“Like my world has been unmoored, and how did it happen?”

June 5, 2018 9:51 AM

Own Goal: The Inside Story of How the USMNT Missed the 2018 World Cup

Why The US Isn't In The World Cup - minute-by-minute, the "biggest embarassment in US sports history," which "will set the country back several years." As World Cup looms, U.S. players still lament loss in Trinidad, as people ask Has The USMNT Lost Its Fighting Spirit?

5 Teams U.S. Fans Can Root For - take a test and find out [Iceland, obvs]

previously: the view from Stoke City, 2018 World Cup draw

posted by the man of twists and turns (41 comments total)

United States ... Mutant Ninja Turtles?
posted by Sys Rq at 9:58 AM on June 5, 2018 [21 favorites]

Are you Scotland in disguise?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:59 AM on June 5, 2018

Geoff Cameron is a white nationalist trump supporter, seeing him seethe in all of this has been some minor cold comfort.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 10:01 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

A bleak moment. And with the election of Cordeiro to replace Gulati as president of US Soccer, no end to the bleakness in sight.

Ever feel like you've been cheated?
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:06 AM on June 5, 2018

So we’re in the group with Italy, the Netherlands, and Chile, right? Looks kinda rough.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:22 AM on June 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

I too shall be rooting on the Fightin' Icelanders as they get murked in the opening round and then reverting to ignoring footballs-general for the next little while.
posted by Etrigan at 10:25 AM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

TICOS
posted by poffin boffin at 10:30 AM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Have you considered cheering for Brazil? All the disappointment of cheering for the US, just delayed for one or two more matches.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 10:31 AM on June 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

So we’re in the group with Italy, the Netherlands, and Chile, right?

Maybe!

Probably not.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:33 AM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Putin wanted the World Cup 2018 and got it whatever the cost
posted by adamvasco at 10:40 AM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Some have blamed the player development system. Others have questioned Arena’s tactics.

Why not both? Pay to play youth teams, particularly in a closed league system where teams don't raise their own players is poison.
Klinsmann should have left after 2014. Few managers are capable of holding their own at the top for more than 10 years, a lot of them have a glimpse of glory for 3 or 4 years, followed by a couple of years of stagnation and then a decline. Replacing him with Arena, who was already rotting away in comparison, was just the cherry on top.
posted by lmfsilva at 10:58 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Who cares about the USMNT, when we have the incredibly successful USWNT?

Seriously, it's a bit odd (though kind of par for the course) to have a long thread about the losing Men's team, and not even mention the number-one ranked Women's Team. Maybe the problem is the guys just expect their victories to be handed to them?
posted by happyroach at 11:03 AM on June 5, 2018 [27 favorites]

In Charleston, South Carolina, longtime American soccer executive Kevin Payne watched the defeat alone at a bar. “I felt the same way that I felt when I woke up the morning after Election Day,” he said. “Like my world has been unmoored, and how did it happen?”

I know that emotions are often irrational and one can't control what one feels, only what one does about it, but...
posted by inconstant at 11:04 AM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

The USMNT gets paid more for losing a game than the USWNT gets paid for winning the actual World Cup. It's gross.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:05 AM on June 5, 2018 [36 favorites]

"“That’s when you start feeling sorry for yourself. Then you start thinking, ‘Holy shit, we just let down our entire country.’” —Dax McCarty"

Don't feel so bad about it, only a very small portion of the population here care about soccer one way or the other. Among those that do, I'd wager the US team was far from their chosen team to support.
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:08 AM on June 5, 2018

tl;dr: It's Klinsmann’s fault. (Which I totally believe.)

Me, I'll be rooting for Argentina as always. (Don't get me wrong, when the US is in it I root for them too, but if I'm going to get my heart broken I want to have had realistic hopes to begin with.)

Messi!!!
posted by languagehat at 11:09 AM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Croatia, seriously, I get Croatia? OK, then, Croatia it is.
posted by e1c at 11:18 AM on June 5, 2018

Me, I'll be rooting for Argentina as always. (Don't get me wrong, when the US is in it I root for them too, but if I'm going to get my heart broken I want to have had realistic hopes to begin with.)

Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:21 AM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Been an extremely shitty year for this soccer fan. My team got relegated from the Premier League (Geoff Cameron plays for them as well so you can warm up some of that comfort), and I can't enjoy rooting for the USA in the World Cup in 2018. However, in 2019 I'll definitely be supporting the USWNT who are, indeed, absolutely awesome.

Among those that do, I'd wager the US team was far from their chosen team to support.

True, but what are you to do? The team chooses you not the other way around.

Maybe the problem is the guys just expect their victories to be handed to them?

That wasn't what I got out of the article. Laziness and entitlement didn't seem to be the issue.
posted by josher71 at 11:35 AM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

On the plus side, it sounds like the past couple of years have produced a string of heartening victories over the U.S. soccer juggernaut for small islands in the Caribbean.
posted by clawsoon at 12:06 PM on June 5, 2018

Tim Howard gets off so easy in the Ringer piece. He wasn't helpless on that own goal and he was atrocious with the second. Extremely slow reaction times for both and didn't look like he belonged on the field at all. A competent performance from the keeper that day, and the day of reckoning would've at least gotten postponed. Of course the very fact that Howard was on the field is an indictment of the management team all around.

Also, Bradley and Dempsey coming back to play MLS hardly helps. What's good for the MLS is not necessarily good for the national team. I think the English Premier League has shown that for a while now.

As an Arsenal fan and hater of all things Stoke football, it makes me so happy to see Geoff Cameron whine.
posted by viramamunivar at 12:15 PM on June 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

As an Arsenal fan and hater of all things Stoke football, it makes me so happy to see Geoff Cameron whine.

Well, you should certainly know it when you see it, then.
posted by josher71 at 12:18 PM on June 5, 2018

Seriously, it's a bit odd (though kind of par for the course) to have a long thread about the losing Men's team, and not even mention the number-one ranked Women's Team.

Is it really? Not that the USWNT shouldn't be lauded from the heavens and paid fairly, but would you think it odd to have a longform piece about the failures of the Cleveland Browns to not mention the Cavaliers? An article about the Chicago Bulls disappointing season to not be complete without talking about how Loyola made the Final Four? An article about the Maple Leafs bowing out in game 7 to also talk about the Markham Thunder's season? No article about John Isner without Serena?

What I didn't see mentioned, and was surprised to not see was a mention that the Trinidad team that the US couldn't even draw with in that last game wasn't just the worst of the six teams in the hex. It was even worse than that -- they were already eliminated, so the Trinidad manager was putting out a squad comprised primarily of prospects and backups. 7 of the 11 players from the initial competitive games had been replaced, by players that were an average of 3 years younger and with an average of 35 fewer caps (national team games)*.

For example, the keeper wasn't the squad's captain, Jan-Michael Williams, who has 80 caps and plays in the Honduran league, it was Adrian Foncette, with 11 caps playing in the much weaker domestic Trinidadian league. Up front instead of Kenwyne Jones, with 90 caps recently retired from MLS with a number of previous years in the Premier League, was Shahdon Winchester, 23 caps, currently playing for a club that was just relegated from the top division. In Azerbaijan. For defense, instead of Joevin Jones, 66 caps and recently playing for the Seattle Sounders, substitute Alvin Jones and Tristan Hodge, 13 and 10 caps respectively, both playing domestically.

With World Cup qualification on the line, the US couldn't manage a draw against the Trinidad B team.

* current statistics, not from when the game was played
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 12:41 PM on June 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

The stunning and surreal nature of the America’s absence [...] (second link)

Honestly not trying to get all weird and foreignery here, but: This is neither stunning nor surreal to anyone outside the US. There are at least four team sports in which, if there were world cups that anyone payed attention to, the US would dominate to a ridiculous degree. Not even counting the Olympics. If the US men's soccer team was anything but solidly mediocre, what the world would collectively think is "Fuck off, you're going to take that one too?"

So why is the US women's team great? My guess is that other than for men, the US system for developing athletic talent in college is up against basically the absence of a system in most other places, where soccer tends to still be ludicrously (and offensively) male-dominated.

Also, many public colleges have a rule that equal money must to be spent on male and female athletics. With all the money being pumped into college football teams, I'd guess that women's soccer teams tend to be well funded, and men's would tend to not be.

