This article sums it up for US soccer, friends we have taken some big steps backward...sadly.
Crying shame: U.S. soccer is a
wasteland again
June 22, 1998
LYONS, France -- Cry for
American soccer.
Some will laugh at it; some will
curse it. But to cry is more proper.
Cry for a sports program in a nation
as large and as rich and as
athletically conscious as ours, which
has so clearly lost its way in soccer.
Cry for a team that came here full of bravado that
turned out to be hollow.
Cry for a team that still has one game to play here
but has no chance, no hope. And worst of all, no
purpose.
Cry for young men such as Alexi Lalas and Eric
Wynalda and Marcelo Balboa, who were relegated
to the bench in favor of another plan and other men,
although they are among those who took the
toddling few steps that moved the American game
beyond the embarrassment of Italy eight years ago.
Cry for Steve Sampson's grand scheme that was to
deliver the American team to the second round of
this World Cup and instead failed miserably against
a world power such as Germany and on Sunday
failed miserably against a poor little soccer-deprived
country such as Iran.
Cry for all the could-have-beens, all the
we-almost-dids, all the oh-we-were-so-closes.
Cry for Frankie Hejduk, the surfer kid from
California, who was the brightest light on the field
for the Americans. Hejduk, a blur of long hair and
flashing heels and athletic aggression, ran
point-blank to the goal in the game's final minutes
and -- his entire body in the air -- rifled a kick from
only a few feet in front of the net that Iranian goalie
Ahmad Abedzadeh sacrificed his body to deflect.
Cry for Brian McBride, who came so close to
scoring with a bullet of a header in the opening
minutes and finally scored the United States' only
goal after the Iranians had a 2-0 lead.
The games we play are rarely as complex as the
coaches make them appear. Hit the ball over the
fence, get the ball in the end zone, or in the net.
And in soccer, chances to do that come so seldom,
it is foolish, and dangerous, to waste an opportunity.
In the end, the Americans took 27 shots, the
Iranians took 15, and Jamal Talebi, the Iranian
coach who lives in Palo Alto, Calif., was almost
apologetic to Sampson afterwards.
"Technically, they dominated a large part of the
game," Talebi said, with Sampson standing in
another part of the postgame interview room. "I
compliment you, Mr. Sampson. You had many
chances to score a goal and you did not. That's the
only reason you lost the game."
That cut through all the rest of the rhetoric.
This American team, on this night, had many
chances to at least tie this game and postpone its
fate for another five days, until Thursday when it
meets Yugoslavia in Nantes.
Because of recklessness or poor planning, because
of bad preparation or bad combinations of players,
because of poor luck or fate or circumstances, those
chances passed unclaimed.
Cry for the waste.
Cry for the effort that brought these players and
their hopes here but can take them no further.
There will be another World Cup in four years, in
Asia, but none of these young men -- and certainly
not Sampson -- have any guarantee of being there.
Two games into this tournament, it is over for the
Americans. One game remains to be played, but
now it is meaningless, in contrast to Sunday's match,
which was filled with urgency and promise and even
a certain amount of intrigue.
This was supposed to be the match with all the
animosity, all the hard feelings, all the bitterness that
politics can breed. This was supposed to be the
good ol' US of A against those bad ol' guys from the
faraway place with the strange-sounding names.
And then -- after both national anthems were played
-- they did not go their own ways for the team
pictures. In a moment that could raise the hair on
your arms, they stood together, Jones and
Mohammadkhani, Moore and Abedzadeh,
McBride and Khakpour, arms around each other,
and posed for one giant picture of the two teams
together.
Men united, not in a national purpose, not under a
common flag, not in a single political posture, but
athletes committed to an effort to be the best they
could be.
It is not easy to hear this morning, but the Iranians
were better Sunday.
And when it was over, most of the Americans, some
undoubtedly more at odds with each other and with
their coach than with the Iranians, simply could not
bear it.
Claudio Reyna, who missed the '94 World Cup with
an injury and waited what seemed a lifetime for this
bitter disappointment, did not even go through with
the customary jersey exchange with a member of the
other team.
"It wasn't disrespect," he said. "I just didn't know
what to do. I was so completely sad and
disappointed."
Most of the Americans disappeared quickly down
the tunnel to their dressing room.
At first, only Hejduk trotted to a corner of the
stadium where American fans sat, for the traditional
applauding of the audience. Then Ernie Stewart
followed. And Thomas Dooley. And, finally,
Joe-Max Moore.
The rest had turned their backs on what had
happened to them Sunday night.
It was more than they could face any longer.
Cry for them.
Cry for American soccer. |
