This far.
I’m pissed we lost to England. At Wembley.
The game was over by the time Landon Donovan was scratched, ostensibly with a groin injury, but in fact so as not to detract from teammate David Beckham getting his 100th (and last) cap for England. Becks later set up the first English goal, then showered and wore a nice suit during the second half.
He wears a suit well. More on that later.
Without Donovan, we had nothing to offer in attack. We had Euro-scrubs, guys like Eddie Johnson and Carlos Bocanegra who couldn’t play for Fulham, guys from minor leagues in Belgium, Holland and Germany. Our back line of Cherundolo (too old), Bocanegra (too slow) and Onyewu (too ponderous) could do nothing with the English attack, and Coach Bob Bradley did nothing about it.
It’s no longer enough for me to come up on a big occasion and watch our coach act like he’s scared of the upcoming Barbados encounter. We’ve practically got an automatic, every quadrennial bid to the Big Dance now, and it’s past time we got to the next level.
The next level, in this case, is beating teams like England, and Spain, and Argentina, in their own buildings, in front of their own fans, with fancy, fast, entertaining, high-energy stuff.
Bradley’s job, in addition to coaching the guys he has, is to try
and direct their careers so they can become better for the national
side. And Bob, would it kill you to wear a suit to the game? Why do our coaches look like frumps while the other guys are coached by male models? Lose the direction to the Mens’ Wearhouse? Expect to call your own number?
He needs to find guys like Eddie Johnson, who looked lost this
spring at Fulham, a regular place in the Championship, where they play
twice a week, where the expectations are high, and where the gap
between being a play-off contender and relegation bait is wafer-thin.
We’ve developed some good players that way — Frank Simek, Jay
DeMerit, Bobby Convey, Eddie Lewis, Marcus Hahnemann — but Bradley has begun to
ignore them in favor of MLS guys who don’t have the toughness to
play against the best of Europe and South America. The MLS guys are
short and spindly next to the Championship players. They don’t have the
stamina and they don’t have the strength.
Why wasn’t Jozy Altidore brought in? Why was Freddy Adu just a
substitute? Why was our midfield run ragged when we have guys who can
stand the pace, and six substitutes available to change them out if
need-be?
We don’t have to be Little Sisters of the Poor in this sport any
longer. We have a deeper pipeline of kids coming up than any other
country — 4 million kids play the sport in the U.S. Why aren’t we
developing them better?
A big part of the problem is expectations. We don’t treat games like this as they should be treated. We don’t go in expecting to win. We go in expecting to be the Washington Generals, and then we are. And our fans don’t expect to win. We’re just happy to be there.
But it’s time to take the gloves off. It’s time to raise expectations, to get mad when the team performs badly, and to put pressure on our people to do better. It’s the only way they’ll get to where they want to be.
Handing a World Cup to President Obama.
P.S. — It would also be nice if after one of these rants I got a bunch of comments from people telling how stupid I sound. Instead I can almost guarantee the sound of crickets.
P.P.S. — And can we find an English language announcer who gets excited after a goal? They announce goals like they’re at a basketball game and another will be around in 20 seconds. And the "color" men are way too complex. Tell us who’s dogging it, tell us they’re either going wide or right down Broadway, tell us who’s playing like garbage-on-a-tray once in a while. This is not a U-8 encounter. Their feelings won’t get hurt. Hurt ’em. You do in every other sport. Everyone else does in this one.
