United States Soccer: By The Skin of Their Teeth
The United States is not a soccer powerhouse. We all know this. But after years of improvements to our program, expectations for the team have risen. Nobody expects a World Cup, but the US team's performance in the last tournament was shameful. It got a coach fired, and may have set back fan interest in soccer in this country several years.
The team had played relatively well lately in World Cup qualifying, though that was against relatively weak competition (the US is actually the best team in CONCACAF, which is the governing body for soccer in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean). So going into the Confederations Cup there were moderate expectations - high hopes, but tempered by reality.
The reality part struck hard and fast in the first two games of the group stage, with the US team losing to Italy and Brazil by a combined score of 6-1, and looking bad doing it. The Americans went into its game against Egypt with the odds stacked against them: they needed to win by at least three goals, and have Brazil beat Italy by at least three. It was an improbable scenario.
Until it actually happened.
The US team beat down Egypt, who was coming off a 1-0 upset of reigning World Cup champs Italy, by a 3-0 score, and the Brazilians obliged by beating down the Italians by an identical score. The third goal for Brazil, the one that officially eliminated the Italian team, was ironically an own goal by one of the Italian defenders on a crossing pass.
In the grand scheme of things, this may not be that big of a deal. The Confederations Cup isn't the World Cup. The stakes were simply making the semifinals and avoiding the embarrassment that would have come with another early elimination. The Americans now face the reigning European champions, Spain - who will probably eliminate the American team quite easily.
But for those of us who follow soccer, this was a pretty big win.
Losing in the group stage of this tournament wouldn't be that bad under certain circumstances. Our group was strong, with perennially powerful Brazil and Italy, as well as the highly underrated Egyptian team. But to lose without even challenging any of the big boys would have been another highly demoralizing showing for US soccer.
To grow the sport in this country, our national team must at least be able to play with the European and South American teams. Advancing to the semis will give them another shot at doing that. They played well against a good team, and that's big for them.
It was nice just to see some fight from the US soccer players. Lately, they've had stage fright. Most underdogs in soccer are able to put up decent fights, but the Americans routinely underperformed against good teams, and did so again in their games against Italy and Brazil. In the same situation in the 2006 World Cup, they lost to Ghana and were never really in the game.
They very well could have seen the odds against them and given up, like they tend to do. But this time they showed up. They fought for their lives, and though they needed help, they did their part. And they got that help, and now their tournament lives have been saved.
If they show the same spirit against Spain that they did against Italy and Brazil, they will be crushed, and this will have been just a little gasp in an otherwise disappointing team's history. But if they show up like they did against Egypt, they will stand a chance. Win or lose, they'll have a shot, and they'll either advance or fall with honor.
And considering the state of soccer in this country, compared to the rest of the world, soccer fans will likely be happy with simply showing up.
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