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Infographic master David McCandless, he of Information is Beautiful fame, presents “The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions,” an infogrpahic that attempts to dissect  which distractions take presedence his wandering mind. The work now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art.

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In the vein of digital distractions, Facebook has released a stand-alone app for it’s Messenger service in the latest bid to crush the living soul out of the scourge known as SMS (or text messages to the uninitiated). The messenger app essentially gives users a shortcut to Facebook’s messenger function and allows them to set up group chats. Carriers better sock away some of that SMS coin they’re making now, because the number of messaging services on the market are going to make that “service” irrelevant pretty quickly.

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Digital distraction of the moment: IEEE Spectrum: Inside Technology is like Wired without all the bullshit. Right now the site features articles on Army robots, medical tattoos and dimwitted nanotech terrorists who don’t know what nanotech is. Be sure to check out th geek Life column to find onto how to make your own Arcade game.

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Good news on the environment front: The Energy Information Administration has found that electricity generated from coal is down 6 percent! Bad news: It’s being replaced by the only slightly less dirty natural gas. Worse news: The EIA predicts electricity from coal will jump 25 percent in the next twenty years.

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Finally today, there’s some really good news for Major League Soccer. The league has signed a three-year deal with NBC Universal to bring its games to the Versus network, which will soon be renamed the NBC Sports Network. Versus will air 38 regular season MLS matches, three playoff matches and two US National Team matches, while the NBC Network mothership will air two regular season matches, two playoff matches and two national team matches. The new contract will essentially replace the matches currently found on Fox Soccer Channel. ESPN will continue to show its “MLS Game of the Week” package of MLS matches. The deal instantly doubles the exposure for MLS on cable, going from 40 million households on FSC to 80 million on the NBC Sports.

Also, the reborn Freddy Adu — Freddy 2.0 let’s call him — is being reunited with his first professional coach Piotr Nowak. Adu will sign for Philadelphia Union today. I’m psyched for Freddy. I’ve always appreciated his play and felt like the expectations put on his shoulder were too great. Seeing Freddy 2.0 emerge in the Gold Cup was one of the few bright spots for the US and I’m rooting for him in Philly — except when he plays DC United.

You don’t have to have a British accent to be a good soccer announcer, it’s just that all the best announcers have British accents. They’re the ones who not only have a love of the game, but were  brought up through their careers knowing that being a soccer (or football in their parlance) announcer was the top of the heap. Being a soccer announcer in the US sports landscape is far from the top of the heap. There’s a reason Rob Stone goes from MLS to being the play-by-play guy for pro bowling — and I’m pretty sure it’s not because of his love of bowling.

In the same fashion, you do not need to be a former soccer player from Europe or South America to be a top soccer coach — it just so happens that the best coaches come from places where soccer is the end-all-and-be-all of sporting culture and have played the game at a very high level. (Of course, there are always exceptions to prove the rule, see: Diego Maradona.)

I’m sure somewhere here in America there is someone who will be our first great American-born national team coach. Perhaps it’s Jason Kreis, or Ben Olsen — guys who grew up with soccer and played and now coach at the professional level. But right now, that person doesn’t exist and so US Soccer has gone out and finally landed Jurgen Klinsmann — a coach with a high European pedigree and, as someone who’s lived in America for several years — a deep knowledge and understanding of the arcane (and wholly non-European) workings of American soccer.

Right now, Klinsmann certainly seems like the best option for US Soccer, but there are questions surrounding both Bradley’s dismissal and his hiring that need to be addressed.

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Yesterday we found out that Bob Bradley would no longer be the coach of the US Men’s National Team. Almost immediately, we also realized that Jurgen Klinsmann would be the new head man for US Soccer. Why? Because there was going to be a further announcement today and Sunil Gulati told Grant Wahl, “you’re not going to be surprised” when the new coach is announced.

