You’re right but that’s not the delusion I’m talking about. What you’re talking about are individual decisions, I’m talking about the perception of the sport and the team as a whole. Of course, not all Americans are like this and the one’s that are, are not unique in being deluded. But I’d still say it’s a thing. It’s one thing to say ‘so and so does not dive’ or ‘that was not a penalty’, but to maintain that as a whole your country’s side just does not dive is just a bit too much.
Many places that follow football have overoptimistic fans but also a fair share of critics and naysayers. In the Netherlands, it is a national sport to criticize the Dutch team for playing hideous football and to assert our chances are low. Many other places in the world are just like this. I won’t speak for the US as a whole (and in the absence of solid polling data, neither can anyone else) but when I look at the posters on this board, realism is sadly lacking. As an example, over in another thread people are insisting that MLS football is second only to the competions in Spain, Germany, Italy, and England.
Fair enough, but I dont think my country has players who dive and waste time to quite the extent some other countries do. Saying that many of the time wasting/feigning injury teams are the successful ones. The ones who are invariably winning 1-0 with ten minutes to play. It is in their interests to feign injury and waste time. I suspect had the US been 1-0 up last night with a few minutes remaining they would have indulged in the same tactics as Italians or Argentinians often do. Though I still believe certain teams are more natural at such tactics. I dont think Belgium desended into the worst aspects of time wasting in the 2nd half of extra time last night. Had that been the Italians we would have witnessed far less football in those final 15 minutes.
This American doesn’t like soccer partly because of the issue highlighted by your example, which in my opinion is a fundamental flaw in the structure of the sport itself.
I have a similar complaint about basketball, though my objection there (on the grounds of “fundamentally flawed”) is more about how fouls are incentivized at the end of games.
One of the more recently popular ways of time wasting or gaining an advantage is particularly annoying - the partly cleared corner or cross. A corner comes in, partly cleared out of the box but still in the oppositon’s possession. Cue a central defender of the defending team lying prone in the penalty box desperate for the ref to stop play. Happens far too often imo.
edit: as for diving. We should be naming and shaming more often. Football Associations shoulld be allowed to revue such incidents after the game. Its the only way I can think of of stopping it, or at least minimizing it.
Kevin DuBruyne cleared a loose ball and it smacked Jermaine Jones (who also played with a broken nose) right in the face. DuBruyne immediately stuck up his arm and shouted for the referee to stop the match and went over to check on Jones. Very classy.
I’m somewhat struggling with all the plaudits given to the US team (everywhere it seems). Don’t get me wrong, it was a great game to watch… and there were a few things where the US team was impressive: notably the way they continued to chase the game at 2-0 down; and off course Howard had a blinder and there were a few good last ditch blocks (which shouldn’t be confused with ‘great defending’).
But looking at the US game plan, it was naive at best and ‘dumb’ is probably a more apt description. A strategy that relies on a goalkeeper to make more than a dozen great saves, is not a strategy that is advisable. I assume they wanted to win, more than anything else… and surely that would have meant to play a bit more cautiously once you figure out you are second best by a distance. Maybe the focus was more on showcasing American Soccer or something like that.
It’s funy, the Argentina Switzerland game was fairly boring, but the Swiss team did far better against superior opposition than the US did. They (mostly) neutralized Messi, hardly gave away chances and could have scored a few themselves. If you look at using the best strategy to win, the Swiss almost succeeded (as did Algeria against Germany, first 75 minutes anyway)… while it was quite unbelievable the US were even near Belgium after 90 minutes. Yet, apparently, it was “one of the best performances ever seen” acording to some media… like the BBC. Entertainment should be considered secondary when looking at sports, surely.
Is anyone giving the US team plaudits? Everyone seems to be happy we made it out of the group stage and everyone is kissing Tim Howard’s arse (and rightly so), but the consensus seems to be that the rest of the team played like shit yesterday (other than the last 15-odd minutes.)
The keeper making so many saves was not part of the game plan. That was due to Belgium being a fairly good attacking team and the US being unable to keep possession of the ball.
Personally, I think I have seen more skillful US national teams, or atleast just as skillful. However, their willingness to work and their never say die attitude was impressive. Far better teams than the US with far more skillfull players have performed at lot worse in international soccer.
