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.

So Low and Solo - Kudos to Good Coaches

Never did a coach in ANYTHING have it so wrong. Former U.S. soccer Coach Greg Ryan last year removed the goalie who got them to the 2007 World Cup semifinal and replaced her for some ridiculous technical reason with Briana Scurry, a good player too, but one who had pretty much rode the pines throughout the entire U.S. run.

Of course, Scurry gave up four goals and the U.S. lost their World Cup semifinal to Brazil, but that was the least of the damage. The decision ultimately resulted in bad feelings all around for the team as Solo understandably voiced her strong opinion that she would have stopped those goals.

Virtually the entire team turned against Solo. Only a few stayed in Solo’s corner, one of whom was the woman who scored the winning goal in overtime against Brazil in the Olympic gold medal matchup. She is none other than New Jersey’s own Carli Lloyd from Delran.

The score was 1-0. That it went that far and that long was due almost entirely to Hope Solo, whose save after save after save turned back the athletic Brazilians. After the match, even the Brazilian soccer coach lauded Ms. Solo. And her U.S. teammates finally relented in their sworn enmity to her as they all celebrated their gold medal.

I’ve read that Solo’s fine performance was her redemption. I don’t think so. Was it her vindication? Yes. Absolutely. But she needed no redemption in my eyes. She had always been the hero of the melodrama, she and the young women like Carli Lloyd who stayed with her.

If one had said it was the U.S. soccer team’s redemption, I could have gone along with that, if only it hadn’t taken them so long to see the light. Too many of them, in siding with a coach, initially no doubt to save their own skins, and then staying with their petty convictions all the way to the Olympics final, earned my total disrespect, and their victory really does very little towards earning my understanding, never mind forgiveness. In a way, they didn’t deserve such a positive result.

But I am extremely happy for Hope Solo and her compatriot, Carli Lloyd. They both came up big when they had to. And although the rest of them obviously played a large part in that great U.S. victory, I can’t help feeling that some of them just went along for the ride. Most of them just did what was easiest.

Too much is made of team unity, especially in the light of ridiculously harsh circumstances. A young woman who had just lost her father and who had to give up her conviction to win one for her homeless Dad, had to watch hopelessly as her replacement allowed ball after ball into the net. How many of us in those same shoes could have held their tongues?

There should have been some glimmer of understanding for Hope Solo, the best goalkeeper in the world. And the people who run the Olympic programs should have some recourse in the event that a coach seems to lose all perspective.

Sometimes a coach loses the forest for the trees. In a sport such as soccer in which every game means so much, there should be the ability for the Olympic organizers to rescind an awful decision before it can impact the big game. Ryan’s hopelessly misguided decision impacted the entire women’s soccer program for a full year.

One coach with a surprisingly good grasp of the forest is Jerry Manuel. Mr. Manuel proved that again Thursday night with his handling of Pedro Martinez. Pedro had pitched well for 5 full innings before getting knocked around a bit in the 6^th. But Manuel had Pedro pitch the 7^th as well, and Pedro obligingly retired the three batters he faced.

And in the 8^th, Manuel had Pedro face the first batter with the intention of replacing him whether or not Pedro retired that hitter. Done to eliminate any need to have to play the righty, lefty game with relievers down the stretch, it is the kind of thing Manuel has done over and over since he took the reins from Willie Randolph.

It’s the simplest of things yet proves to the players that the manager’s head is always in the game; that it has a very good chance to win as long as that guy is at the helm. It’s the kind of thing Willie seemingly never thought of, or perhaps the kind of thing he thought would have been over-managing a situation.

Willie always seemed to think his guys would win the game, that all things considered, in the end, the best players would prevail, and he had the best players. Such a strategy may have worked for those strong Yankees teams of yesteryear but it never seemed to suit these Mets, either the 2007 or 2008 variety at any rate.

And, after the game, Jerry went out of his way to praise the efforts of David Wright, for his great plays in the field, not just his formidable bat. And, rather than harp on the mistake David made on the basepaths, Manuel just joked that he had been in no-man’s land; that he wanted so badly to score.

Coaches and managers mean so much in sports. And not just for their tactical moves either. It’s way more than that. Every player has to believe in the manager’s concern for the outcome, his ability to make it so, and for his genuine humanity.

So kudos this evening for the 2008 U.S. soccer coach, who had the foresight to convince his team that Hope Solo should be one of them. His name is Pia Sundhage. Don’t ask me to pronounce it.

And the same for Jerry Manuel, who makes all the right moves, or most of them anyway. (Just today I heard John Heymann say that Manuel wasn’t a LaRussa or a Scoscia. Maybe it’ll take a World Series to change his mind).