Before Germany 2006, the US National Team found its self in the flattering position of No. 4 in the Fifa World Ranking System. While most experts and foreign players around the world sneered and smirked at the ranking, your typical average American soccer fan looked at this ranking and figured that it proved we had finally arrived on the World Soccer Stage.
    
Inflated egos and expectations surrounded the team going to Germany—it was to be an occasion for breakout performances from young players like Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, and Bobby Covey. While for old veterans like Claudio Reyna, Eddie Lewis, Brian McBride, Eddie Pope, and Kasey Keller, it was thought that the US had had enough World Cup experience to at least solidify solid performances and ensure progression through the tournament—at least that was how it was suppose to go down in theory—a theory that Bruce Arena failed to crystallize.
    
Of course, in the aftermath of Germany 2006, Arena can feel hard done by for taking the criticism for a poor US showing, as well as feel as though certain players just outright failed to perform for him. However, for all the looks of disgust and ref blaming, I fail to recall a time when King Bruce ever approached the sideline to either muster on his team, address or reiterate expectations throughout the game.
    
It was as if what ever was drawn up in the dressing room, stayed right there on the chalk board. Some of you out there might be thinking or saying to yourself “Come on, Dagger, this is the big time…these boys are professionals…they don’t need to be prodded by a sideline coach…with a megaphone dictating their every move.” All I can recommend to those of you with these kinds of thoughts is to go back and look at the antics of coaches like Scolari and Klinsmann—a coach might not have to go over the top with excitement and emotion, but barring Sven-Goran Eriksson, a coach should at least show their team that they have a pulse—and a desire to win.
    
Anyways, another poor World Cup performance have left the moon-struck American fans perplexed and finally pointing fingers. The truth is that one only had to look at our warm-up matches to Germany to see that something was seriously wrong with the team, as the defeat to Morocco and marginal wins against minnows, Venezuela and Latvia did little to get us ready for the realities of the colossus-like match-ups against the Czechs, Italy, and Ghana in what really became the group of death for Germany 2006.
    
In the end, we looked like a team that would have had a hard time against UCLA. It’s about time we put our old collegiate style ball to rest. Arena’s UVA tactics might work against the weaker opponents of CONCACAF, but if we continue to play in straight lines and always resort first to manhandling the opposing offense, I don’t see much improvement for South Africa 2010.

Carvings from the Dagger
www.savagesoccer.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Soccer World, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.