The U.S. men have been booted (pun intended) from the World Cup of Soccer and once again it’s time to cue the Peggy Lee standard, “Is That All There Is?”
When it comes to the American men, the answer is yes. They often get to the round of 16 in these things, raising hopes among the fans, then go down in flames.
Monday night, the killer shot was administered by Belgium; a rather resounding 4-1 butt-kicking.
If you’ve been reading World Cup posts in this space, you know I wanted the United States to do well, but I was expecting more of the same disappointment. The telltale signs were everywhere if you looked, including uneven performances in “friendly” matches against quality competition before the World Cup began, and that loss to Turkey to end group play.
Yes, the Americans had nothing to play for in terms of seeding vs. Turkey, but did anyone consider pride and not being humbled by a disappointing Turkey team already out of the competition before that third group-stage game and a team unable to score – until it met the porous U.S. defense and its pedestrian goalie?
Like Canada and Mexico, the other co-hosts for this, the U.S. was put into a weak group and helped mightily in getting into knockout play. Many around the world are griping that “Flo” Balogun had his red-card suspension rescinded. So, Balogun played. If he hadn’t would it have been 8-1?
Our men again failed to show up when the chips were down. Have you heard, we are 0-7 when the opposition scores first in knockout play? By way of contrast, Belgium was down by two goals late in its previous game and rallied to win.
And that, my friends, is the difference between a country with a strong soccer program and one just happy to be there.
The United States needed more, much more from many players. But none disappointed more than Christian Pulisic. He looked lost and kept giving up the ball. Twice early, he was stripped clean by a Belgium defender. By ESPN’s count, Pulisic coughed up the ball no fewer than 11 times!
Like they say in hockey’s Stanley Cup playoffs, your best players have to come up big or you have no chance. Pulisic came up Lilliputian.
When Belgium scored to go up 1-0, I figured it was over and I began watching DVRd programs, such as Perry Mason and The Twilight Zone.
I did check back to see the U.S. achieve a 1-1 tie on a free kick, only quickly to fall behind again.
Our mediocre goalie, Matt Freese, made one unexpectedly good save early. Later, he was out of position on multiple goals and, according to ESPN’s story, gave away the ball for yet another Belgium goal.
I didn’t bother to watch any of the post-mortems from the Fox cheerleaders. I would hope they finally fessed up that U.S. soccer winning a World Cup is about as likely as the Pirates winning the World Series or the Cleveland Browns winning a Super Bowl.
Why not us? they’d asked before the Cup. Well, that’s been answered.
And, as to those Mike Eruzione commercials in the bar asking about believing in miracles, I do believe, just not when that miracle is defined as our men’s soccer being more than an also-ran team in the World Cup.
World peace and universal prosperity are more likely to be attainable miracles.
Sam Ross Jr's site 