God save the Green

Here’s how good (good used facetiously) the U.S. has been at soccer in the WorldCup:

For the team to advance to the knockout round for the first time in 64 years — in only its second appearance after 40 years of not qualifying for the tourney — Team USA needed a fluke goal. Actually, make that (perhaps) the most notorious fluke goal in the history of sports.

At the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. In June of 1994, Colombia’s star defender Andres Escobar intercepted a crossing pass into the penalty box only to deflect it past his own goalie to give the U.S. a 2-1 lead it would never relinquish. Because of that goal, the heavily-favored Colombians were bounced from the tournament that many believed they could win.

Ten days later back home in Medellin, Escobar was murdered when he was shot 12 times allegedly by a gunman hired by disappointed drug lords. Police reports say that after each of the 12 shots hit Escobar, the murderer yelled, “Goal!”

It’s bad enough getting bounced from the World Cup, but to do so with a loss to the United States is like pouring salt into the wound.

Yes, they take football seriously all over the globe and as the marquee sporting event in the world, play in the World cup is scrutinized and deconstructed more fervently than anything. Football is a religion in a lot of countries and followed to a degree that even fans of American football cannot understand.

Now goals in World Cup action are like lightning strikes. Sure, a couple of goals in a game can occur, but they are rare enough that they are celebrated as if they are small miracles. In other words, to give away a goal to the opposition is so devastating to a team’s chances in a match that it can sway the outcome of the tournament. Goals can change lives… or end them.

So when Clint Dempsey’s shot from 18 yards away in the opening match for USA and England in the 2010 World Cup, bounced off the hands of goalie Rob Green and trickled into the net, it didn’t take long to see what was coming. No, Green will live. They take football as seriously as anything in England, but not to the extreme to murder a guy. But unless England regroups and advances far into the tourney, Green’s life will never be the same.

Indeed, goals change lives. They mean that much.

Just a quick peruse through the English newspapers was enough to see what Green is in for. Sure, the Philly and New York sports media is supposed to be tough, often creating heroes and villains with just a few sentences. However, in Philly we have nothing on the London writers who have carved into the English team without mercy. Green, of course, has been the main target with ledes like this one from the Sunday Times, a conservative paper in London owned by the same company as the Wall Street Journal:

To the Boston Tea Party and Belo Horizonte, the Royal Bafokeng Stadium can almost be added. Here was parity that felt a lot like purgatory for Englishmen. England have not begun a World Cup better for 28 years, scoring incisively through their captain, Steven Gerrard, just four minutes in, and yet they have seldom ended a tournament’s opening game feeling worse.

Robert Green, Fabio Capello’s contentious choice of starting goalkeeper, imploded and the myth that England are somehow among the favourites for these finals was exploded. A scrappy, uncomfortable draw against the second-ranked side in Group C may not stop Capello’s men topping it, but it is hard to see them proceeding far in the knockout rounds unless they make giant and sudden improvements.

That story was one of the less incendiary published in the aftermath of the USA-England match. The overwhelming majority of the prose from England’s writers from South Africa cut deeper and sharper, not wasting time in going for the jugular. The tabloid, The Sun, plastered pictures of Green’s “fluff” all over its Sunday editions and buried stories about British Petroleum’s “fluff” into the back pages.

From The Sun:

SKIPPER Steven Gerrard refused to condemn Robert Green after the keeper's gaffe cost England three points in Rustenburg.

Indeed, the writer seemed indignant about the team’s captain refusing to pile on a teammate and later in the story labeled Dempsey’s shot on goal, “tame,” with this bit about another error by the British:

“One disastrous spill the Yanks won’t complain about.”

Yes, because the Yanks are a bunch whiners for complaining about the wanton destruction of the planet.

And from The Guardian:

Just as South Africa opened their World Cup with a goal that will be remembered forever, so England, as is their wont, contrived to open theirs with a goalkeeping blunder that will never be forgotten. No sooner had Fabio Capello placed his confidence in Robert Green than his judgment was mocked by the sort of bungle no professional footballer can comfortably watch, an unforced error that allowed the United States back into a game on which England appeared to have a comfortable grip after Steven Gerrard's early goal.

