Soccer Contrarian

Well, I've been stewing on the U.S. Soccer loss to Brazil for a few days now. The Americans suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder, and apparently sent two different teams to this Confederations Cup tournament this month in South Africa. For the first two games and the second half of the game against Brazil, the Americans apparently fielded a hapless bunch of half-hearted defeatists. Against Egypt, Spain and for one half against Brazil, they sent a world-class squad of soccer players. I'd like to see more of that squad.

The conventional wisdom I'm seeing browsing U.S. press coverage of this tournament is all touchy-feely happy talk about how the team exceeded expectations, how they played well, how they tried hard, etc. What a load of bull. It's poppycock and I'm not having any of it.

This team needs to understand that they fell apart. Any other interpretation of events is self-deception. In the FINAL of a major international tournament, America's A-Team of experienced international professionals blew a 2-0 halftime lead by playing too defensively and failing to maintain possession of the soccer ball. Everything that was working for the U.S. in the first half stopped working. The primary problem was turnovers, the result of unforced errors and bad tactical decisions. The team's fitness is also a shortcoming, because they looked gassed at the end of 90 minutes, and the Brazilians did not.

If a baseball team coughs up a late-inning lead in the playoffs, or a football team blows a 14-point second-half lead in the Super Bowl, if a hockey team gives up 3 goals in the third period, the healthy reaction is to point some fingers at themselves and account for what went wrong.

All this talk about moral victories and valuable experience enables a loser's mentality -- the idea that the team really had no business being in the final in the first place. But I've seen this team whip Spain and Portugal in major tournaments. I've seen them go toe-to-toe with Italy in a World Cup which Italy ultimately won. So maybe it's time to start getting used to the idea that our boys belong on the world stage, and to hold ourselves to the same standards our opponents do.

From the AP:

"We're at the point where we don't want respect, we want to win," said Landon Donovan, whose goal in the 27th minute gave the United States a 2-0 lead. "There's no guarantee we ever get back to a final game like this, so it's disappointing."

I'm with Donovan. If the U.S. had played 90 minutes of neck-and-neck soccer against Brazil and come up just short at 3-2, maybe I'd buy the sunny talk. But in this game, in an incredible position to win at half-time, the squad fell apart. They ought to be angry about it.

If they're not angry, they're not ready to win.


Photo credit: AFP/Getty via STLToday