Eric Wynalda, egocentric jackass

So I'm Eric Wynalda, former US National team striker, US Soccer Hall of Famer, and current ESPN color commentator. I'm the all-time leading scorer for the Men's National Team with 34 international goals. I'm also known for being highly opinionated about things that affect me directly, and have a reputation for being completely full of myself (and thinking my hair is very pretty, too). A few months before the World Cup, I do an interview with ESPN.com's Andrea Canales saying that Brian McBride, our current first choice striker, is only the first choice because the MNT coach, Bruce Arena, has a (figurative) love affair with him, that his lack of speed holds the Nats back in their favored style of play, and that it's time to replace him with young Taylor Twellman (see my last post). Not such a bad position to take on the surface, considering McBride is 33, which is close to being "old" for a professional athlete, and with the international game being played at such a high speed, maybe he's losing a step or two?

But let's look a little closer. McBride is in great shape, and is having one of the best years of his career as one of the top ten scorers in the English Premiership, arguably the best league in the world. So why would Wynalda possibly suggest Arena should bench McBride? Could it have anything to do with the fact that McBride has 29 international goals and is only 6 goals away from passing Wynalda as the all-time leading scorer for the MNT? You'd hope not, but given Wynalda's history of publicly crying about anything and everything that doesn't benefit him (he didn't earn the nickname "Whine-alda" for no reason), the wheels in US soccer fans' heads start spinning. So when he comes out in favor of Taylor Twellman, a player with tremendous potential but nowhere near the international experience of McBride (and oh, by the way, in no danger of passing Wynalda anytime soon with only 4 international goals), it just seems awfully suspicious. Even when he addresses the very subject for which I'm excoriating him, it makes Wynalda look like an even bigger jackass.

"I'm just being honest here. There's no way I can escape people saying that I have an ulterior motive for saying the things that I've been saying about Taylor. The whole McBride thing is ultimately Bruce's decision. My guess is that McBride will be on the field—regardless of whether he plays poorly or plays well."

Now maybe it's just me, but I get the feeling this "whole McBride thing" doesn't exist anywhere except in Wynalda's overinflated head.