Today’s Friday Lost and Found is dedicated to this transaction. I’ll take some time to record my own take on the Klinsmann hire tomorrow morning, but here are some takes worth reading now:

Brian Straus, who now plies his trade for AOL’s Sporting News (RIP FanHouse) makes the case that Bradley was undone by a failing US soccer culture that Klinsmann won’t be able to fix quickly. Strauss notes Bradley’s impressive record with the US and argues he could only coach the players he was given. The players are something Klinsmann won’t be able to change. However, he also says that Klinsmann’s international pedigree and superior communications skills gives him a bully pulpit to start changing the US’s failed and automatonic development system.

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Over at No Short Corners, Greg Seltzer has high hopes that Klinsmann will bring some attacking panache to the US side and will partner nicely with Claudio Reyna, US Youth Soccer’s Technical Director, on player development and curriculum. He also notes that Bob Bradley’s departure is really good news for young Michael Bradley, who “does not need to wear that ‘coach’s kid’ albatross around his neck at all times.”

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Grant Wahl unearths an interview with Klinsmann  from last year to search for clues as to how he might approach the head job now that he has it. Klinsmann is someone who is clearly fascinated by the dynamics of US Soccer, from it’s hyper-organization to its increasing South American influence. Again, Klinsmann states his preference for attacking football. At the end of the day, what Wahl believes Klinsmann signals an opportunity for major changes to US Soccer as opposed to the incremental changes we’ve seen in the program since — well, since forever.

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Sticking with Sports Illustrated, Steve Davis punches some holes in the argument that coaches are only as successful as their players, noting that a coach like Klinsmann — who has played at the highest level — could serve as mentor for struggling, but talented forwards like Jozy Altidore and Juan Aguadelo. Klinsmann could also revive players like, Bobby Convey, Jose Torres and prodigal son Freddy Adu who didn’t fit into Bradley’s conservative system. I’m hoping Klinsmann will cut lose some of Bradley’s favorite sons, as well. I’m looking in your direction Jonathan Bornstein.

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Finally, it should be noted that Tropigol, a fairly new site being run by longtime soccer writer Michael Lewis, was the first site to report that Klinsmann had been hired. The site sourced its story to “a reliable source in the US Soccer community,” beating out the US Soccer press release. Tropigol also posted Bookmaker’s odds on who would be the new coach (prior to Klinsmann being named of course) with Alexi Lalas sitting at 25-1. The same odds as LA Galaxy midfielder David Beckham.

Via The Free Beer Movement

(A quick Editor’s Note: This column used to be called “Hot Friday Link Action.” The title was meant to be a cheeky dig at blog headlines that are all tricked out for SEO. I’ve changed the name to “Friday Lost and Found,” because frankly I think it sounds cooler and less douche-y. Also, I think most people weren’t getting the joke and just thought I was lame. So, from here on out we have “Friday Lost and Found.”)

Just in time for Gold Cup, we start today with a cool collaboration between soccer-t-shirts-for-hipsters clothier Bumpy Pitch and Nike on a set of US and Mexico rivalry t-shirts. The shirts take the design of the current US National team jersey and — for the US — add in some Mexico-digging elements, like an Eagle crushing an El Tri pendant and squeezing a prickly pear. The Mexican version comes in black with green detailing and shows a pink Eagle (there’s a reason its pink, but you need to read the post) ripping apart a US crest and eating the Don’t Tread on Me snake. Since the tea-baggers have co-opted the DOTM logo, I don’t mind that last bit at all.

Speaking of the hoped-for US v Mexico Gold Cup final, five Mexican players, including starting Guillermo Ochoa and defender Francisco Rodriguez, have been suspended from the Cup for doping. Unfortunately Chicharito was not one of them.

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Facebook just acquired some serious design chops, buying design firm Sofa. Sofa will be familiar to most Mac users as the designers of icons for AppZapper, Transmission, Awaken, Coverflow and others. They’ve also done icon design for Nike, Mozilla and Tom Tom and created apps for Mac including Kaleidoscope and Versions. It’s unclear what the Sofa team will be charged with at Facebook, but they are moving from Amsterdam to Palo Alto. What is clear is that Facebook may be getting a lot prettier in the coming months and years.