Nowhere was the fact that England did not lose the game mentioned high up in the reports from London. That all seemed beside the point as the knee-jerk reactions rolled in from a misplay that has not affected England’s chances to win the World Cup for the first time since 1966. In fact, England and the United States are still favored to advance to the knock-out rounds if they score a victory against either Algeria or Slovenia, two teams not rated as high as either club.

But football was invented in England. More than Brazil, Italy, Colombia, Ghana, Spain, Germany or South Africa, football is an English game to a degree even greater than football, baseball and basketball are our games. The first modern rules were put together at Cambridge University in 1848 though the game had been played in England since the medieval times as they were first focused on conquering the world and as a gift they gave it football.

With this gift, though, comes a steep price and Green is paying it for all of England.

 “Bring it on,” Green said bravely after discussing his misplay with the English press in South Africa. “I can take it.”

Indeed Green will continue to take it until England regains a spot on top of the world. Based on the dispatches from London, that won’t be any time soon.

USA for Africa

Bob Bradley is a smart man. As the coach of the U.S.World Cup team headed for South Africa on Monday, Bradley has to be pretty sharp. So when listening to the coach speak after games it’s best to listen to the words he’s not saying as opposed to what is said.

Now this isn’t to say that Bradley is performing avant jazz by bebopping and scatting confusing and cryptic phrases on our ears. No, far from it. However, following the 2-1 victory over the national team from Turkey on Saturday afternoon at the Linc, it was evident that the coach believes his team has some more work to do before its first match against England on June 12.

Again, Bradley wasn’t hiding anything, but then again he really didn’t have to. There was no conspiratorial tone from Bradley whatsoever. Still, it seemed as if Bradley was trying to sell the notion that everything was going to be OK.

Certainly that’s a relative term when it comes to U.S. soccer in international competition. Still, based on the team’s painful 0-3 showing in the last World Cup and the experience of the players on the current roster, Team USA has to be a little better than OK. It’s the round of 16 or bust in South Africa for the U.S.

Still, Bradley touched on a few themes after Saturday’s game against Turkey. Call them buzzwords for a lack of a better term. Based off a first half where Turkey clearly outplayed the U.S. and took a 1-0 lead into the locker room and a second half where Bradley’s team dominated the action, those terms were reaction, transition, response and most importantly, understanding.

In other words, Bradley is still doing a lot of team building and teaching with his team with the World Cup to begin in 11 days.

“The type of game we were in pushed the team very hard and that’s what you want from a game like today,” Bradley said. “The response, especially in the second half, was a strong one. We did a good job pushing through the second goal, we had a couple of chances to get the third goal, but when you consider everything that’s gone on the last few weeks it puts us in a good position and I think now we’re ready to move on to South Africa.”

See, he thinks the team is ready. Bradley knows there are still plenty of question marks with his team, and though the game against Turkey ended well, it should be noted that it is not a team that will be competing in the World Cup and is currently rated 29^th in the latest FIFA world rankings. So when Bradley talks about the team pacing itself during the first half it raises an eyebrow considering goalie Tim Howard exploded out of the penalty area to bark at a teammate for some perceived lackadaisical defense.

If the U.S. team was pacing itself, someone forgot to tell Howard.

“We were a little all over the place,” Howard said. “I’ve been saying that’s been something we have to try to get better at, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it.”

Of course there is the notion that the U.S. team was still trying to figure out some things. During the first half the team looked slow and disorganized—reaction and response as Bradley pointed out—but when the coach subbed in Jose Torres and Robbie Findlay and paired them with star midfielders Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, everything clicked.

In that regard, yes, there was an understanding of what the team can do and who can do it. That will be valuable when the team gets going in South Africa—especially considering the team has a favorable draw in its group. Sure, England is No. 8 in the FIFA rankings (the U.S. is 14^th), but there are two winnable games against Slovenia (23^rd) on June 18 and Algeria (31^st) on June 23. Potential opponents in the round of 16 are Australia (20^th), Ghana (32^nd), Serbia (16^th) and the always tough Germany (6^th).

No, the U.S. is not going to win the World Cup. At least not until the next Kobe Bryant and LeBron James opt for soccer instead of other sports.In other words, this could be a very good year for U.S. Soccer… that is if it can take care of a few issues before the games start. That means no more repeats of the first half of the game against Turkey in Philadelphia.

