19 hours ago
6
On Monday night, USMNT’s manager Mauricio Pochettino‘s audacious rally cry “Why Not US” was unfortunately answered.
It’s because against Belgium, we stunk.
Not that we were looking for one. We just wanted to continue to feel the unity, momentum, awesome vibes and the belief, which Pochettino’s squad crop dusted into the ether.
We had started to believe, perhaps naively, that our country’s moment on the pitch had arrived.
After beating Paraguay, Australia and Bosnia and being robbed in the final seconds by Turkey, maybe we’d finally become the force that the prophets promised.
However, against Belgium the USMNT took the field in a stupor, making defensive mistakes that would be unforgivable at the youth level, never mind on the world’s stage.
And on our home turf, no less.
The team was too timid and a step too slow to the ball. They played flat.
Perhaps it wouldn’t feel so bad if we had gone down in a dog fight, barking and biting. Kicking and screaming.
Nope, our men went down like an ice cold beer on a 98-degree day: quick and easy.
Belgium was by far the better team, and they ruthlessly rubbed it in with a little Trump dance.
Predictably, the hangover has been playing out all over X this morning. The platform is filled with a litany of diagnoses as to why our national soccer program continues to fall short, despite having a country of roughly 345 million people.
Among the explanations offered: there’s no unstructured street ball culture like there is in hoops, the best athletes gravitate toward other sports, or the cost of elite soccer is too prohibitive; favoring the wealthy and eliminating those hungry players who could be developed if only their bank accounts were more flush.
House of Strauss’ Ethan Strauss argued that we are missing the “generational tissue” to seamlessly pass the love of the game from fathers to sons like we do in other sports. Indeed, I recall Christian Pulisic in HBO’s docuseries, “U.S. Against The World” saying that he was raised in Hershey, Penn., where no one gave a rat’s behind about soccer.
From American football country, he willed himself to the world’s stage in futbol.
Of course, our soccer academy system that develops players lags behind other countries, which have had a singular focus on the sport for a century.
An autopsy would find many diseases — some more detrimental to the system than others.
This morning, an English friend who has worked in European football at the top level tried to put the crushing loss into perspective. He noted most people are lucky to see their country win one World Cup in their lifetime. “It’s the memories we make along the way that make it so rewarding.”
Blah blah blah.
Or to quote Bill Murray in “Stripes” — “We’re Americans! With a Capital A.”
We’re not there for the friends we made along the way. We want to win. We expect to dominate.
However, Americans are optimistic people. Even through the criticism of a premature elimination and an unrealized dream of advancing on US soil, there were beautiful takeaways.
And beautiful things left behind (maybe my English friend was halfway right).
We did feel a palpable movement within our own culture. Americans engaged in unprecedented ways. We fell in love with international fans falling in love with us.
In stadiums across the country, US fans overpaid for tickets so they could paint their faces, don their best red white and blue and take in the glory of a live international game. They packed bars and streets to be in communion with each other. The match against Belgium averaged 30 million viewers – the biggest soccer audience in American television history.
For a while, Team USA carried a united nation to the tune of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” as it echoed through stadiums. We sopped up every last detail about every last player on the roster. We marveled over Alex Freeman’s emerging talent on the pitch, years after his father Antonio Freeman won a Super Bowl on the gridiron. It was a uniquely American story.
And we cast Russell Crowe in Pochettino’s biopic.
Even here in New York City it was exhilarating. On Monday, I slid into a packed Conall’s Public House in the East Village. As the national anthem blared through the gazillion televisions, nearly every patron in there stood at attention, hand over their hearts. It was enough to make me well up.
And when Malik Tillman scored to tie up the game for those brief moments, the place erupted into USA chants that lingered longer than usual.
As the game slipped away, people looked dejected. Our hearts broke. We gave a damn.
Perhaps the more we care, the more we’re willing to devote ourselves to finally ascend on the world stage.
And maybe in four years, “Why Not US” will be a promise, not the start of a list of problems.
English (US)