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Posterous has just rolled out an API opening the platform to third party developers. The new API will “allow developers and others to build upon the Posterous platform, including the ability to create users and sites on one’s own domain.” What I really love about this is that Posterous has chosen a non-profit partner, Oxfam, to be the first showcase user of the API. Oxfam will be hosting a network of Posterous blogs as part of their new Grow campaign — a campaign aimed at raising awareness around food shortages around the world.

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TEDxMidAtlantic, or as I like to call it, “TED for the hopelessly uncool and unhip,” has been scheduled for October 29 in Washington, DC. MidAtlantic is one of the more developed TEDx events out there and the 2010 version pulled in some pretty heavy hitter. The conference moves to DC from backwater Baltimore this year, so I’m sure it will be even better.

Speaking of TED, Chris Anderson has had enough of emails and he’s crowd-sourcing an email charter to help fix it. Do you have a particular email annoyance? Let Chris know.

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Finally today, Steve Jobs is really taking this whole James Bond villain persona a bit too far. The Apple head showed up at a Cupertino City Council meeting the other day to pitch plans for a new Apple campus that literally looks like a damn spaceship landed in the middle of Silicon Valley. The ringed campus literally doesn’t include a single piece of straight glass. Plans include a central courtyard, 6,000 trees and a site specific natural gas power plant. Apple will only use energy from the California grid for backup and to power their giant laser.

(Image from The Original Winger.)

After this weekend’s horror show against Spain and the 48-plus hours of hand-wringing that ensued as a result, last night’s decisive and controlling 2-0 win for the United States Men’s National Team had the refreshing air of a mild thunderstorm. The game was as it should have been — nearly thoroughly dominated by the United States and played in a controlled manner that lead to two quality goals, but did not create the type of fireworks we saw from Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica. Truth be told, the US probably won’t open up 4-0 or 5-0 leads against any team as it advances through the World Cup. It’s not the type of game they play.

Last night the word was control — the US controlled the attack from the outset through tough and smart midfield play from Michael Bradley and Jermaine Jones. Bradley was particularly impressive in the midfield, creating attacking chances and defending well when he was needed. Our forwards were bright and active, with Jozy Altidore scoring one goal and creating the assist on the second. For the first 75 minutes, the back line was solid and well organized. Clarence Goodson had a particularly good game. He made smart decisions, played with a calm demeanor and covered for Tim Ream when necessary. Central defense is still a question for the US, but Goodson may well be nailing down a starting spot for himself. Tim Howard had a fairly quiet night, but was called on to make some high quality saves. In the 75th minute he deflected a sure goal from Canadian substitute Ali Gerba over the bar and stopped a series of close range shots — the final from Gerba — in the dying minutes of the match to secure the shutout.

This was a good game for the US. They started the tournament with a solid win and got good performances out of their best players. Landon Donovan was excellent as usual in creating from the midfield and Clint Dempsey played with intensity and skill. Dempsey’s audacious first-half scorpion kick appeared to be on target, but was thwarted by a Canadian defender who happened to be in the right place at the right time. But most importantly, Jozy Altidore, a man who had largely gone missing during the World Cup, was a factor. His goal brimmed with confidence and strength and he actively took on players throughout the match. It was very good to see him in form.

But there are still questions hanging over this team. Barring injury, the US is settled in the midfield and at forward with good options for substitutes and two players — Clint Dempsey and Freddy Adu — who can move to a forward position when needed. However, the defense — in particular the central defense — is still very much in question. While Goodson has played well, Oguchi Onyewu continues to struggle since his knee injury. Tim Ream, frankly, isn’t quite ready for the level of competition here. As the tournament progresses, I’d like to see Carlos Bocanegra brought into the central defense and Jonathon Spector put out on the flank so we can have a look at a more experienced configuration.

