RIP USA

Who cares about becoming a better soccer player when you can spend all day on the beach and score hat-tricks in MLS?

There are a lot of different ways to assess first-round elimination in the World Cup. It's like a nasty break-up: you can take sides and point to this or that, but odds are that it was a combination of factors that ultimately were just too much to overcome. When a team takes one point from three games, loses to Ghana and the Czech Republic, and argues publicly with its coach, there is enough blame to go around. Here's one man's opinion of who deserves it and who doesn't, as well as what can be done to fix things before South Africa 2010.

Landon Donovan and DeMarcus Beasley, American soccer's two poster boys, were not good enough. Not by a long shot. Sports Illustrated had a cover story before the World Cup with the headline "U.S. Soccer Wants You - As they take on the world, the young American stars believe they can win. Are you with them?" Well, I think it's safe to say that both at home and in Germany the Americans got the support they asked for. And it's safe to say they didn't live up to the hype. Beasley at least had the assist on Dempsey's goal against Ghana and a disallowed goal against Italy, but Donovan did next to nothing. All of the talk about Donovan being the star of this team is a joke. Aside from his performances in Japan/Korea four years ago, he has not been good enough on the international stage. In the four years since then, he has not improved as much as he could and should have. To become the true star of American soccer, Donovan's first move should be back to Europe. So what if he doesn't like the weather in Germany or doesn't speak the language - go to Spain, where it's warmer and Donovan speaks Spanish, or go to England and bring space-heaters and video games...just go to Europe. MLS is a decent league, but just as the best from Ecuador to Japan all head to Europe, so should the American players. Look at how much Bobby Convey improved when he went to Reading. Look at Kasey Keller. Brian McBride. Oguchi Onyewu. The list goes on - you get better by playing with the best, not where you can lay on the beach, surf in the Pacific, and never worry about a coach putting your butt on the bench.

Beasley is another story. At least Beasley can point to Arena's mistaken decision to play him out of position in the Cup. Against the Czechs, Beasley shifted over to the right wing (from the left) and looked out of place. Against Ghana, Beasley played a more central role in a 4-5-1, playing alongside Donovan as two offensive midfielders flanked by Eddie Lewis on the left and Clint Dempsey (the Americans' best player) on the right. Beasley's play improved against the Ghanaians, but he needs to be on the left wing to be at his best. As long as he continues to play at PSV Eindhoven in the Dutch Eredivisie, Beasley will improve - he has to, because his play in Germany was nowhere near as good as it could have been.

On ESPN's post-game show, Eric Wynalda unfairly ripped Bruce Arena, singling him out for the loss (one more example of why just because someone can play the game doesn't mean they know how to analyze it). While Arena deserves some blame for playing Beasley out of position and not giving Eddie Johnson more time, he is not the problem. Still, odds are that Arena will vacate his post in the next few months, either by his own volition or not - either way, this elimination is not his fault. He has coached this team for eight years, taken them to to the 2002 quarterfinals, ushered in a new group of young American talent, and he may go down as the best American coach ever. He might be able to point to a tough group and some questionable refereeing decisions, but the fact is that his team was not good enough this time around. And that's the players' fault - they were still the ones on the pitch and they didn't deliver. Other than the guts they showed against the Azzurri, there were few positive impressions left by the American players. And maybe Arena has just run out of ways to improve this current squad. It is not uncommon for coaches to hit a wall with their teams - look at the Tampa Bay Bucs: Tony Dungy built that team into a contender, but couldn't take them all the way - that doesn't mean he's not a great coach - but it took a change to Jon Gruden for that team to take the next step. US soccer is still growing - it needs constant rejuvenation and innovation to continue to take the next step forward. Arena has done his part - now it's time to move on.

Whatever questionable decisions Arena made, it comes down to the players. Despite shooting up FIFA's (BS) ranking system, the Americans have not improved enough since the last World Cup. Professional soccer is pretty simple. The best players play in Europe. Period. Even in the most fanatical countries such as Brazil and Argentina, whose domestic leagues are about 20 times better than MLS, going to Europe is still a rite of passage - if you're one of the best players, you go to Europe to see how you match up against the best. Either you hack it or you don't, but either way you'll improve. And the Americans need to do more of that. Almost half the World Cup squad plays in MLS right now, where they're not improving as fast or as much as they could be across the pond. Donovan, Dempsey, Mastroeni, Johnson, Conrad, Olsen, O'Brien, Albright, Ching, Adu, and other top American players all need to go to Europe. This is no knock on MLS, by the way - like US soccer in general, MLS is a growing entity. It's just that the US national team needs to be a group of players who have gained experience in the technical and tactical aspects of the game acquired in the best leagues of the world, experience that can be gained in England, Italy, Spain, and Germany, not Califreakinfornia. Do you think that Ghana's Michael Essien became a star by staying in his homeland? No, it was with Olympique Lyon and Chelsea. Did Stephen Appiah become the playmaker he is today by staying in Africa? Not quite, he did it in Italy's Serie A. The easy thing to do might be to play where you're comfortable, where you're a star, but it won't make you any better; the only way to improve is to play against the best players. And the best are not in MLS. Even in the World Cup warm-up matches, when the US could have chosen tough opponents to prepare them for the Cup, they didn't. Ghana, who eliminated the Americans, played South Korea, a semi-finalist four years ago. The US played soccer minnows Latvia and Venezuela. And a few years ago, when the US was invited to play in South America's continental tournament, the Copa America, did they accept the chance to test this team against the likes of Brazil and Argentina? Nope. Make sense to you? Didn't think so.

You can blame the refs. You can blame Arena. You can blame bad luck and a tough group. Heck, you can blame Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa for making the games even more unbearable to watch. But it comes down to the players on the field. They are the ones that have to improve. Sure, people can always play the "What if...?" game: if they get an easy group, if the ref doesn't make one of the worst penalty calls you'll ever see, if this, if that...but the best teams don't leave it up to chance - they go out there and do everything possible to put themselves in positions where one bad call or one bad break won't ruin their chances. Soccer academies in Florida are nice, domestic leagues are steps in the right direction, and playing friendlies in Germany is good, but none of that is enough. Heck, always qualifying from CONCACAF is not enough (Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago, and the US all finished bottom of their groups; Mexico could only draw with Angola). The US, as a growing soccer nation, has to do everything possible to improve. And that means not playing against the best players just once every four years - it means playing against the best every day, even if you're homesick, freezing cold, and tired of sauerkraut.