Disastrous Opening

I looked at my watch and suddenly, I began to perspire.

It was only 5 minutes to the beginning of the important Group E opener between the United States and the Czech Republic. I was driving home like a deranged lunatic.  A thought crossed my mind and I smiled. I wondered why I was in such a hurry to see the United States' first game even though I had decided to cheer the Brazilians in this tournament. I reached home just in time, settled down and prepared to enjoy a great US performance. Before the match, I have heard many soccer pundits talking about how the US Men team has improved dramatically, how they had an enviable record, and of course their 5th place FIFA ranking. I also heard that Kasey Keller was in rare form and could easily be regarded as the best goalkeeper in the world. Yes, the stats all pointed that the United States would impress millions of soccer-crazy fans irrespective of the fact that they were billed to face Czech Republic--a dynamic and mature World Cup side boasting the likes of Pavel Nedved, Marek Jankulovski, Milan Baros, Tomas Rosicky and the lanky Jan Koller.



Only one word can describe the next 90 minutes of play for me--CATASTROPHIC!

The United States simply folded like a cheap suit and could muster not even the slightest bit of organization upfield to equalize or at least rattle Petr Cech or downfield to check the forays of the clearly better experienced Czech side. When Jan Koller's deadly header, off a lateral cross, shook the US goal less than 5 minutes from the start of the first half, my spirit sank. The reason was that the US not only had the shameful record of never winning  a World Cup game on European soil, but also, the stats were heavily stacked against the US should their opposing country score first. Besides, in this tournament alone, 7 out of 8 previous encounters showed a pattern--teams which scored first went ahead to win the match. Anyway, I consoled myself with the thought that the US might just win the game like Australia who won her encounter with Japan despite the fact that Japan scored first.

But if they can't win the match, they could at least tie, I thought. It was therefore very dispiriting to sit through this game to see the US dealt a good clattering. Of course, those boys got their asses kicked, or what would you call a 3-0 final score line? I tried to see something positive to cheer about but I couldn't. I mean--if we got a redcard somewhere, or if a player was unfairly penalized, or if the Czech side benefited from a few questionable calls--these would have mollified me. Alas there was none of these faux pas to be found so I was left with the crushing feeling that despite the overoptimistic calculations of the soccer talking heads, the US side was and still is an abysmally deficient team.



As a matter of fact, I felt like saying the guys on this World Cup squad were totally clueless players who were lulled into a false sense of their own adequacy because of the few wins they secured on our home pitch. I even felt like lashing out at the MLS for being a league for shabby pretenders to soccer professionalism. Yes, now you have an idea of how disappointed I was!

I hope they do better against the Italians in their next game. The idea is that if the US can beat the Italians, all they need is a feasible/realizable win against Ghana to qualify for the next round. With this disastrous opening though, I am not waiting with bated breath!

Click here for a short video showing the highlights...

tags: copa mundial  germany 2006  world cup  world cup squads  

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