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Thursday, June 22, 2006
The essence of disappointment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AP / Landon Donovan and the U.S. couldn't build on their 2002 quarterfinal finish at the current World Cup.
I’ll update this blog entry with links and more thoughts later, but for now there’s little else to say about Ghana 2:1 USA except that it’s the essence of disappointment.
Coupled with Italy’s 2-0 win over the depleted Czechs, the Americans could have advanced out of what has turned out to be the toughest group at the World Cup.
But two costly defensive mistakes against a Ghanaian team that otherwise didn’t do much attacking did in the U.S., which had few offensive answers.
Brian McBride hit the post in the 64th minute heading an excellent cross from Eddie Lewis, and from then on the sense of gloom deepened.
Eric Wynalda was scathing on ESPN in blaming Bruce Arena for “screwing up the World Cup” for the U.S., but there’s plenty of blame to go around.
The coach didn’t have many offensive options to begin with, and with Beasley in a snit from the start, it set a terrible tone. And where was Landon Donovan, the supposed face of American soccer, in any of these three games? Even after he was thrown the captain’s armband with Claudio Reyna’s departure before halftime, L.D. didn’t live up to the billing. Floating a terrific free kick chance in the 81st minute symbolized his disappearance with the pressure on. Or was that Mike Vanderjagt out there?
As one of Off the Ball’s more perceptive goombahs said a few days back, Arena found out the hard way that quality of life (staying at home, playing in L.A., living near the beach) was more important to L.D. than improving the quality of his soccer.
Again, he’s hardly the only culprit here, but it sums up a World Cup run that could have been so much more.
