‘All That Which Glitters’ Or ‘The USMNT Suddenly Sucks’

They Didn't Really Lay Down

Did you hear? We’re not good at soccer. Or something like that.

The USMNT is playing in its confederation’s championship and it might not be doing too well. Having played its three preliminary matches, the US won two and lost one to finish second in its four-team group. Win two of three in almost any sport and you’ll probably pick up a fair share of trophies over time.

But the actual winning percentage here is getting overshadowed by the context in which it was earned. It has given birth to a sort of mini-panic among ardent soccernistas in America. First, the US had never lost a group match in Gold Cup play prior to its 2-1 beating at the hands of Panama. Additionally, it was far from dominant in its other two matches that it did win: a pedestrian 2-0 victory over Canada and a 1-0 barf-inducing display against miniscule Guadeloupe.

We wouldn’t have thought much about it (not much more than we already have) if not for a couple of pieces of bad writing spawned in the wake of group play we stumbled across today (found here and here).

The first, from New York Mag, isn’t bad so much as it’s kind of vacuous—we don’t look so great, but there’s soccer and you might not have much else to watch—although we will take exception to this opening sentence: “During the World Cup last year, one of the fun parts of cheering for the United States was that, for once, the U.S. was a clear underdog.”

Uh, no. We were probably favorites in two (Slovenia, Algeria) of our three group matches, and the third was against England, who are liable to implode at any World Cup not held on domestic soil at any given moment (thank you Robert Green). We were probably close to even money (or maybe even slight favorites) against our knock-out round opponent Ghana. One the scale from ‘clear underdogs’ to ‘Spain or Brazil’ we were probably closer to the latter than the former last summer.

That’s not to say we were close to bringing Jules Rimet home with us—although we had everything break right for us to make a serious run—but on the relative scale we were not North Korea or New Zealand (unbeaten in South Africa by the way).

The other piece is just unreadably bad. It should aspire to be merely hackneyed. To briefly respond to its rhetorical title—’Shouldn’t the United States Be Better at Soccer’—we’ll say, ‘Yes. Read Soccernomics. There’s a whole chapter on that. And it’s got data instead of casual racism.’

On a day with more time, it might get fully FJM’ed. Instead we will take the occasion to appeal for some calm in the storm of our suckage. Yes, the USMNT play wasn’t great in the first round of the Gold Cup and, as much as there might be cause for concern, we probably have enough perspective already to give cause for chilling out a bit.

First, there’s little dispute that we played well below our potential against Canada. But isn’t the hallmark of good teams getting results when you’re not at your best? We did that. We used to not be able to do that. Take the 3 points and the +2 GD and move on.

The loss to Panama was definitely surprising and still stings a bit. But, they came to play. They were aggressive and took the game to us from the opening whistle. We also conceded a stupid penalty and generally looked lackluster for about 60 minutes. We pulled one goal back, had a legit penalty shout of our own turned down and had about three great chances to level inside the last ten minutes. We were that close to getting a result in a game where we basically spotted our opponents two goals and still half-assed it for another half hour before deciding to play. The loss to Panama could have easily been at least a draw.

Finally there was the match against Guadeloupe. The less said the better. We looked poor again. But we also missed about a dozen sitters. Really, we were almost comical in inventing ways not to score from inside the six-yard box. If we convert just a couple of those we waltz to a 3-0 or 4-0 victory. And as crappy as we looked, we should note that Guadeloupe played about as well as you could for going winless. In addition to dropping the 1-0 match to the US, they lost 1-0 to Canada and 3-2 to Panama. All of their losses were by a single goal. Compare that to the other group doormats of Cuba (shipped 16 goals with a -15 GD) and Grenada (shipped 15 goals with a -14GD).

So, while on paper, that should have been a walkover… well, it still should have been a walkover. And probably would have been save for some misses that I still can’t fathom how we missed.

There are legit concerns for this team (and we’re about as quick as anyone to point them out). We have yet to play well for any long stretch. Half the players look like shells of what they were in South Africa. Few newcomers have made much of an impact. Bradley is still in charge. Etc. There’s also the possibility (maybe now the reality) that we’re just not as good now as we were even a year ago. Couple that with the fact that Mexico looks way better than they did 365 days ago and you get the handwringing because we’re likely not the dominant team in CONCACAF anymore.

Still, the group results weren’t a complete disaster. Six points from two matches. We advanced. Okay, almost everyone advances in the Gold Cup, but now we’ve got it all to play for.

If we lose to Jamaica, then come back and talk to us; and we’ll rethink where we stand vis a vis the panic.