Yes, the U.S. nearly authored the darnedest World Cup comeback since West Germany overcame France in 1982 in a match remembered mostly for German goalkeeper Harald Schumacher dislodging two of Patrick Battiston’s teeth while getting called for no foul. But it’s no great shock that the Americans fought hard. Heck, that’s what Americans do.
We scratch. We claw. Had we turned tailed at the sight of the Redcoats back in 1776, Tim Howard would have been starting in net for England. I can’t say that I wasn’t stirred by the U.S. team’s effort Tuesday, but I wasn’t surprised by it. Trying was never this team’s problem. Tactics were.
The U.S. played far too conservatively for its gifts. We Americans love to barge ahead. Under Jurgen Klinsmann, who as both player and manager was part of some exquisite attacking German sides, the gung-ho-by-nature Americans became the rough equivalent of Greece, which shocked the soccer world by winning the 2004 European Championship simply by defending and snatching the occasional goal. (The final scores of Greece’s quarterfinal, semifinal and final victories were 1-nil, 1-nil and 1-nil.)
Thing is, Greece had to play that way. Until Euro 2004, it had never won a game in a major tournament. We’re the United States. Our national team has talent enough, even in the brand of football at which we’re fairly new, to attack. Klinsmann deployed a 4-3-3 lineup Tuesday, which should have spawned attacks but didn’t. That the U.S. nearly stole the match at the end of regulation, when the ball fell to Chris Wondolowski, and almost equalized in extra time, when Chris Dempsey flubbed his chance, shouldn’t obscure the greater truth: Belgium coulda/shoulda won by five goals. Instead, it was 2-1.
The U.S. took 14 shots, 24 fewer than Belgium. Had Howard not given the greatest goalkeeping performance since the just-out-of-Cornell rookie Ken Dryden — mixing sports here — thwarted the Orr-Esposito Bruins in the 1971 Stanley Cup playoffs, we wouldn’t be talking about the Americans’ great try. We’d be talking about how outclassed they were. Howard turned a mismatch into something very close to a miracle on turf, and we can’t really say we didn’t see it coming.
Through the three-game group stage, the U.S. ranked — this according to FIFA’s official stats — 31st among the 32 World Cup teams in attacks. Costa Rica ranked 32nd and is still playing, which shows that attacking can be overrated, but still: From the time the Americans took a 2-1 lead over Portugal in their second match until they fell behind 2-0 in extra time against Belgium, they dared little and accomplished nothing. They went 206 minutes without a goal, a span over which they were outscored 4-0, and without Howard it could have been 10-0.
Credit Klinsmann for making his players — borrowing from the now-ubiquitous chant — believe that they would win, but the cold truth is that the Americans leave Brazil having won only once, that against Ghana in the World Cup opener. The U.S. outplayed Portugal but had to accept a draw after Cristiano Ronaldo was left free to loft a world-class cross with maybe 30 seconds remaining. The Americans mustered only half-chances in the 1-0 loss to Germany and were the one team to advance to the Round of 16 on goal difference.
And then, come the knockout round, the U.S. again wound up parking the bus, as soccer argot has it, across the goal mouth. For 85 minutes Tuesday, the Americans were overrun to the extent that you wondered if Belgium was conducting some weird experiment: How many ways can a team get close to scoring without actually doing it?
Yes, Howard just stated his (very convincing) case as being the best goalkeeper in the world, and yes, the U.S. did show it can defend at a high level. But the Americans were outshot 92-41 over four matches and launched what FIFA considers 131 “dangerous attacks” to their opponents’ 250. Who would have dreamed that Jurgen the dashing German would have turned a band of can-do Americans into such a timid assemblage?
That’s timid in tactics, mind you. The willpower cannot be faulted. The Americans’ obstinance nearly put them in position to oppose regal Argentina in the quarterfinals, and for that alone we must consider this World Cup a success. But we as a nation still await the team that will fuse the American fighting spirit with the license to drive forward and, as the ESPN commentator Tommy Smyth is wont to say, put the bulge in the ol’ onion bag.
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