International friendlies are frustrating. You never know quite what you're supposed to be rooting for or what your expectations should be. By definition, they're meaningless, so it's hard to spend too much time and energy agonizing over winning or losing.

Ideally, their purpose serves the big picture. It's a snapshot of what a team looks like at a given moment, to be used as a reference point for the future. Indeed, they can be a valuable exercise, if only to provide meaningful competition for players who otherwise don't get many opportunities to play together.

So what does the big picture look like for the United States national team after a two-game European swing through Slovakia and Denmark that ended in 1-0 and 3-1 losses, respectively? Unfortunately, it's a bit blurry.

Even by the most conservative estimate, by now you can nail down 15 seats on the plane to South Africa, which meant these last two games of 2009 served as something of a tryout for the remaining slots on coach Bob Bradley's 23-man roster for the 2010 World Cup. And with the injuries to Oguchi Onyewu and Charlie Davies threatening their World Cup prospects, Bradley is forced to reach deeper into his player pool than he'd probably like in the final months before the competition begins.

Jeff Cunningham is a good example. His blistering goal-scoring streak toward the end of the MLS season forced Bradley to give him a chance. Cunningham is essentially in pay-as-you-play mode, and he can ride his winning hand as long as he keeps scoring goals. Who knows, maybe it'll take him all the way to South Africa. So far, so good, anyway.

But while Cunningham might be playing with house money, it's not just the so-called fringe players who still have something to prove. Ricardo Clark has had the luxury of an unavailable Jermaine Jones and an injured Maurice Edu, the main competition at his position. But his place isn't cemented in the center of that midfield.

Furthermore, though it seems heretical to suggest Jozy Altidore not be included in the starting 11 -- especially without Davies -- how many would object to giving Robbie Findley 90 minutes of leading the line after Altidore's lethargic performance in Denmark? You can be protected by potential for only so long. Maybe he has a better answer for his recent lack of production, but the rest of us are running out of ideas.

Of course, the performances can be excused somewhat by the absence of key players. It's amazing how you take for granted the endeavor and work rate Landon Donovan brings to both the midfield and attacking third.

But that's kind of the point, isn't it? This game -- and this stage of the international season -- isn't so much about the established players as it is about which team can reach deeper into its pocket to pull out a winning combination. Denmark was certainly without many of its big guns. Yet it seemed to the Danes to truly be an open tryout, with eager 20-somethings from the domestic league with a point to prove vying for the few remaining tickets to South Africa. In fact, it must have been an educational evening from the Danes' perspective.

If only it were so from the American point of view. In fairness, it wasn't so much that the performance was bad, just confusing. Inserting Donovan and Clint Dempsey into the lineup goes a long way toward clearing up that picture, but the question marks remain.

To me, Benny Feilhaber distinguished himself more than anyone else against Denmark. But as well as he played, do we know any more about his role in the national side? Is he the main guy in the center of the midfield? Does he stay wide and drift inside as the play develops? Is he there to complement Michael Bradley? Should it be the other way around?

Stuart Holden did nothing to diminish his prospects, either. He showed signs that he's comfortable and capable of being more than a wide player. His is an interesting case to watch moving forward, especially with a likely move overseas in the January transfer window.

The biggest problem with the U.S. performance in Denmark was that it was found guilty of the worst offense at the international level: It was predictable. Without Dempsey or Donovan, there was no fluency or connectivity in any U.S. passing or movement. Scoring three goals right after halftime after being down 1-0 at the break, you might expect that the Danes had a rousing locker-room speech. But you can imagine all that really needed to be said was, "Pressure their center mids and they'll give the ball away cheaply and their outside backs can be had every time. Do that and we win easily."

It really seemed that simple for Denmark in the second half, and that's what has to be troubling for Bob Bradley. As I said before, these games have to be viewed in the context that they were played -- with key players absent, injuries and players just on the heels of a long MLS season. And even in failure, these games can be informative.

For his part, Bradley said the things you'd expect him to say. There were bright spots early on, but the game got away from his team in the second half. And while it's not the best bookend to 2009, the year was ultimately a positive one, and these losses don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. But I wonder if he's not more concerned than he lets on about the lack of options he has to turn to.

Three Cheers for Cuauhtemoc

There'll be plenty of words written about the upcoming MLS Cup final in Seattle between the L.A. Galaxy and Real Salt Lake. But my lasting impression from this year's playoffs was that of Cuauhtemoc Blanco during the Chicago Fire's run to the Eastern Conference finals.

Blanco, whose tenure in the MLS came to an end with Chicago's loss to RSL in the Eastern Conference finals, might not be able to match fellow designated player David Beckham in terms of exposure and commercial weight, but that doesn't make his tenure in MLS any less significant. With his return to Mexico to play for Veracruz, it's interesting to compare the two players when you measure their value on the field, independent of T-shirt sales and magazine covers. Each has such a singular quality to his game that is so pleasing to the eye yet impossible to replicate.

But while Beckham's ability to make a ball move in ways that defy the laws of physics can take one's breath away, what Blanco brought to the MLS game is more significant. It's an intuitive quality that's hard to pinpoint but one that is infectious to his teammates and captivating to an audience. His teammates wanted to match his creativity, even if they fell short of his brilliance. He invites players to play a style that should be the standard the MLS is trying to reach.

At first glance, he looks more like a Sunday morning rec-league player than a professional -- and a player you'd pick near the bottom. But despite not possessing the speed to get behind anyone, he can have a defender at his mercy with the ball at his feet. It's guile, it's invention, it's creativity -- whatever you want to call it, it's the kind of quality the MLS doesn't see enough of and will surely miss.