AC Milan and Guch

Due to the World Football Challenge and Justin TV I've had the opportunity to see AC Milan play a good part of four preseason friendlies in the span of a week. My initial thought is, good god. My second thought is that it could be one heck of a long year. Granted they lost one of the top three players in the world and his absence is glaring. Even with Kaka now in Madrid I'm absolutely shocked at how mediocre they've looked.

All I can say is poor Oguchi Onyewu. I wanted to chalk up the misplay last week in Atlanta versus America of Mexico to jitters. One could also blame the early goal for Inter in Baltimore on Sunday to bad team defensive effort. But after watching Onyewu get torched again versus Bayern Munich today it's not looking good for Guch and for the status of American defenders abroad. A reputation is developed easily and not forgotten quickly. I can't imagine the anti-Guch comments on Italian message boards and in the media. If my three years of college Italian actually helped me learn the language I suppose I could have picked up Gazzetta della Sport myself and found out. I'm pulling for you Guch, I hope you turn it around. It's a big deal for American soccer that things work out in Italy for you.

Beyond our guy Guch I'm also pretty shocked at how mediocre Pato has looked. I didn't really start watching Serie A last year until the second half when Pato had Beckham and of course Kaka setting him up. He looked every bit the quality player worth the huge offer from Chelsea and Ancellotti. After watching him over the past week I'm not so sure. At this point he doesn't seem to have the ability to create his own space and score and with the absence of Kaka and the brilliant crosses of Becks he doesn't have anyone to set him up.

Still Pato can't be that high up on the worry list. Ronaldinho looks like he is absolutely done. He showed flashes of his crafty self in the states, only to lose the ball constantly and really create no legitimate scoring chances. At this point I wouldn't expect much from him either. There's a lot of quality names, too bad their all on the wrong and of twenty and pushing thirty, ala Clarence Seedorf.

It will be interesting to see if Leonardo is able to spend some money come August. With Juventus strongly upgraded and Eto'o on his way to Inter AC needs something to compete for fourth place.

Come on Guch!