As a member of that weird fan niche of international soccer, I remember writing that youth soccer participation had surpassed Little League baseball and the United States would soon become a world soccer power.
I wrote that in 1980.
The numbers were taken from the state of Washington, where I worked at the time, but by 1995 the numbers had reflected the entire nation. It’s 14 years later, long enough for those tykes to grow into rocket- legged snipers, and the U.S. is struggling to beat Honduras in Chicago. With the 2010 World Cup in South Africa a year away, the U.S. appears no more of a threat than North Korea.
Last week’s 3-1 drubbing in Costa Rica and Saturday’s 2-1 comeback win over Honduras, a victory politely described as “ugly,” have made no American kid replace his Brett Favre poster with one of Landon Donovan.
The U.S., 3-1-1, trails 4-0-1 Costa Rica in the six-team CONCACAF standings. The Americans’ next game is Aug. 9 at Mexico, where they have gone zip for, well, ever. The U.S. is 0-22-1 at Mexico.
The U.S. will make the World Cup. CONCACAF is world soccer’s equivalent of the Sun Belt Conference. But the way this team is playing, the World Cup TV ratings in this country will resemble those of bowling from Buffalo.
Defensively, the U.S. is a mess. The Rapids’ Pablo Mastroeni, 32, looked old and slow at Costa Rica, DaMarcus Beasley is in decline and Donovan, arguably America’s best player ever, still doesn’t keep goalies awake at night. And these are veterans from the last World Cup. And need I mention that I have as much World Cup coaching experience as Bob Bradley?
It’s clear this team is no better, in any area, than the 2006 squad that went to Germany and flopped like Radford in the NCAA basketball tournament. What does it say about U.S. Soccer when the biggest highlight in the past seven years came in the 2006 World Cup, where the U.S. tied Italy 1-1, only because Italy’s Christian Zaccardo whiffed and watched a ball bounce off his leg into his own goal?
Before Mexico, the U.S. goes to South Africa for the Confederations Cup, where it plays Italy on Monday and Brazil on June 18. Fear not, folks. Bowling will be on Channel 272.
