa Rica, which won’t even be a factor in the World Cup once it qualifies. Again, it should be about the how you play and not all about the result vs. CONCACAF weaklings. This team smacks of a lack of experience, leadership and knowing the heart and work ethic and desperately needs veteran direction. With the likes of McBride, Keller and Friedel internationally retired, it’s going to be very tough for Bradley to find enough veterans that he can put on a squad in the next year who can still play at this level and be around to influence the team. I suppose he was thinking about that veteran leadership question when he recalled Mastroeni, but his game is clearly past its international sell-by date.

4) Of course, I’ve always believed that we will continue to search for the answers as to why this team cannot move up a level to compete with the big boys until we bring in better coaches at every level to improve the collective technical skill and the thoughts and approach of how to play the game. I don’t think we can succeed until players out of high school or before can become part of a professional academy and not waste important, productive, formative years playing college soccer because that product just isn’t very good. Also, U.S. Soccer won’t seriously contend internationally until they spend some serious money on a coach and a full system structure of coaches within U.S. Soccer who have played and managed the game at the highest level, both club and country, and knows the mentality and style of play it takes to compete against the top teams. Through all of the coaches U.S. Soccer has gone through, the style and approach to the game has been the same: while defensive organization has been mostly solid, there has never been any semblance of building attack and creating dangerous possession. Possession continues to be lateral or backwards upon feeling the slightest sense of pressure, diagonal balls forward between the midfield and forward channels are still scarce and we are still waiting to develop the types of players that can carry the ball at defenders, take them on and beat them in order to create opportunities. The U.S. never holds a decent presence in attack on the road against a decent opponent, or home or away against competition that is equal or greater to itself. Go back and count the ‘quality’ opportunities to score last night. There weren’t any inside the penalty area. Zero. The PK goal at the end was a gift from a referee who truly felt sorry for a team that had been outclassed, outhustled and looked intimidated and beaten. And yet we’re playing against Costa Rica. As good as the Ticos are at home, their talent does not play in the top 10 leagues in the world.

If you made it through this post, I commend you.