Summer Soccer Recap

International Soccer

First and foremost I’d like to apologize for going AWOL during this summer. Although baseball usually dominates the summer months there was some American action going on with the greatest sport in the world.  I’m talking about soccer.  So let us recap our ride through the Women’s World Cup and the Gold Cup (Men’s). USA! USA! USA!!  Ladies first.

Our women’s national team entered the tournament as one of the favorites with a #1 FIFA ranking.  (I personally favored the 2-time defending Germans and their home field advantage.)  The Americans started off less than spectacular losing to Sweden in group play.  With a second place seeding, we were pit against another heavy favorite in Brazil.  A showcase by Brazil’s Marta and it appeared the Brazilians were moving on.  Then the unthinkable happened.  Fighting to their last breath the Americans scored a miracle 122 minute (for you soccer newbies, that’s 2 minutes into stoppage/extra time of the second overtime!) equalizer. The subsequent shootout netted a win for team USA.  It was one of the best comeback finishes in any sport.  With that memorable win came one word: destiny.  The bandwagon officially got rolling and the words Hope and Solo were never bigger.  Little did we know that destiny had bigger plans…

Luckily for me I had heritage on my side, which motivated me to watch the other team of destiny, Japan. (Pardon moi dad. France did finish a respectable fourth).  The Japanese, like the Americans, finished second in the group stage. The “Nadeshiko” displayed brilliant ball possession and technical ability, but a group stage loss to a physical England made everyone believe that Japan was simply too small to measure up.  The quarterfinal opponent was the daunting Germans and their ridiculous height advantage.  Nevertheless Japan pulled off the stunner of the tournament by imposing its possession style and knocking out the host country.  Size didn’t matter yet again as Japan stormed past Sweden to match up against the favored Americans.

In the game, a resilient Japan grasped destiny away from the Americans by coming from behind (twice!) to send the game into penalty kicks.  In the end, Japan was not to be denied as they handedly won the shootout.  “The Japanese, running around like little mice!” proclaimed my excited mother.  She couldn’t be more right as Japan scurried all over the pitch eating up the competition with their beautiful play.  And even as an American, I had to be happy for the Japanese.  They earned it. They had the best player in the cup, the ageless Sawa, and played their brand of soccer throughout.  When you think bigger than soccer, you had to root for Japan.  The country, ravaged by natural disasters needed some solace.  In Japan fashion, after every game the team humbly displayed its appreciation for the support the world has given Japan. The country deserved a World Cup title and they got one.

As for America! The Women’s World Cup showed us two things: that we could be excited about women sports and that we could be excited about soccer.  There’s a caveat: Winning!  (Touché Charlie Sheen) We won’t reach the ‘fandemonium’ levels of our four major sports until we win. Our attention spans are short and there is already so much to choose from.  Maybe some will learn to love the beautiful game for what it is, but the majority will only convert with success.   

It is why currently many don’t give a lick about the men’s national team because we ain’t any good.  (The fact that our women’s team is top level shows wonders to female sports opportunities in this country. Props to Title IX.)  If you are a diehard fan like me, you will still follow the men’s team every chance you get even if it means you have to scour your television channels to find a network that carries the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Gracias, Univision.  The CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament crowns the best of North America and the Caribbean.

In case you are not familiar with CONCACAF play, it is basically all about the Mexicans and Americans.  They’re the favorites and they’ve won 10 of 11 Gold Cups between them.  The rest of the region is filled with cupcake to average at best teams.  As expected, I watched the Americans cruise their way through Jamaica and Panama to set up a faceoff with rival Mexico. This year’s championship contest took place in the Bruins’ house: The Rose Bowl.  You would hope U.S. soil would translate to a home crowd for the Americans. Nope. It turned out to be a Mexican party.

The United States crashed it early with two scores despite the partisan crowd and superior Mexican team.  The first came from a brilliant header by Michael Bradley off a corner followed 15 minutes later by a cool finish from Landon Donovan.  Shocker! 2 nil against Mexico!  We were getting outplayed, but somehow we were up by two.  Now we just have to play solid DEFENSE and the Gold Cup is ours.   Instead, we went for the jugular and spread ourselves out against a better team. Again our weakness at left back was exposed and Mexico proceeded to torch us for four goals including a beautiful finish by Giovanni Dos Santos (check it out).   It was as painful as the Confederations Cup final (where we lost 3-2 to Brazil after a 2-0 halftime lead). 

Another big game meltdown meant a death sentence for USA coach Bob Bradley.  In step Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German star and national team head coach, who has been the desired guy for several years.  The media dubs it The Klinsmann Revolution and I have to admit I am excited to see where he takes us.  Although we’ve started off slow, 0-2-1, it is all part of the process.  Klinsmann is observing and analyzing what we really have while trying to shape our players, especially our youth, to compete at the national team level.  It’s what we need to do.  We can’t compete with the top dogs unless we properly develop our players for elite level competition.  It is what we do with our top athletes in football, baseball, and basketball and we need more of it for soccer.  The United States is the greatest sports country in the world and we will one day compete for the greatest sport in the world.  USA! USA! USA!!!