“It was a slap in the face what happened in the first half and they hit us hard,” Howard said. “They were getting too many chances, too many good opportunities and good looks that we had to tighten up. …”

Like Howard said, there isn’t a lot of time to iron it out, but Bradley remains positive. He has to.

“There’s a lot of things on the field to build on, a real good push when we got behind and in the end a good heartfelt win against a good team so, in that regard, we accomplished a lot,” the coach said.

Now they have to accomplish something in South Africa.

Tuning in (then tuning out?)

Even in defeat the loss by Team USA to Canada in the gold medal game of the Vancouver Olympics was pretty impressive. Forget the fact that Ryan Miller, the losing goalie, was the MVP of the tournament or that the team had about 72 hours to get together before it played its first real game. These things just belie the point.
 
Yeah, the United States is a big country and that means we should be good at a lot of things that require mettle and brawn. The pool from which draw from for athletics is very deep and it’s not outlandish to think that some of the best athletes in the country are playing the wrong sports. For instance, think if LeBron James, all 6-foot-8 and 270 pounds of him played soccer. How would LeBron look running around like a freight train on the pitch amongst veritable waifs like Ronaldo or Beckham? Those guys wouldn't stand a chance.

Or what if all that time in Italy as a kid pushed Kobe Bryant toward soccer instead of basketball? Soccer, of course, is just one example but there are thousands of different scenarios out there that could have changed the sporting landscape.

Most of the variables involved here have to do with economics and geography. Basketball doesn’t cost a lot of money to play. Better yet, it doesn’t even require another person. Try playing baseball or football by yourself. Trust me, it’s not much fun.

Hockey is the worst of the bunch. A kid can’t play it by himself, the equipment is ridiculously expensive and the necessary elements required to play are difficult to find in 80 percent of the country. In fact, I remember wanting to play hockey when I was a kid until I learned that in order to get ice time at the one rink in town, practices had to start at 5 a.m. I imagine ice time is even more difficult to find in the southeast and southwestern parts of the country.

The point is hockey is not our game. We’re not ingrained to think about becoming hockey players when we’re kids because not only is it not a part of our culture (except for in certain regions), it has set up roadblocks of participation. It's a regional/fringe/cult sport, but so what. Isn't it more fun to have something of your very own?

So hockey in the United States has a lot working against it, but the national team somehow always is vying to be the best in the world. Twice the US has won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics and twice in the last three tries, Team USA lost to Canada for the gold medal.

How can Canada ever lose in international hockey? If Canada were to lose in hockey to the US it would be much, much worse than if the US team did not get the gold in basketball. Considering the percentage of kids that grow up playing both sports in their respective countries, Canada should dominate every hockey competition the same way the United States should dominate every basketball competition.

And yet in Canada they were dancing in the streets after the team hung on to beat the Americans in overtime. They had all they could handle in a hockey tournament that as close to a US invasion the Great White North will see baring a mass encroachment at the border to get those reasonably priced prescription medications and Cuban cigars they have.

Indeed, give the Canadians credit for the hockey acumen, high standards of living, quality health care, cheap drugs and the ability to travel to Cuba. We’ll take hoops, nicer weather, all-you-can-eat buffets and the fact that we don’t spell words like “color” oh so annoyingly like, “colour.”

We know what the gold medal hockey game means to Canada (everything), but what does it mean here in the US. Sure, the OT loss was the third-most watched hockey game ever—behind the 1980 Olympics game against the USSR and the gold-medal game against Finland—but how will that translate to the NHL?

How about this… it won’t.

Hey, I could be wrong, but I don’t see anything in common between the Olympics version of hockey and the NHL. One has to do with national pride in the only understandable team sport in the oddity that is the Winter Olympics, and the other used to get national TV ratings worse than women’s softball and the WNBA. Oh sure, there is a large and vocal hockey contingent in Philadelphia. In numbers they might not be as great as the folks more interested in the traditional American sports, but they make a lot of noise and spend a lot of money.

However, just because the US lost a thrilling game to Canada doesn’t necessarily mean Flyers’ fans are going to tune in to watch Detroit vs. Colorado. After all, the Phillies open up their Grapefruit League schedule on Thursday against the Yankees and Denver plays Phoenix in NBA action tonight.

When’s the next Olympics?