Gutted
By Jay Hipps · June 28, 2009
Johannesburg, South Africa — Back in 2004, I invited an English ex-pat friend of mine over to Solar-Powered Soccer Blog headquarters to watch the Three Lions’ first match of the European championships. England scored first and carried their 1-0 lead through 90 minutes and into second half stoppage time, only to see France net twice for a 2-1 victory. At the game’s end, my friend, usually quite sociable, simply muttered something about being “gutted” and left without a proper goodbye.
Unfortunately, I now know exactly how he felt, down to the smallest detail. Last night, the U.S. blew a 2-0 halftime lead to fall 3-2 to Brazil, with the winner coming in the 83rd minute from Lúcio. Unlike my friend, I couldn’t simply slink off to be alone, though. The price of attending a cup final in my case was the indignity of suffering in front of the tens of thousands at Ellis Park, with my red, white and blue makaraba and U.S. flag providing mute testimony to the hopes of victory that had lived so vividly in my imagination just 45 minutes earlier.
It wasn’t all bad. For every obnoxious Brazil fan who viewed me as an opportunity to relive the thrill of victory by relishing my agony in defeat, there were dozens in the crowd who gave a thumbs up or some other sign of condolence. “I like how they played,” one Bafana Bafana supporter told me. Another praised “Obama’s Boys,” showing again the popularity of our new president on the continent of his forebears. Sometimes the communication was simpler: a shared high-five with a passing fan who was also toting the stars and stripes, a nod, a smile, or just a “better luck next time.”
What made it all worse, ironically, was the Americans’ performance in the first half. If you go up against Brazil and get crushed, as the U.S. did in the group stage, it’s a lot easier to take. Brazil, when they’re on their game, can defeat any team with seeming ease. We saw that in the second half last night, but not the first. The opening 45 minutes belonged exclusively to the U.S., a side that utilized a relentless team defense and a textbook counter-attack to rise to a 2-0 lead at the break. That’s something you’d like to see out for the win, especially when it’s your first chance at a trophy in a worldwide tournament. To be so close to victory only to have it snatched away is the peak of frustration.
Sadly, I saw the collapse coming. I don’t know what was said to the team at halftime, but the enthusiasm that added a cutting edge to their play in the first half was nowhere to be seen as they strode out onto the field for the second. If anything, they looked chided, as though their amazing play in the first half went unrecognized and they were instead lectured like children about how not to screw it all up. When Brazil scored less than a minute after kickoff, the question posed by the match immediately became “could the U.S. hold on?” The thought of scoring a third goal, a frequent occurrence when an opponent pushes forward for an equalizer and leaves their defense exposed, never entered the equation.
Ultimately, it’s too early to tell how the team’s success in the tournament will be viewed historically. The victory over Spain and the opening 45 minutes against Brazil were the team’s finest moments in recent memory, perhaps rivaled only by the 3-0 lead they took against Portugal in their opening match in South Korea in 2002. Despite the team’s success over the last week, the only universally accepted yardstick of a national team’s quality is the World Cup, and that’s when we’ll see if this team has seen a watershed moment here in South Africa or just a flash in the pan. Even if it’s the former, they’re still facing a long flight home with the knowledge that the glory they have so long sought managed to elude them once again, leaving all concerned with a hollow feeling that they will struggle to fill.
Gutted.
(My CLS colleage Jeff Carlisle has turned in a match report befitting an international cup final for ESPN. Check it out for all the details. Also, Eve Fairbanks, who generously allowed occasional hijackings of her Twitter account last night so yours truly could communicate to the vast CLS readership, has a short essay on the match over at The New Republic’s blog. )
Brazil lifts the Confederations Cup trophy on Sunday, June 28 in Johannesburg. Photo: Jay Hipps, centerlinesoccer.com
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Amen, Jay, amen. US ran out of gas just as Brazil stepped up their game. But, I’m proud of the boys for giving it their all. Like the victory against Spain, everything was going to have to go our way on Sunday. When it didn’t, the result was deserved.
Now, if the USMNT can display this kind of commitment to the rest of WCQ, we should waltz in to South Africa next summer. And along the way, maybe even get that first victory at Azteca!
Viva USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our Boys played great, I don’t care what anyone says. USA all the way.
We showed we can run with the big boys and now we can hopefully carry this spirit to Azteca and throughout the gold cup.
Go USA!!!!!!!!!
Sjquakes/USA4Life
Gutted is right. And I agree that they looked flat in the second half…as if BB told them to hold the lead, rather than play their hearts out. That seems like a mistake, to be sure.
If this tournament teaches the US Soccer illuminati anything, it should be a lesson about aggression. When you sit back, you lose. When you fear, you lose. Only when you confidently attack do you stand any hope of winning.
People tend to look at soccer in way that is highly skewed by the results. If the 1st half ended 2-0, then the US must have played great! And if they gave up 3 goals in the 2nd, they “blew it” and played terribly!
IMO the two halves played out about the same. In fact, the match against Spain was about the same also. The US played very conservatively and very defensively, allowed the opposition the great majority of possession, didn’t take a lot of chances in the midfield, didn’t hold much possession in the midfield, and absorbed chance after chance. In both matches they were fortunate to score on some counter-attacks.
You are not going to be fortunate enough very often to have such a high scoring rate on a handful of counter-attack chances per match. And you are not going to be fortunate enough to allow your opponent nearly all the possession and chance after chance w/o getting scored on. Both happened in the match against Spain. But that’s a 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 kind of result.
Against Brazil there were very fortunate again in the 1st half, but the luck ran out in the 2nd. But the strategy and the flow of the game was more or less constant throughout both matches.
In retrospect they probably should have taken more chances in the 2nd half against Brazil and tried to play more offense and hold possession more. But the conservative bunker with occasional counter approach worked against Spain and the 1st half against Brazil. Why not trot out the same strategy? But the luck finally wore out.
Based on the matches against Spain and Brazil, I’m not going to be fooled into thinking that the US has “arrived” or that they’re “almost there”. They were just fortunate to get some early leads in a couple of matches, and then bunkered. You can occasionally win matches against superior opponents, even vastly superior opponents that way. But most of the time you are going to lose.
When I really see the US playing toe to toe with teams like Spain and Brazil, where possession and number of chances is at least something remotely approaching even, then I’ll begin to think that they are starting to “arrive”.
Plain and simple: on a good day where they play over 100% the USA can compete with the elite teams, but on a bad day whey they look rattled and disorganized, they just look bad. If anything, the USA has nothing to be ashamed of after their Confeds Cup run. Brazil will win because they know how to turn their game on when the chips are down, and they were able to do that.
The USA are the obvious heavyweights in their region, but if anything they probably need more games against the elite teams. This was a good test. First things first–get a result at Azteca and obviously qualify for the World Cup. Well, the Gold Cup and second half of games will be fun to watch–hang on for the ride!