Breakfast in Africa

It's a young (but worldly) U.S. team.

From (the edited) U.S. Soccer release:

•Glasgow Rangers midfielder DaMarcus Beasley is the leading cap-winner on the roster (average age 23) with 71 international appearances. The 25-year-old has scored 15 international goals.
•There are five players heading to South Africa with five caps or less, including two 2007 MLS season award winners. Brad Guzan was voted Goalkeeper of the Year in only his second season with Chivas USA, while Maurice Edu – who earned his first cap in the win against Switzerland – has been honored as the Rookie of the Year. Fellow U-20 World Cup teammates Freddy Adu and Josmer Altidore will be reunited for the first time since Canada this summer, with the New York Red Bulls striker seeking his first-ever cap with the full team. Sacha Kljestan has three appearances for the full team, all this year.
•A total of six players on the current roster are age-eligible for the 2008 Olympic Games : Freddy Adu, Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, Benny Feilhaber and Jonathan Spector.
•Twelve of the 17 players on the roster ply their trade in seven different countries in Europe (Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Scotland).
GOALKEEPERS (2) – Brad Guzan (Chivas USA), Tim Howard (Everton FC)
DEFENDERS (7) –Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham FC), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Dan Califf (Aalborg BK), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard de Liege), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock), Jonathan Spector (West Ham United)
MIDFIELDERS (6) – Freddy Adu (SL Benfica), DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers), Michael Bradley (SC Heerenveen), Maurice Edu (Toronto FC), Benny Feilhaber (Derby County), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA)
FORWARDS (2) – Josmer Altidore (New York Red Bulls), Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC)

"eight days after (Saturday's) match, South Africa will host the Preliminary Draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The event, held in Durban, will determine the qualifying schedule for 156 countries spanning five confederations. The South American qualifying competition began Oct. 13 with all ten teams in action. The U.S. will learn on Nov. 25 its potential opponents for the second round of CONCACAF Qualifying. To ramp up the hype, the domestic league’s biggest derby between Jo’Burg based Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates has been moved to Durban to coincide with the weekend’s festivities.

Beck's is Back

The Times had a rather savage assessment of Beckham's contribution:

That England’s winner came from a dead ball from David Beckham was also somewhat misleading, considering the tepid nature of his performance. Looking as fit as can be expected of a man who has started three competitive matches since June – and even those in an inferior league – his only serious contributions came when the play was stopped. Even then, successive corners were cleared by a resilient knot of red-shirted Austria defenders, while long-range free kicks were delivered as if guided by faulty radar. He looked about as far off a top-level international footballer as he did on the occasions when Sven-Göran Eriksson insisted on sending him out half-fit.

But, even in his dotage, Beckham will be able to deliver the odd mean one – indeed, if McClaren uses this talent to justify his continued place in the team, Beckham could be pulling on the white shirt at 50 – and in the 44th minute it was his inswinger that set up the goal that relieved the tension building in the England camp.

His partner in crime was, as ever, Crouch, a striker whose frame is built to act as the antenna for Beckham’s passes into the box. So it proved. It was a classically worked Beckham and Crouch goal, the ball whipped in by Beckham’s corner on the left, Crouch rising at the far post, Jermain Defoe on the goalline, pivoting to his side to allow it to pass into the net as Alex Manninger scrambled across his line.
There is something of the flat-track bully about this alliance, though: destroyers of Trinidad & Tobago, Estonia and, now, Austria.

And this was their rating for Beckham:

David Beckham 6 Looked out of shape, which is hardly as a surprise given he has played as much football as your average LA resident recently, with 54 minutes on the pitch since suffering a knee injury in August. Remains as effective as ever from set-pieces, however, whipping in the corner from which Peter Crouch opened the scoring and doing just enough to earn his 99th cap against Croatia.

Israel and Russia kick off at 9:55 a.m. on Fox Soccer Channel, by the way.

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