Plus there's probably a similar effect on talent: Soccer would be one of the top choices for female athletes, but certainly not for male ones. I'm saying if Ronaldo was American, he'd be playing American football (and he'd still be an asshole).

And Klinsman: Well, he was a great player, but (unlike e.g. Beckenbauer) not playing in a position that would require a lot of talent for strategy. He seems to be a nice guy? But I'm not surprised to hear he's a crappy coach. Blaming him seems a little too easy though.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 1:10 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Odd or not, I think it's generally disappointing that there is generally more column space in sports media devoted to a mediocre and losing team than there is to a team that has won repeatedly and consistently.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:14 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

This is neither stunning nor surreal to anyone outside the US.

Extremely true.


Odd or not, I think it's generally disappointing that there is generally more column space in sports media devoted to a mediocre and losing team than there is to a team that has won repeatedly and consistently.

This is not my impression but I'm probably wrong.
posted by josher71 at 1:17 PM on June 5, 2018

that second generally has appeared without my consent and i reject it wholeheartedly
posted by poffin boffin at 1:19 PM on June 5, 2018 [7 favorites]

The men’s World Cup starts next week, is why there are articles about it now. It will be interesting to compare US-based coverage of a USA-less men’s WC with next year’s women’s World Cup featuring the returning champions.

Once the USA finally started to at least kind of get its act together in the 90’s, CONCACAF turned into basically a walk for Mexico, USA, and usually Costa Rica. MLS and probably other factors have made CONCACAF more competitive lately, though: Mexico barely qualified last time, and this time the USA got bit. It’s not like Europe or South America, where it’s easy to not qualify; it takes a fuckup of epic proportions to blow it here.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:28 PM on June 5, 2018

Honestly not trying to get all weird and foreignery here, but: This is neither stunning nor surreal to anyone outside the US. There are at least four team sports in which, if there were world cups that anyone payed attention to, the US would dominate to a ridiculous degree. Not even counting the Olympics. If the US men's soccer team was anything but solidly mediocre, what the world would collectively think is "Fuck off, you're going to take that one too?"

But the US (and Mexico) are the only mediocre teams in a region of generally poor teams. Nobody bats an eye when they go home at the round of 16, because that's more or less their level. I mean, Mexico might start a game with 4 players from us (Reyes, Herrera, Layún and Corona), and we got trashed at home against Liverpool in the Champions League. And only Herrera is a starting player: Corona fluctuates form so much he's either a starter doing crazy FIFA shit or a complete non-factor and gets benched, Reyes is the rotation CB and Layún was loaned out after being bested by the 4th or 5th in line at the Brazilian LB position. But you still expect them to qualify because most of their opponents are low-tier professionals at best.

By comparison, the Netherlands missing out again is not stunning - they are aggressively average in a region where each group generally has one really good team and a team that is on form or has some red-hot, difference making talent, and finishing third gets you nowhere. And as Italy can attest, finish second means you might face one of those teams over two games.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:45 PM on June 5, 2018

Seriously, it's a bit odd (though kind of par for the course) to have a long thread about the losing Men's team, and not even mention the number-one ranked Women's Team.

Few things going on here.

1. First, as mentioned before, the men's World Cup starts next week, and the USMNT not making the field set the sport back considerably in this country. Just ask FOX Sports, who spent a metric shit-ton of cash for the US broadcast rights...and now have to cover a huge event involving a sport that's still more niche than mainstream with no "home" team rooting interest. They are already cutting corners by not sending all their play-by-play crews to Russia. Numerous games are going to called remotely from US studios rather than on-site.
2. It is much easier to write about a train wreck of a team (which is what the USMNT had become during WC qualifying) than one on a successful run (the USWNT). There's just plain more to cover. And let's not forget, controversy sells. And the collapse of the USMNT (and the infighting that resulted) was controversial in sports circles.
3. Despite making inroads over the years, women's sports in the states still get only a fraction the coverage of men's sports. The interest just isn't there. The only time casual fans and mainstream media care about women's soccer is during a WC cycle, and much of that is because the USWNT is one of the favorites.
posted by bawanaal at 2:08 PM on June 5, 2018

2. It is much easier to write about a train wreck of a team (which is what the USMNT had become during WC qualifying) than one on a successful run (the USWNT). There's just plain more to cover. And let's not forget, controversy sells. And the collapse of the USMNT (and the infighting that resulted) was controversial in sports circles.
3. Despite making inroads over the years, women's sports in the states still get only a fraction the coverage of men's sports. The interest just isn't there. The only time casual fans and mainstream media care about women's soccer is during a WC cycle, and much of that is because the USWNT is one of the favorites.