The US will need that experience, because there are rough times ahead. The US should not be considered the favorite in this tournament. Mexico is playing dynamic soccer right now with a renewed sense of confidence and vigor. Led by Manchester United star Chicharito Hernandez, the side is much more dangerous in the attack than the United States right now. With the final scheduled for the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, a very friendly venue for Mexico, El Tri are the clear favorites. The US needs to pick up its game defensively (in all aspects really) if they hope to be playing in the Confederations Cup in 2013.

Last night’s match inspires some confidence and under Bradley, the US has never started tournaments guns blazing. As he said last night after the match, “When you get into a tournament you need to keep growing.” Let’s hope our defense can grow up fast.

There’s very little to say after the World Cup champions, and arguably the best national team to ever step onto the field, come over and take a team to the woodshed 4-nil in front of 70,000 fans and an international television audience. This was an embarrassment, plain and simple and a stark and vicious reminder of how far behind the US is when it comes to developing the type of depth and talent needed to compete successfully on the world stage.

The US begins 2014 World Cup preparation today with the first match of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, a tournament that will determine representation at the Confederations Cup, a crucial World Cup tournament featuring the World’s best national teams. Participation in the Confederations Cup is a key test for a team like the US and allows it to scout World Cup venues and the best competition.

As we begin this three year journey to 2014, the USSF and MLS must take stock of themselves and own up to how stagnant the US Player Pool has become and how poorly MLS has served the US in developing and retaining National Team talent. When the US has all of its starters they can potentially play with any team in the world. But once you get past the starting 11, the lack of depth is shocking — a fact that was laid bare for all to see against Spain. Depth needs to be fueled by MLS and right now MLS is failing.

We can celebrate the fact that MLS is adding new stadiums, bringing in new franchises and attendance is slowly, but steadily growing. But, if we measure the league’s success in on-the-field quality it’s been a very stagnant 16 years. Here’s what I’d like to see from the MLS brass:

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Peanutweeter is probably the best thing on the web right now. The author takes random tweets and puts them into classic Peanuts cartoons. Brilliant.

Not so brilliant? A major Sony site has been hacked again. This time its SonyPictures.com, which was targeted and compromised with extreme prejudice by LulzSec. The group has been pretty busy lately — over Memorial Day weekend, they hacked PBS.org because they were displeased by the network’s Frontline documentary on Wikilieaks. In the Sony hack, LulzSec accessed over 1 million passwords, which were stored in PLAIN TEXT fer Christ SAKE! as well as 3.5 million Sony Music coupons.

In soccer news, the U.S. gears up for its bi-annual, beat everybody until you have to play Mexico trip through the CONCACAF Gold Cup with a friendly against World Cup champions Spain on Saturday in Foxboro Massachusetts. Spain is bringing its top squad for the trip, but it’s going to be hot as hell and those Spaniards are going to be tired after a long season, so expect a surprisingly close game. meanwhile, Charlie Davies is slowly breaking DC United fans hearts already signaling that he’s ready to go back to Europe and Brad Friedel, at 40 years young, breaks Aston Villa hearts by taking his mad goal keeping skills and freakishly long arms to Tottenham.

ZOMG!?!? Have you heard about iCloud!?!? It’s going to be soooooo awesome. Except that maybe it’s not. Lots of reports coming out this week that Apple’s iCloud music offering is going to be less than fantastic. Major disappointments in the rumor mill include only being able to access songs you purchased from iTunes, which would make sense but be a huge disincentive for users to convert. Oh, and it probably won’t launch until the Fall. Apple is notorious for hyping its announcements at WWDC only to disappoint the drooling zombie fans (I am one of them), so it doesn’t surprise me at all that iCloud is not going to be the magic music box in the sky that brings peace to the world. I also won’t be surprised when millions of fanboys, myself included, rush out to buy the shit out of it anyway.

