On Soccer and the Grand American Game

Germans were everywhere! Especially early, the black shirts were everywhere around the ball and they had also managed to get off the best shot. That had come with just 3 minutes elapsed in the match as a beautiful pass into the box was headed easily into the net. But at the 45-minute mark, the Germans seemed to be getting the best of the action.

Good soccer, that’s the overriding impression I get from watching these last few matches. These teams all know how to play soccer (called football in the rest of the world). These top teams also all seem to have at least one, and usually several players who are stars in their own right, players who demand attention and put continual pressure on the defense, pressure that usually results in an eventual goal.

Smart soccer, that’s quite evident too. The smartest play of all was that handball that Suarez of Uruguay used to put away the Ghanaians, a prime example of a player knowing the rules and using them to his best advantage with the game on the line. Suarez stopped a sure goal at the expense of his team having to stop the ensuing penalty kick, which they managed just barely as Ghana’s free kick hit the crossbar. Somewhat less serious than that, Suarez will also miss the next game. Uruguay will certainly miss him but for Uruguay there will be a next game.

Dumb soccer, we’ve seen some of that too. Melo of Brazil was surely not thinking when he stomped on an orange arm to earn himself a red card and his team the prospect of playing a man down for the rest of the match. Even excusing Melo for the own goal charged to him (he was instrumental in scoring Brazil’s first goal), his ill-advised abuse of a player on the ground sealed the win for the Netherlands.

Team soccer too, we’ve seen a lot of that in these quarterfinals, the importance of playing as a team that much more evident with each successive round. I’m not even a student of the game, but I can detect a team that eschews the long (and usually fruitless) shot for the pass to a teammate making a run into the box.

Unselfish team soccer…Germany once again scored in the 67th minute on a beautiful cross and little chip-in, achieved only because the runner streaking down the field had the perspicacity to wait and cross rather than fire on goal. That goal almost certainly sealed Argentina’s fate, to join Brazil on the sidelines of this 2010 World Cup.

And Germany did it again! Exhibiting what could only be called remarkable composure and teamwork, Germany scored again in the 73rd minute, making the game seem easy and pouring it on against a seemingly overmatched Argentina. Those black shirts came again in a rush in the 77th minute that Argentina this time stopped.

There was an Argentine flopping in the box, another unfortunate characteristic of this game that enthralls the world everywhere but here in the U.S. If there is anything that will surely turn most Americans against the game, it is the continual flopping and the bad officiating that too often rewards the flopping.

Germany scored once again in the 88th minute and Argentina was being thoroughly embarrassed. It now appears that the final four will be Uruguay, Netherlands, Germany and probably Spain, although Paraguay could still surprise.

In any event though, it’ll be European teams and South American teams in the final four. And if that’s an expected result, it doesn’t make it any less satisfying for me. Why shouldn’t it be thus for the two continents for which the game absolutely dominates their everyday lives. And, while it’s true that Nigeria suspended its team for its performance and only God knows what may befall the North Koreans for their failure to advance further, the grand game is primarily theirs, Europe’s and South America’s.

Let’s face it, either by natural preference or some grand conspiratorial design, soccer is just an afterthought in the U.S. The best athletes here play either baseball, basketball or American football, depending on a player’s regard for his own well-being. Following the money, it is very unlikely that the situation will change in the near future.

But should the situation change? Soccer fans here would surely say yes. Others would say we already have diversions enough in a country that hasn’t been distinguishing itself for anything but sports and movies in the last twenty to thirty years.

I’d certainly welcome a popularization of soccer in our country. Of the three dominating American sports, two of them, football and basketball, can be played at the highest levels only by behemoths and giants. Only in baseball, to me the only truly great American game, can a Freddy Patek or Phil Rizzuto distinguish himself as a great one.

For today, a Mets fan might want to add Alex Cora to the list. Cora’s triple was the big hit last night as the Mets continued to play good baseball in our nation’s capital. But Cora wasn’t the only heroic little man to distinguish himself in last night’s win.

Good pitching from Jonathan Niese had kept the Nats off the board for much of the night but the victory was much in doubt in that ninth inning as Mets relievers Elmer Dessens and then the great K-Rod faltered, putting the victory much in doubt.

It was Ruben Tejada, the Mets diminutive backup shortstop, who really wrapped up the Mets win last night. Noticing liberties being taken by the Nats Bernadina off second base, the youngster signaled to K-Rod, who alertly and accurately threw that man out to end the game.

I could foresee soccer overtaking both football and basketball in popularity here in America but not baseball, whose inning breaks even offer a chance to relax. While basketball and football can be dominated by a few gargantuan superstars, baseball, much like soccer, can be played by virtually anyone.