I sure will. They get better every time, and this was their best yet. I remember a time, not long ago, when nobody expected them ever to even qualify, or paid attention or cared. The expansion of the field helped, sure, but now qualifying is considered automatic, and advancing out of the group stage is expected. A number of traditional powers can’t say that (did the England and Italy players dare go home yet?). It’s still a scramble to come up with enough talent, but the Americans are already established as a side nobody would really like to play against.
I’ve watched probably too much of this tournament already, but there is nobody about whom I’d say we really didn’t belong on the field with, that we didn’t have a real chance to beat. That includes Brazil.
There are still some holes in the roster, especially in the midfield where the guys are supposed to hold possession a whole lot better. But the trend has been for fewer and fewer of them over time.
Absolutely not, sport is entertainment. If it ceases to be entertaining it ceases to hold any interest pretty much by definition.
It is perfectly to reasonable to have a objectively inferior team play to their strengths and hang on by the skin of their teeth and consider that a great sporting occasion.
Sport needs stories, sport is narrative and we want to see the classic themes of revenge, love, death, pain, lost causes etc…as well as the occasional technical masterclass…it’s all good.
Everyone realizes that. I think it’s actually kind of the point. Nobody in the US believes that the US team was anywhere near as good as Belgium. Top to bottom that’s a vastly more talented team; it might be the case that every Belgian in the outfield is better than his American counterpart. And they nearly fucking tied it up.
What do you want us to say about it? It’s exciting that they’re getting better.
The US sucks so much that we made it out of a group with Portugal and Ghana. We suck so much that we nearly tied it up in overtime when Belgium seemed about ready to step on our throats.
I do find it silly that ESPN is throwing up stats about Howard’s great performance as if it’s something that any team should aspire to. When a keeper makes so many saves, it means two things: One, he’s world class. And two, his defense has let him down too many times. But it’s not fair to say the team sucks. They were just outplayed. That happens, particularly when you’re going up against one of the better teams from Europe.
But there are two or three drunk US fans (among the millions who are more humble and realistic) who claim that MLS is the bestest league in the world ever, so I guess it’s okay to talk crap against a team you just don’t like.
God, I can’t wait to root for the Ticos on Saturday. Hopefully, Flopper Robben won’t be able to steal the game from them like he did against the Mexicans.
Agreed. Americans have a lot to be happy about today. The rest of you may see it as “the Americans were a mess,” but we see it as “we’re proud of our performance in the face of a superior team.”
We were outclassed from the get-go. Belgium absolutely ate us for lunch. Yet, we hung on and in the end, they only scored 2 goals on us, and we even managed to score 1. And 0-0 at the end of regular time too! A big part of the credit for that can be laid at the feet of Tim Howard (yay for Jersey boys!), but that doesn’t mean the rest of the team wasn’t effective in keeping Belgium at least largely at bay.
The U.S. is used to being a dominant power on the world stage. It’s refreshing and fun to be in the position of slowly and painfully fighting our way up the ranks in something. Even our defeat was a victory to us, and it deserves to be celebrated.
Please forgive us. So many of us are noobs (or at least relatively noobish) when it comes to following high-end soccer. We’re having fun and trying to learn. Spank us if we get obnoxious, but please bear with us.
I’m not surprised that there is some defensiveness amongst Americans when it comes to the game. Europeans certainly dick on us a lot about our relatively weak teams and what we call it. I heard this somewhere:
Q: How do you annoy a European?
A: “Soccer soccer soccer soccer!”
It’s funny because it’s true.
Soccer may be gaining traction in this country in general, but I think our Latino and African immigrant communities offer our biggest and best hope for becoming truly world-class. Soccer leagues in wealthy suburban communities are a dime a dozen. How much youth soccer development is there in inner cities and working class areas?
It would be great to get more of the little Lebrons into pro soccer instead of basketball, but it’s still a pretty hard sell. Let’s see about getting the little Luises into pro soccer instead of Saturday games at the local park.
I’d argue that Europeans get uptight because they get told that what they call “football” isn’t “football”, they should call it “soccer” because there’s this real sport called “football” that Americans play and is for real men, unlike those pansy Europeans.
No one gets annoyed with Australians for calling it “soccer”. Hell, we’ll happily call them the “Socceroos”. In the UK we do actually use the word “soccer”, it is just that “football” is more common.
Want an example? Well here you go:
Note the way we are told that it isn’t football, it is soccer, and that in the US “real football” is played.
