USA: Uninspiring Soccer by Americans
Two weeks ago I was shocked and completely disappointed in American sports fans. Today, I compliment them for recognizing something I surely did not see coming.
The daily ESPN Poll question was something to the effect of, "How will you be keeping track of the United States soccer team's opening game against the Czech Republic?" My response was I was TIVO-ing the game and would watch it later (that was until my coworker/roommate decided to check his e-mail at work where it promptly displayed the score of the game). Out of the five possible replies, the number one answer, collecting 36% of the votes, was that people would not be following the game at all. My initial reaction was that this just proves the point that the world's most popular game is less popular in the world's most powerful country than NBA commissioner David Stern is in Dallas (basically he is hated like the Plague). After watching today's debacle against Ghana on TIVO (this time without previously knowing the outcome), I realized members of society may not necessarily dislike soccer all that much, rather they knew that the Americans had no chance.
Again, like many times in sports, the leaders of the team were unable to perform to their abilities, and it was the reason why we only took four shots on goal the entire tournament with only one finding the back of the net thanks to former Furman University star and talented dancer Clint Dempsey (the other US goal we can attribute to an Italian for being an idiot and scoring on his own goalkeeper). The face of American men's soccer, Landon Donovan, continued his games without scoring a goal in international play streak that dates back to 2005. Veteran captain Claudio Reyna handed (or maybe its footed?) over the ball 20 yards from his own goal, leading to a break away and setting up Ghana's first score of the contest. It also doesn't help that our goalkeeper, the AMAZING Kasey Keller, still has not recorded a World Cup victory.
As is way too common with losers (it really pains me to consider the USA soccer team losers, but its true), the key members of the team initially blamed the referees. Head coach Bruce Arena blamed the ref. The aforementioned "All-Star" Donovan blamed the ref. However, at least one player, Carlos Bocanegra, took some responsibility on behalf of the team. In an ESPN interview he said, "We can't wait around for something to happen. We have to learn to make our own luck, and we didn't do that" Thank you Carlos for being a man and fairly evaluating the hideous play of your team, because maybe if you had cleared the ball rather than heading it into the penalty box, the opportunity for the ref to make a bad call would not have occurred. Were there bad calls? Sure. Is there any athletic contest that is played without bad calls from refs? Very few. Will losing teams and individuals ever be accountable for their actions without mentions of poor officiating? I highly doubt it because bad refs can be used too easily as scapegoats.
Now I'm not saying that I have never yelled at a referee or even blamed a referee for an outcome of a game. Trust me, my blood has been boiling over many bad calls in professional, college, high school, junior high, elementary, and even my own games. But at some point, as a fan of sports, you have to mature and realize that refs simply never decide games. The players and coaches decide games. As a fan, blaming a ref is stupid, but it is even more stupid to blame refs when you are a player. The ONLY thing that accomplishes is distracting you from what you need to do to win the game and perform to the best of your abililty. Once distractions set in, as in the case of Team USA and the Dallas Mavericks (they seem to have unfairly become my new favorite target), it completely detracts from what the individual or team is trying to accomplish and more often than not ends in defeat.
With the Red, White and Blue saying bye-bye to Germany, I am now rooting for Brazil. Mostly because I can scream "GO KAKA" and it be perfectly acceptable.
In other news, Roger Clemens got his first start and loss of the season tonight against the Minnesota Twins. We'll see if he will have a significant impact on the outcome of the NL Central. Also, the top 3 seeds for upcoming Wimbledon are Federer, Nadal, and American Andy Roddick. I'd love to see Roddick win, but he'll be lucky to win another tournament, mostly because he likes to blame the refs too much and he loses focus (Imagine That???)
The daily ESPN Poll question was something to the effect of, "How will you be keeping track of the United States soccer team's opening game against the Czech Republic?" My response was I was TIVO-ing the game and would watch it later (that was until my coworker/roommate decided to check his e-mail at work where it promptly displayed the score of the game). Out of the five possible replies, the number one answer, collecting 36% of the votes, was that people would not be following the game at all. My initial reaction was that this just proves the point that the world's most popular game is less popular in the world's most powerful country than NBA commissioner David Stern is in Dallas (basically he is hated like the Plague). After watching today's debacle against Ghana on TIVO (this time without previously knowing the outcome), I realized members of society may not necessarily dislike soccer all that much, rather they knew that the Americans had no chance.
Again, like many times in sports, the leaders of the team were unable to perform to their abilities, and it was the reason why we only took four shots on goal the entire tournament with only one finding the back of the net thanks to former Furman University star and talented dancer Clint Dempsey (the other US goal we can attribute to an Italian for being an idiot and scoring on his own goalkeeper). The face of American men's soccer, Landon Donovan, continued his games without scoring a goal in international play streak that dates back to 2005. Veteran captain Claudio Reyna handed (or maybe its footed?) over the ball 20 yards from his own goal, leading to a break away and setting up Ghana's first score of the contest. It also doesn't help that our goalkeeper, the AMAZING Kasey Keller, still has not recorded a World Cup victory.
As is way too common with losers (it really pains me to consider the USA soccer team losers, but its true), the key members of the team initially blamed the referees. Head coach Bruce Arena blamed the ref. The aforementioned "All-Star" Donovan blamed the ref. However, at least one player, Carlos Bocanegra, took some responsibility on behalf of the team. In an ESPN interview he said, "We can't wait around for something to happen. We have to learn to make our own luck, and we didn't do that" Thank you Carlos for being a man and fairly evaluating the hideous play of your team, because maybe if you had cleared the ball rather than heading it into the penalty box, the opportunity for the ref to make a bad call would not have occurred. Were there bad calls? Sure. Is there any athletic contest that is played without bad calls from refs? Very few. Will losing teams and individuals ever be accountable for their actions without mentions of poor officiating? I highly doubt it because bad refs can be used too easily as scapegoats.
Now I'm not saying that I have never yelled at a referee or even blamed a referee for an outcome of a game. Trust me, my blood has been boiling over many bad calls in professional, college, high school, junior high, elementary, and even my own games. But at some point, as a fan of sports, you have to mature and realize that refs simply never decide games. The players and coaches decide games. As a fan, blaming a ref is stupid, but it is even more stupid to blame refs when you are a player. The ONLY thing that accomplishes is distracting you from what you need to do to win the game and perform to the best of your abililty. Once distractions set in, as in the case of Team USA and the Dallas Mavericks (they seem to have unfairly become my new favorite target), it completely detracts from what the individual or team is trying to accomplish and more often than not ends in defeat.
With the Red, White and Blue saying bye-bye to Germany, I am now rooting for Brazil. Mostly because I can scream "GO KAKA" and it be perfectly acceptable.
In other news, Roger Clemens got his first start and loss of the season tonight against the Minnesota Twins. We'll see if he will have a significant impact on the outcome of the NL Central. Also, the top 3 seeds for upcoming Wimbledon are Federer, Nadal, and American Andy Roddick. I'd love to see Roddick win, but he'll be lucky to win another tournament, mostly because he likes to blame the refs too much and he loses focus (Imagine That???)
posted by SteveO at 11:24 PM
1 Comments:
Andy Roddick can't win because he only has his power. Now that everyone has had a chance to see that he has no advantage over anyone. And he complains about everything.
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