Finally, Microsoft. Remember those guys? They’ve trotted out a poorly produced video with tin-can sound showing off a preview of the Windows 8 operating system, which I have to say is pretty cool looking. The OS will create a unifying experience for Windows machines, whether they’re tablets, laptops, or desktops. The user interface looks great and there are some cool features her, not the least of which is a split “thumb keyboard” that is actually usable on a tablet. In fact, I was super impressed with the whole thing until they got to the part where they started using existing Microsoft Office applications. Then I just wanted to throw up all over it. If Microsoft doesn’t completely overhaul Office to match Windows 8, forget about it. When you put garbage on fine china, you’re still serving garbage.

I’ll get to Juan Agudelo in a minute, but I want to first point out that it was Tim Howard who kept this match from being a 3,4,5-goal embarrassment for the United States.

I’ll admit that Howard’s performance in the World Cup wasn’t that great, but last night he had one of the best matches I’ve seen any goalkeeper play. He was up for it from the beginning and made several stops from point-blank range that were world-class. His positioning on the field was fantastic and his leadership kept our boot-strapping backline on its toes.

With all the hype surrounding Agudelo, let’s not forget that it was Tim Howard who made the USA goal meaningful.

Don’t believe the hype (or at least try to temper it just a bit)
Yes, Agudelo brought vitality and brashness to the US attack that was sorely missing these traits in the first half. But it misses the point to say that he, and he alone, was the difference maker. The difference in the second half was that Jozy Altidore was no longer forced to play as a lone striker — a position he is simply not equipped to play.

Altidore has always played best when he has a partner. In the Confederations Cup it was Altidore and Charlie Davies who were so effective in the attack against Spain. Last night it was Altidore and Agudelo. So, while I agree that Agudelo brought a lot to the party last night, it was really the tactical change (going from a 4-2-3-1 to a straight 4-4-2) that made all the difference for the US.

While I think there’s a vital place in the US tactics for a five-man midfield (see below), I’d love to see Bradley stick with the 4-4-2 for Tuesday’s match against Paraguay and test the Altidore/Agudelo pairing for a solid 90 minutes. With Charlie Davies returning to match form (three goals in two games for DC United) having these three strikers rotate into a 4-4-2 could be very effective during the Gold Cup.

That new German kid is pretty good
Another other big note for me was the emergence of Timothy Chandler, the German-born, Bundesliga-playing, son-of-serviceman who came on in defense in the second half. Chandler had a solid game on the right-side and his speed and crossing ability on the wings were a big reason the US was able to spend more time attacking in the second half.

In recent years, the US defense has been known for doing just enough to keep the team in games — a trait personified by the gritty Jay Demerit. Chandler may be the type of player that can bring some dynamism to the back line and add to the attack. At the very least, he’s fast as hell.

Tactics
Last night, Bob Bradley really earned my respect. While the second half performance made starting five in the midfield for the first half look like a mistake, I think there’s more going on here.

The first half formation didn’t just put Bradley’s most talented players on the field, it also clogged the midfield and gave Argentina’s stars less room to operate. While the US spent an alarming amount of time defending in the first half, that’s really what teams have to do to avoid losing to Argentina — any team that plays them will employ the same tactics. It may seem anathema to many US fans, but playing defense and absorbing the attack is a skill to be admired — just ask any Italian.

But it’s not just enough to simply absorb — you must have discipline and the US had that last night. They kept their shape, stayed with the play and were concentrated in their defense. Certainly they could have done more with the ball the few times they had it, but the objective for the first 45 minutes was to set up a manageable second half by  absorbing, defending and avoiding cards. And damn if they didn’t pull it off.

In the second half, the US was able to change the formation and go on the attack in large part because the first-half tactics worked so well (and because Timmy Howard was absolutely, insanely good). You may not like what it looked like on the field, but Bradley’s set-up and tactics in the first 45 minutes put the US in a position to get a result. And in the end, what’s on the scoreboard is what really matters.