The Sky Has Fallen!!

The US endured a demoralizing loss to the Czech Republic yesterday. Demoralizing? Is the team demoralized? I doubt it, although there are some exceptions (like the pouting DMB).

No, it's the fans and (most) pundits who are falling over themselves to pronounce the demise of soccer in the US. Time to start rooting for Club America, because that's as close as we're likely to get to US soccer now that we have been exposed as footballing frauds.

Or have we?

Yes, the US played without any urgency and little movement with -- and off -- the ball. Yes, we didn't close down the Czechs in our defensive third on four occasions -- three of which ended in goals. (And the defensive third is much bigger now that we have that lively Adidas ball.) Yes, our players seemed timid pushing forward, and didn't fare well winning the 50-50 balls.

Much of the problem we had on offense (where we couldn't sustain any attack) was due to the fact that the Czechs scored early and were able to sit back in a defensive posture that was hard to penetrate. They knew the early goal gave them the luxury of getting behind the ball and waiting for the counterattacking opportunities.

The US met a good team in the Czechs, and it's hard to come from behind on good teams. I think the team's major sins were its disorganization defensively (some of it, ironically, coming from defenders like Lewis pushing up on the attack) and its inability to be creative offensively. Creativity has often been a bugaboo for American players. We're fit, organized, and talented, but not creative. But we're getting better.

The Cassandras that are heralding the end of US soccer need to realize that other countries have faced setbacks before (France, Spain, Portugal, England), and yet they still play the came. Of course, the US does have the problem in that it's still in its infancy and is viewed as more susceptible to calamitous injury that a mature soccer nation could endure. Plus our fans are new to the scene and are somewhat insecure on the world stage.

The fan's worries, luckily, aren't the team's worries. And Arena is still a savvy manager, despite the invectives cast at him by the soi-disant soccer intelligentsia of the media.

The team didn't play its best, but the players were working hard. They were beaten by a talented team that scored extremely high-quality goals. And besides, this is only one game. It's hardly a setback of the proportions we saw in 1998...yet. We now have set the other nations back in their rut of thinking we're pretenders. There has never been a better time for us to show our mettle. We are a soccer nation, and it's time we show the world that we're so good we can overcome adversity...

...and maybe then we'll quiet the insecure doubting Thomases within our own boundaries.