So the USA were back in the World Cup. However, this was the period between the death of the North America Soccer League and the birth of Major League Soccer, a period detailed very nicely by Benjamin Kumming on Pitch Invasion. Most of Bob Gansler’s squad was made up of recent college graduates and players from the America Soccer League, which wasn’t granted Division One status by FIFA.
Drawn into Group A, the USA lost 5-1 to Czechoslovakia in the opening game:
(Decent goal from Caligiuri though)
Gansler’s men went on to lose 1-0 to Italy and 2-1 to Austria. Not a complete disaster (if you ignore the first game) but the US finished bottom of the group with zero points. The upside is that several future USA World Cup stalwarts got valuable experience in Italy, including 23 year old John Harkes and Tab Ramos, 22 year old Marcelo Balboa, 21 year old Tony Meola, and the 20 year old pair of Kasey Keller and Eric Wynalda.
1994 World Cup in USA
lalas star jumpQualification was not a problem in 1994, as the USA had been selected as hosts. Major League Soccer was still two years away, but the US had a handful of key players like John Harkes, Roy Wegerle, Tab Ramos and Eric Wynalda playing for European teams, and many more in the squad who soon would be. Like 24 year old defender Alexi Lalas, of playing guitar and orange beard fame (pictured above left in the famous denim and stars home kit the US wore that year).
Serbian coach Bora Milutinović had been drafted in to deliver a respectable performance. Very much the Guus Hiddink of his day, Milutinović had already coached Mexico at the 1986 World Cup and Costa Rica at the 1990 World Cup.
The US opened strongly, with a 1-1 draw against Roy Hodgson’s Switzerland, the goal coming from an impressive Eric Wynalda free kick:
Did I say “impressive”? Clearly I should have said “masterpiece”. Still, good free-kick, good result.
The US went on to win the second game 2-1 against Colombia, who many fancied as potential tournament winners. That game is now best remembered for Andres Escobar’s own goal, and subsequent murder (read the full article: Andrés Escobar’s Own Goal vs USA) but at the time it was a huge huge victory for the USA, with Earnie Stewart scoring the second, and ultimately decisive goal. The USA lost the final group game 1-0 to Romania and finished third in Group A, going through to the Second Round as one of the four best third placed teams. The opponents in the last 16 were Brazil.
Wearing their much less hideous away kit, the US gave Brazil a decent game before losing 1-0 to the eventual champions through a 72nd minute Bebeto goal. The one complaint some US fans have is that their team had a one man advantage from the 43rd minute onwards (after Leonardo was sent off for street-fight style elbowing of Tab Ramos, which you can see in the video above) but failed to take advantage. Still, an excellent performance all around, and a gigantic improvement on 1990 (which itself was a gigantic improvement on the 40 previous years of non-qualification). The other long term effect was that players like Claudio Reyna and Alexi Lalas impressed enough to earn moves to Europe with Bayern Leverkusen in Germany and Padova in Italy respectively. The future looked bright. But then came…
1998 World Cup in France
It was supposed to be the World Cup where the US continued the progress of the last two tournaments, especially now Major League Soccer was up and running. Instead it was the World Cup where the USA finished 32nd out of 32 teams after losing 2-0 to Germany, 2-1 to Iran in a politically charged game and finally 1-0 to Yugoslavia. Brian McBride scored the US’s sole goal of the tournament in the 87th minute of the game against Iran. But it wasn’t the cleanest thing you’ve ever seen:
Coach Steve Sampson took most of the blame for the USA’s terrible terrible showing in France. One of the problems was the radical 3-6-1 formation, a formation which left no room for cult hero Alexi Lalas.
The much bigger problem was the absence of midfielder John Harkes. Midfielder Harkes had played for Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday in the English top flight, and had just won the inaugural MLS title with DC United in 1996, then successfully defended said title in 1997. Sampson named Harkes “captain for life” of the US national team. And then left him out of the squad for the 1998 World Cup, handing the armband to 37 year old defender Thomas Dooley.
It seemed an insane decision to leave Harkes out at the time. However, early in 2010 Eric Wynalda alleged that Harkes had had an affair with his Wynalda’s wife in the run up to 1998, and that this was the reason Harkes was dropped.
So maybe Steve Sampson’s not as culpable as thought at the time. But 1998 was still a disaster.
2002 World Cup in Japan & South Korea
After dominating MLS with his DC United team, Bruce Arena replaced Steve Sampson as USA coach after 1998. He’d go on to lead the USA to its best World Cup performance of the modern era.Not much was expected of the US after their 1998 performance, especially after being drawn into a tough looking Group D with Portugal, Poland and South Korea. But all that changed when they beat Portugal 3-2 in the first game.
Arena’s men raced into a 3-0 lead with goals from John O’Brien, a Portugal own goal forced by a 20 year old Landon Donovan, and a diving header from Brian McBride. Portugal came back, and that 71st minute comedy own goal from Jeff Agoos made things nervy, but the US held on for a shock win.
Clint Mathis and his mohawk scored early in the second game, against South Korea, but the co-hosts came back to draw 1-1. The US lost the final game 3-1 to Poland, but went through in second place because Portugal had lost to South Korea. There should be a spot reserved in the US Soccer Hall of Fame for Park Ji-Sung, who scored that Korean goal.
In the Round of 16, the US faced CONCACAF rivals Mexico. If you know anything about this rivalry, then you’ll know it basically means everything.
Brian McBride and Landon Donovan scored the goals as the USA beat their rivals 2-0 to move on to the quarter-finals. As I understand it, that game was something of a turning point in the history of the USA vs Mexico rivalry. An important victory on the world’s biggest stage that did wonders for US confidence both in CONCACAF and in the wider world of football.
Quarter-final opponents were Germany, who were kept in the game by Oliver Kahn’s performance, took the lead through a Michael Ballack header, and somehow got away with Torsten Fring’s handballing on the line.
Commendable effort by the US, and some definite bad luck with the Frings handball, but it finished Germany 1-0 USA. Still, a quarter-final appearance was the best US performance since 1930, and the emergence of young talents like 20 year olds Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, plus the performances of Claudio Reyna, John O’Brien, Clint Mathis and Eddie Pope, seemed to confirm that the USA was rapidly improving and 1998 was just a blip.
2006 World Cup in Germany
Bruce Arena was still in charge, and the youngsters from 2002 like Donovan and Beasley were now four years older (and balder). So the USA went into the 2006 World Cup with high expectations. Maybe unrealistically high. They’d been drawn into a rough looking Group E with Czech Republic, Italy and Ghana. But the bigger problem, at least in my opinion, was that Arena had too much faith in the same players that had performed for him four years previously. For example, DaMarcus Beasley was hopelessly out of form, and 32 year old captain Claudio Reyna was clearly no longer physically capable of competing at a World Cup, while in-form but less experienced players like Clint Dempsey started the tournament on the bench.The Czech Republic demolished the US 3-0 in the first game, with Tomas Rosicky scoring a memorable long range goal. That meant a result against Italy in the second game was crucial.
In an absolute battle of a game, the US went one down, but equalized through an Italian own goal, before the game went mental with three red cards. A 1-1 draw against the eventual champs was a very very good result, but it left the US needing a win against Ghana and a bit of luck. Instead they got a Claudio Reyna mistake for Ghana’s first goal, a thumping Clint Dempsey equalizer, and then a mysterious penalty called against Oguchi Onyewu to give Ghana a 2-1 win.
Despite the misfortune the US didn’t deserve to progress, and exited World Cup 2006 bottom of Group E with just one point.
No comments:
Post a Comment