This is where you might normally expect to see, "I never thought I'd say this, but...," except I actually did think I'd say this, just not necessarily so soon: there are just too many good articles about the US Men's National Soccer Team for me to read. Or more accurately, there are too many for me to read and maintain any semblance of a normal life with my family, job, friends and the general world at large. And that's not including all of the various preview shows and speculation on television.

Of course that's partially my fault for having to take so much time between my last column and this one, but that being said, there truly is an outrageous amount of good articles out there to occupy whatever amount of time you might have to devote to getting wound up for next Monday's kickoff versus the Czech Republic. As always, you can find the complete indexed list of US Men's National Team articles here.

One of the nicest products of this situation is that we are finally seeing attention being paid to players a little further down the roster than Landon Donovan, Kasey Keller and Brian McBride. A couple good representative examples include John Haydon's profile of likely substitute Ben Olsen in the Washington Times: (Olsen Adjusts To Role With U.S. Team) and Frank Bertucci's piece on right back candidate, Chris Albright, for the Philadelphia Daily News: (Early setbacks make Albright grateful for spot on U.S. team) .

Another plus on this front, at least for Bruce Arena, is that he generally has less stupid (more politely, uninformed) questions to answer from the American press, who generally appear to be much more sympathetic to his ironic attitude than they perhaps might have been in the past. Though as Jürgen Klinsmann and Grahame Jones of the LA Times can attest, the German press still has a ways to go to catch up to contemporary managerial methods (U.S. Soccer Coach Meets the Press) . A couple more good notes of respect come from the NY Times's Jere Longman: (The Americans, Seriously) , and from FIFA's own World Cup site: (Arena keeps them guessing) .

Arena isn't the only beneficiary of this increased quality of the US media. Landon Donovan has a great profile, also by Grahame Jones: (He's Just Visiting) , featuring the first time I've seen in print Donovan's acknowledgement of some degree of responsibility for his lack of success as a club player at Bayer Leverkusen in Germany. USA Today's Kelly Whiteside and the Washington Post's Steven Goff give Claudio Reyna the star treatment: respectively (USA's Reyna Personifies Perseverance) and (Reyna Brings Order to U.S. Team's Growth) .

An inevitable result of a more knowledgeable press is relatively reasonable speculation as to who is going to be playing where on June 12. The biggest questions center around the fitness of midfielders Claudio Reyna and John O'Brien: Chris Cowles for Reuters in the Boston Globe (US Coach Says Reyna Fit For Czechs) . For some reason, Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America seems to think that John O'Brien's injury challenges will likely reduce him to the role of "super sub," but I don't really get that since he's not that sort of spark plug-type player, unlike past holders of that title like Frankie Hejduk and Cobi Jones: (Two U.S. spots remain up for grabs) .

O'Brien is plenty dangerous, as Portugal in 2002 could attest, but he's more the kind of poised player you would want to run the attack for 60-75 minutes if he's capable of it, than come in the last 15 or so to try and turn the tide. Current roster members who fit that bill more appropriately include Bobby Convey, Clint Dempsey, Eddie Johnson, or even Brian Ching, though of course the last two players listed are out and out strikers.

Conversely, I wouldn't really consider O'Brien the kind of guy you send in to ice the game either, certainly not if he has fitness and injury problems. Assuming he's not ready to go 90 minutes plus yet, I think a much more realistic probability would be to see him possibly sit for the Czech game, much like Reyna did for the Portugal game in 2002, then show up that much more prepared for the Italy game 5 days later.

Further speculation involves what role DaMarcus Beasley will play for the U.S., especially following Coach Arena's recent critical comments regarding his form of late: (Youngsters Gaining Ground) . According to Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl, Landon Donovan's not concerned about it, and neither am I: (Beasley switching sides?) . One way or the other, I fully expect Beasley to be out there. Sure Convey is knocking very hard on the door to get on the field at that left midfield/wing slot, but as well as he's performed for Reading and in the so-called "Send-Off Series" of friendlies, it's not even remotely the same as Beasley's performance at PSV Eindhoven where he became the first American to appear in a Champions League semifinal last year, or for the national team literally since he first stepped on the field.

Given Coach Arena's propensity for fluid usage of tactical lineups and his roster, I don't think anyone can realistically expect anything other than being at least somewhat surprised by how he manages to fit people on the field June 12. My completely uneducated guess would be to agree with former MLS coach and current GolTV announcer Ray Hudson and say that Arena is going to go with a conservative but attack-oriented lineup versus the Czechs to see what they can do against a very questionable back line, and make goalkeeper Petr Cech use all 6 foot, 5 inches of his frame to work his tail off to keep another clean sheet.

As such, how about a 4-3-3 of Beasley, McBride, and Wolff up top, with Convey, Reyna and Donovan across the midfield, and Lewis, Onyewu, Pope and Cherundolo in the back? That would keep a 4-man backline, plus a very solid but attack-oriented midfield and plenty of firepower up top, while also being plenty morphable into a more defensive configuration should necessity demand by making the mooted switch of dropping Beasley to the right side of midfield and pushing Donovan into the hole behind McBride and Wolff.

Finally for today I want to mention Marc Connolly's nice little bit of historical perspective on the US National Players' site: (It Started in '94) . Hosting the World Cup in 1994 brought home to an entire generation of American youth players exactly how high they could reach if they really wanted to (and had some skill, luck, etc.) in a way that watching the games on television never could. Remember, before 1986 the games were barely televised here, and 1990 was the first time in 50 years that any US players even attended a Cup. I had been playing soccer for several years by '86, but had only ever seen early morning broadcasts of "Soccer Made in Germany" on PBS, and MISL games prior to seeing Maradona's slalom through the English defense in Mexico (and the infamous "Hand of God" goal).

In an admittedly very selfish way, I'll take this opportunity to again publicly lobby for the US hosting the 2014 games instead of Brazil (or whatever Latin American flavor of the month FIFA Prez Sepp Blatter is trying to fellate currently). The Cup preview edition of World Soccer magazine stated that Blatter's continental rotation has already been shelved, so why not?

While it would certainly be nice to see the fulfillment of Project 2010 with an American victory in South Africa, it's a heck of a lot more realistic to think that our chances would be much better by 2014. Combine that with the traditional host nation boost could be the last step necessary to solidify the game's place in the upper echelons of the American sports landscape, and bring with it the attendant Yankee dollars that FIFA has long been very unsubtly lobbying for. From my vantage point as a current Washington, DC resident, that seems to be how the world really works, isn't it?

Then again, do you really think the rest of the world is ready to even countenance the notion of knowingly helping the barbarian Americans win the most prized trophy in all of team sports? Probably not, but who cares, let's get it anyway!