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#3300971 · 23 Jun 2006, 19:04 · · პროფილი · პირადი მიმოწერა · ჩატი
USA needs more than heart to be a winner
The USA grew up as a soccer-playing nation Thursday by learning first hand the harshest part of the game: Someone has to lose.
Tens of thousands of American fans attended the World Cup in person — a first. These were not hardcore soccer fans, nor eccentrics, nor backpackers crossing Europe who stumbled upon the game. These were sports fans. They may have come to see a curiosity, but came away with the bitter, first-hand knowledge of both how harsh and how poetic the game can be.
On Thursday, those fans remained in their seats long after the game had ended, holding flags, looking glumly down at their laps. They had learned a valuable lesson.
Soccer in the USA will never be as it is in Europe or Latin America. It should stop trying. Soccer will never be a proxy for religion or a stand-in for battles in pasts, recent and distant.
What soccer can be, however, is a sport that Americans define themselves by in the same way that fans define themselves by their baseball team or city's NBA franchise. The tribalism of soccer in America will reflect itself not in its opposition to other groups or clans, but to other sports themselves. A consumer culture such as America, can expect nothing more.
This American team heads home with many questions. What is the fate of the mercurial Landon Donovan, who looked dazzling against Italy and childish against all other comers? And how could the Americans, even ignoring the inflated status FIFA imposed upon them, show such heart and yet disappoint so utterly?
And of the players that came: Why did some of them not even suit up?
The fact that Arena reached for Ben Olsen instead of John O'Brien today indicated how far from fit the former Ajax player must truly be. Olsen, who had a serviceable game at best, was unable to either blunt the Ghanaian attack or provide much spark forward on offense. The saddest moment of the game may have been when Otto Addo sent Olsen sprawling by picking the ball right off his cleat at the end of the match.
For the first time, those questions are likely to be asked in public.
The reaction to the USA's loss to the Czech Republic in the first round showed perhaps what the future looks like for the sport in America. Once, a result like that would have been greeted with apathy, or resignation, or simply ignored. In 2006 it was greeted with anger.
Arena, who is good at shielding his players and taking blame, Thursday looked elsewhere. "We're disappointed and I'm very disappointed in (referee Markus Merk) for calling that penalty. I would have liked to have come out at the half even and make it a game and win that game. The call was a big call."
"Those things happen," continued Arena. "They happen a lot to our team, but they happen. I thought we actually played pretty well."
Manager Bruce Arena was unusually downbeat after the game. Arena, who is known for his sarcasm, quick wit — and to some, a cruel streak — looked like a man left holding a fistful of losing betting slips. The gambles he made — bringing the players' wives; ignoring some players overseas and younger talents at home; and relying heavily on the same core that played so well in 2002 — had not paid off.
"Unfortunately, they have to go home, but they also deserve to be in the final 16," said Ghana coach Ratomir Dujkovic, magnanimously. He didn't have to be — some players complained that Arena did not even shake his counterpart's hand after the game.
For Ghana, which joined Italy in the final round today with their 2-1 win here, it was sweet vindication: They were the odd team out in one of the Cup's toughest groups, and in their first visit to the big stage, managed to ensure that the teams ranked No. 2 and No. 5 by FIFA were chaff.
And while American fans will complain about the ref, about the diving, but the truth is, Ghana gained a deserved win which arrived on the back of a dominant performance against the Czechs that signaled how graceful and strong this team truly is.
And, as Arena noted, the USA put itself in this position by "falling apart," as Arena put it, in their debut. The Americans at least scored a goal, and snatched a point against one of the best teams in the world, but it is clear that the USA are not world-beaters. Not yet.
But they are competitive. They lapsed against the Czechs, to be sure, but they were strong against Italy and solid Thursday. What the USA lacks in tactical acumen — today exposed the team's over-reliance on balls in the air and its inability to play balls on the floor through the midfield — it makes up for in passion. It just can't make up that much of a gap with just heart against top-quality teams.
* * *
'We wuz robbed,' all right, just not by the ref
Instead, blame a smart coach who turned timid at the wrong time and a team that never developed a real sense of urgency.