2 seems to me to be fairly emphatically not the case, as the number of books about, say the Yankees of the 60s, or Pele, or pretty much every other successful sports team over the history of time will show. People do love to rubber-neck a train wreck, but long-term success has never had a hard time selling in major men's sports. It is, in fact, the engine on which billions of dollars run, especially in soccer, where dull juggernauts crushing everything in their wake to the wild applause of their fans is by far the norm.

As for 3, this is not a natural or inevitable condition. The interest isn't there because a huge number of men have decided that women's sports are fundamentally beneath them and not worthy of interest or attention. If the media suddenly decided that it was normal for men to care about women playing sports, I imagine you would see a massive uptick in interest in the USWNT (not to mention the NWSL, the WNBA, the NWHL, and others), because sports has historically been an area where supply of content creates demand. That's the whole philosophy behind expansion teams, the XFL, etc.
posted by Copronymus at 2:32 PM on June 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Yeah, well, in my neck of the woods Sané isn’t on the card and Gomez is and that is wayyyyyy more crazy than the USMNT not being in the WC. Also the US doesn’t need football/soccer, they have baseball which is every bit as beautiful (I’ll argue more.)

Man it would be great great great to see Messi win. ‘Cause that would piss off Ronaldo. Also, Ramos’ team plays Salah’s I think in the first round; and I don’t wanna say revenge is in the air but I wouldn’t bet against it.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I would be more than happy to see Sergio Ramos rolling around in genuine pain early in the tournament but Egypt are in Group A and Spain in Group B so who knows when and if they might meet.
posted by biffa at 3:08 PM on June 5, 2018

Check out Roger Bennet's American Fiasco podcast for an excellent history of USMNT's last big failure - the '98 World Cup.
posted by zakur at 4:54 PM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

...Egypt are in Group A and Spain in Group B ...

Ach, right - I was reading a summary of possible outcomes and Egypt met Spain at the end of the group round. Of course, Egypt will have to beat Uruguay to get there and Egypt will not beat Uruguay - at least, not if the fabric of reality holds (which is of course not guaranteed).

Still, Ramos - never my favorite - I hope has a bad day. I hate that kind of hyper-aggressive, possibly career-ending physicality.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:43 AM on June 6, 2018

I'm an FC Barcelona fan, so my hopes are on Argentina, for Messi. A third of FCB plays for Spain, but Iniesta has his Cup already and it's Messi's turn. The last WC Final nearly killed me. I hope that Iceland goes far--I watched the European Championship screaming for them all the way--and I hope Portugal goes out early, and that Cristiano cries. I'm not bitter or anything.

All the best US players are women. And they're the champions.
posted by ceejaytee at 12:38 PM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

I’ve got a soft spot for the USMNT (which I can’t help but refer to as United States Mutant Ninja Turtles now). I was living in the the US during the 2006 and 2010 World Cups and was surprised by how much many of my friends cared. Before living in the US I’d had the impression that the men’s national soccer team was followed by a small niche, but during the World Cups there were lots of people in my social circles whose mood entirely depended on how well the US was doing. Anyway, if only for my friends, but also because I’ve usually enjoyed watching them play, I generally root for the United States Mutant Ninja Turtles.
posted by Kattullus at 2:01 PM on June 6, 2018

For those of you who like the US women's soccer team and can access RTE (Irish broadcaster), Hope Solo is one of their commentators for the world cup. So you can still get a fix of them while watching the men's world cup.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:14 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Have you considered cheering for Brazil? All the disappointment of cheering for the US, just delayed for one or two more matches.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:31 PM

*preemptively sobbing into my beer*
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:55 PM on June 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

World Cup 2018 post
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:37 PM on June 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Should You, An American, Still Get Excited About The World Cup?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:55 AM on June 14, 2018