306,720 minutes.

Juggling record? Naww. That record stands at 19 hours and 30 minutes. Minutes spent on a plane in 2006 by the most capped MNT player last year? Not sure. Amount of time we Americans have suffered in waiting for the MNT to once again strike down opponents with some of that Don’t Tread venom? Yesssssssssss.

Thank you Justin, thank you Ricardo, and perhaps most of all, thank you Coach Bradley.

On another classic Carson, California day—sunny blue skies, 60-degree temps—Justin Mapp was an absolute lightening bolt from the moment he stepped onto the pitch as a second half substitute. After beating two Danish defenders in the middle third of the field, the left-footed Mapp carried the ball down the right side of the field until deciding to split two more with a burst of speed to the end line, where he fed defender Jonathan Bornstein for the game winning goal.

Can’t blame the young Danes for not getting the flash-flood warning; only those who know the type of technical ability and offensive audacity in Mapp’s game saw it coming.

In an instant, that group expanded to every spectator in the stadium and television viewer in America. A lot of players on the MNT have the capacity to bring it like Mapp, Landon in particular. Hopefully this will be a spark that carries over to the upcoming “friendly” against arch-rival Mexico and beyond.

Now if you want to talk about thunder, Ricardo Clark was rumbling all over the field for the full 90 minutes yesterday. Not only did he fight his way through a Danish attempt at clearance to draw a penalty kick in the 42nd minute (which Landon proceeded to hammer home), but he showed a combination of ruggedness and flair that could make him a stalwart in one of Bradley’s two holding midfield positions. With Clark we knew we were going to get a tireless player who tackles hard and wins possession in the trenches, but on Saturday he showed off some nifty back heels and even an acrobatic bicycle clearance in the 69th minute.

Of course, Mapp and Clark weren’t entirely alone, even if they stole a large part of the show. This was a significantly taller US side than we saw in Germany this past summer, especially up front, and the advantage of a few extra inches showed. On the US’s first set piece, Landon placed a ball near post from around 30 yards out that Nate Jaqua almost headed home. Bradley also had Jaqua help clear the ball out of the US’s own box on Danish corners, an effective move that helped spring counterattacks on a couple of occasions.

EJ’s start was reassuring to see. Recovery to full form will take some time, but what Saturday reminded us is that Eddie is going to put in the maximum effort every time he gets the opportunity. In the 19th minute, for example, EJ busted it back to head the ball off the end line to stymie a Danish buildup.

Coach Bradley can breathe a little easier or at least catch his breath before leading the team right back to work (and call on some overseas reinforcements) for the meeting with the Mexico on February 7th.

U-20 US MNT Canada Bound

Led by veteran 17 year-old Freddy Adu, the U-20 US MNT kept the ball rolling on Sunday night by beating Panama 5-0 in front of a raucous stadium in Panama City. With both teams having already qualified for Canada ’07 (the US’s sixth straight!) due to Haiti’s upset victory over Guatemala 2-0 in the first match of the night’s doubleheader, the U.S. side nonetheless orchestrated a dominant performance over the hosts. Adu notched two goals and one assist, the first in the seventh minute after Johann Smith beat two defenders and slipped an unmarked Adu the ball on the 6-yard line, and the second in the 90th minute with a blast from 15 yards outs off a pass from teammate Robbie Rogers. In between Adu’s bookends, Smith and Rogers each had time to add a goal of their own. The World Championships begin June 30th, with the Group Draw on March 3rd.

All great spy movies combine a hero with unflappable talent and state of the art technology to make incredible action. For every protagonist, there’s a genius inventor who pimps the hero’s ride out with jet propulsion systems, ejector seats and all those other gizmos used to fight crime and look good doing it. Well that’s kind of how it is between superstar Ronaldinho and Tom Minami, the man behind the man head shoe designer for the new Tiempo Ronaldinho series. Last week he took some time out of his busy schedule for a phone interview with Nikesoccer.com to talk about his role in designing domination.

Nikesoccer.com: Outside of the Tiempo Ronaldinho , the Mercurial Vapor, and the Air Zoom Control II, have you worked on any other sneaker designs or sports performance products in the past?
Tom Minami: Well, I’m pretty new to Nike. I’ve only been at Nike for two and a half years and I think that those you mentioned are pretty much the only ones I’ve work on. And before that I was at school.

For design?
Yeah, I went to California State University Long Beach and majored in industrial design.

Well given that you didn’t have too much prior experience, what were some of the biggest challenges in designing a cleat that needed to meet the standards of a player like Ronaldinho?
I got to know the process when designing shoes for the Vapor, but the biggest challenge for me was probably designing the plate. The plate needs to be flexible, and have traction, and still be light weight and so many things, and also it is plastic injected molding so it takes a little time to make it and design it.

Would it be possible for you to go through the process for some of those like myself who aren’t familiar with the key steps in designing a shoe?
Yeah sure, so the basic process of shoemaking starts with marketing people making a brief for the next season saying what type of boot we’re gonna’ make. Then the designers take over until they can send a file of information over to the factory to make samples, which we’ll use to make revisions. Also, at the same time we do some work testings where we send the boot to a high school in the U.S. or the U.K or Australia or Japan and see how the boot’s gonna’ work in different conditions and on different fields. And then slowly we can finalize the details, the graphics and everything. That’s the basic shoe making process.

What were some of those details you thought about during the design process that would really make this the premier boot for touch?
Well, before the project started our team went to Barcelona to meet Ronaldinho and talk about how he plays and anything he thought could improve his performance.

You know, he takes a lot of free kicks, so we created a really open sweet spot so he can feel the ball better

instead of having a lot of details on top. And also he grew up with futsal, so he uses the bottom of his feet a lot. So we created some rough texture on the stud tip so he could get some grip against the ball and make it easier to control the ball.

How was the process for the Tiempo Ronaldinho different than, say, the process for the Vapor?
The main difference is this is Ronaldinho’s boot. He was really involved in the process. So before, for the Vapor and the Air Zoom Control, the process was directed to the general consumer, but for this one the main consumer we thought about was Ronaldinho. So we showed him the sample to try on, train with and give us some feedback. This was a big difference.

What was Ronaldinho like to work or just be around? And what was he like as far as contributing to the creative process?
I know he’s a really busy man but I think he really enjoyed being involved in the process of shoemaking. And, you know, they were his own boots so he took it very seriously.

Did he make any specific suggestions or recommendations that you really took to heart?
The free kick part, the sweet spot on the upper part of the shoe, and then the texture on the plate stud tips. Also the flexibility. We got rid of a lot of stuff from the Zoom Air because he felt the Zoom Air made him too high to the ground. Again, he grew up with futsal and that’s like almost playing barefoot, so instead we put the Poron, which is a high performance air cushioning lower.

Well I know you are a soccer player yourself, what were your impressions of him just as a person to be around?
Well, obviously I’m a big fan of Ronaldinho. Every time he does some new tricks, I watch ‘em on really slow motion and try to copy…but yeah, it was an amazing experience for me…