Then throw in the bosses at U.S. Soccer who, despite pockets stuffed with cash from Nike and other top-drawer sponsors, failed to find or forge even one difference-making player from a nation of 299 million people.
Finally, take a turn in front of the mirror.
The reason the United States is officially "Going, Going, Ghana!" from the World Cup, as one headline put it memorably Thursday, is simple. It still hasn't bothered to learn how to play the world's game.
Americans don't like their ballplayers taking dives, let alone embellishing them. But that's exactly what Ghana's Razak Pimpong did to buy his team's second goal -- the one that beat the Americans -- at the end of the first half. It happens a half-dozen times in every soccer game ever played.
This time, nudged from behind by U.S. defender Oguchi Onyewu in the penalty area, Pimpong went down like he'd been shot. And German referee Markus Merk, one of the best in the world, uncharacteristically bought in. Then Ghana's captain, Stephen Appiah, buried the ensuing penalty kick (for comparison purposes think: free throw) with ruthless glee.
That happens more than it should in soccer, too. But in a game where scoring chances are few, and breaking up a play is much easier than building one, the goal has always been to get them by any means necessary.
Cynical? Certainly. Should it offend our sense of justice? Absolutely. The reward, especially when a player dives, is all out of proportion to the foul.
That's why FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, won't touch instant replay. Americans take for granted the idea that a wrong can be redressed at any time. For proof, check out your overburdened local court system. But endless appeals still a luxury in much of the rest of the world.
Over there, the score on the field stands. Calls may be argued about for generations -- 20 years ago, it was Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal; 20 years before that, Geoff Hurst's "Wembley goal" -- but they're never reviewed or overturned.
Besides, the penalty kick that Ghana converted en route to a 2-1 win, no matter how much Coach Bruce Arena and his squad obsess over it, was only one setback in a tournament chockfull with U.S. mistakes.
Like the infamous "Bartman" meltdown by the Cubs, or the way the 1986 Red Sox fell apart after a ground ball squeezed between Bill Buckner's wickets, it was a symptom of systemwide failure -- not the cause. The real problem were all those plays made -- or not -- on either side of the penalty kick.
The U.S. team managed three shots in its final outing, after just one in two previous games. In hindsight, knowing that four years of work was being shrunk to a final 45 minutes against Ghana, it's fair to ask Arena, his staff and his players what they were waiting for.
And if he were being candid, the coach would reply that he's been waiting for at least one striker as lethal as any of the four Argentina brought; a midfielder who could crack the starting lineup for Holland or England; or any player skilled enough to set foot on the field anywhere for Brazil. Ronaldo may look fat compared to the fit players we put on the pitch, but at least he knows how to finish.
Arena took over the U.S. program in the wake of its disastrous 1998 showing -- three losses, zero wins; one goal for, five against; last in the 32-nation tournament -- and made it respectable. He steered the 2002 edition to the quarterfinals by playing to his only real strength, great goalkeeping, and teaching a corps of fast, young players to be just opportunistic enough to punish teams that attacked them without taking the proper precautions first.
Like every other team game, soccer is about numbers. The more men committed to each attack, the better the scoring chances. The flip side is that more men forward means more open space behind them. Once the rest of the world respected the Americans enough to play them straight up, the jig was up, too. Nothing short of a supreme effort in every game could have papered over the talent gap that still exists, and the only time the U.S. players managed that was against Italy.
Why Arena didn't coax it from them sooner, or take more risks by adjusting his roster formations and tactics accordingly, are the questions he should have to answer if he wants to stay on.
And to be sure, there will be stories calling for his job, plus the usual smart-aleck commentaries about how the U.S. team being sent home is actually a good thing, because the rest of the world is mad enough at Americans as it is and now we can get back to focusing on sports we really care about.
Which is fine. Just remember it's no coincidence that the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and even the NHL are filled to overflowing with difference-making athletes carrying valid U.S. passports. And until soccer manages to siphon off a few for the cause, it will always be a lost one.
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