It was a story that would briefly capture the sporting nation.
But in the end it would end like any other past experience for the USA national team in the World Cup.
Anyway that you break it down, the USA was flatout not a good enough team to win the World Cup this summer. Their second round exit against the lone African team left, Ghana, is more then enough proof of this mediocre result. At last summer’s Confederation Cup, the USA national team displayed a glimmer of hope for this upcoming tournament by defeating Spain and nearly Brazil as well in the final, but at the end of the day the team was not good enough to perform on that high of a level this summer. Regardless of this recent international success, the loss will still be considered a great disappointment to most journalists here in the States.
The finger can be pointed at several people for the second round exit. The most likely deserving candidate to shoulder the burden is who other then head coach Bob Bradley. The manager did make several bold decisions heading into the Cup including the bizarre preference of rarely capped Robbie Findley to the starting eleven and the lack of Brian Ching to the final 23 spots. But perhaps the one tactical move that will be considered the most memorable blunder was the start of Ricardo Clark in the midfield in the knockout round match. The midfielder lost the ball on a critical early turnover that saw Kevin Prince Boateng score on a breakaway forcing the Yanks to play catch-up for the rest of the match.
But in my own personal opinion, the greatest crime committed by Bradley was not going with the second half lineup in the beginning of the match. It appeared every match that the United States was strongest in the final 45 minutes and maybe that is because it takes the team a while to warm up and mentally prepare themselves or maybe it is because the second half roster is simply better then the first. Benny Feilhaber seemed to fit into the starting eleven much more comfortably then Findley or Clark and the midfielder was brought into the game for the second half of that Slovenia comeback from a 2-0 deficit and also was on the pitch when the Yanks pulled off the epic comeback against Algeria. In regular time minutes when the midfielder was on the pitch the USA had an impressive goal differential of 4-0.
Another overlooked player that could of potentially broke into the starting eleven was Edson Buddle the phenom scorer for the LA Galaxy. Buddle impressed for the international side the week before the start of the tournament with 2 goals against an underrated defensive squad in the Socceroos. Still he would only see limited action despite the promising performance and the young forward would not even see the pitch at all in the final match.
But to tell you the truth the USA can point the finger at several key players, coaches, and scenarios including the lack of fitness and readiness for Oguchi Onyewu this summer due to a serious knee injury and the misfortune of losing Charlie Davies back in the fall in that catastrophic car accident which killed the driver of the vehicle. The USA had their fair share of burdens to deal with in the last year and the Confederations Cup has become a fading dream to many fans that had high expectations this summer.
With that being said, Donovan has proven himself to be a key asset and played like a guy that is considered the best ever from the USA and Tim Howard showed one particular elite team that we Yanks are stronger at least one important position. But in the American media (much like England or I guess any media for that matter) winning it all is the only thing relevant and the only thing that makes headlines long term.
In other words this game will be considered further proof to soccer haters out there that the USA is an inferior soccer nation incapable of achieving extraordinary things. But one Yank still enjoyed the trip anyway and qualification and a second round berth is achieved by less then 10% of international teams out there.
The USA is certainly not a serious contender yet, but the beauty of sports is that there is always next year.
Well in this case next year is four away though.
photo credit: Robert S. Donovan
