Photo by ISIphotos.com
Things really couldn't have gone much better for the U.S. men's national team on Wednesday night, but for some reason its 1-0 victory against Trinidad & Tobago still didn't feel like the most fulfilling victory ever posted.
The old "It doesn't matter how you win, as long as you do" refrain has merit, but when it seemingly becomes the mantra of a team so much more is expected from you begin to wonder if this team can play better, or if this is as good as we're going to get from the U.S. national team.
Are we expecting too much from this team? I couldn't help but wonder that after writing my game column for ESPN.comlast night. Some time after filing the story, and after absorbing the other results in CONCACAF, I couldn't help but wonder if I was being too harsh on a team that just moved very close to qualifying, and a team that now sat in first place in the group. Should the story have been more congratulatory? A pat on the back for another gritty victory? Or was it about right to question the resolve of a team that had just delivered its fifth straight underwhelming performance, this time against the worst team in the qualifying group?
This team does deserve credit, because even when its skills fall short and the quality we expect isn't there, the players don't give in. They keep battling and find a way, and with some luck here and a crossbar there, get a road victory. This team has made a habit of winning tough games, but also of making games tougher than they need to be. You could argue that it's playing with fire, but it is also providing some experience that just might pay off down the road.
Winning a tough and ugly game like Wednesday night's is something to applaud, but it shows you just how much expectations have grown for the U.S. national team over 20 years. Two decades ago, the Americans were celebrated for escaping Trinidad with a win and a World Cup berth. Twenty years later, they secure a win and move to the brink of a World Cup and are criticized for doing it in disappointing fashion.
You can call that unfair, or misguided. I call it the price of being a good team that has raised its own level of expectations and must now live up to that level.
U.S. fans are understandably concerned. Not about qualifying for 2010 itself, though that is yet to be guaranteed, but more with the progress and status of a team that less than three months ago defeated the best team in the world in a FIFA competition. The 2010 World Cup is nine months away and the feeling of some is that this steady string of mediocre to bad qualifying performances doesn't bode well for the U.S. team's chances.
While that is a understandable concern, it should be noted that strong qualifying campaigns mean nothing when it comes to what eventually comes in the World Cup. U.S. fans may have forgotten that the United States cruised to a qualifying place in 2005, making the field with three game to spare. That dominance meant nothing when the Americans went winless in Germany a year later.
Go back to 2001, and the U.S. team actually struggled in its qualifying campaign. It sat in a three-way tie for second after eight matches, with a 4-2-2 mark (as opposed to its current 5-2-1 record) and had just lost consecutive qualifiers to Honduras and Costa Rica. Honduras' subsequent meltdown and the U.S. team's home victory against Jamaica secured passage to South Korea, but the process to get there was even tougher than the current qualifying stage and it didn't seem to bother the Americans much as they reached the World Cup quarterfinals the next year.
In other words, yes, there is reason for concern about the U.S. team's current form, but the Chicken Little act, the "We're going to get crushed in the World Cup" refrain, is just a touch premature. A team's World Cup form has much more to do with where a team is at the moment, not nine months beforehand, as well as having much more to do with its group draw and the individual form of top players. Just as people would have been wrong to declare that the United States would have a great World Cup after its Confederations Cup success, critics would be pretty presumptuous to declare that qualifying struggles now would spell doom in next year's World Cup.
The focus now should be on what the U.S. team will do in its final qualifiers. Will the Americans find that level we saw in the Confederations Cup against Spain and Brazil in the first half of the final? Can the U.S. team prove that it is actually capable of playing on that high a level again, or will it crawl all the way to the World Cup qualifying finish line?
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Here are some tweaks on my ESPN player grades from last night: Spector should have gotten a 6 instead of a 5.5 and Dempsey should have gotten a 4.5 instead of a 5 (I know some folks want him to get even lower, but he did improve after the goal). I could have gone a half point lower on Bradley and Clark, but I thought Bradley had a steady first half and Clark's grade was boosted by the goal. As for the subs, I'm not sure if I've made this point clear in the past but subs are generally graded lower when they don't play many minutes, so if someone comes in and has a good six to eight minutes, they're not going to automatically get a six. They're usually starting out on a lower scale and therefore will wind up with a lower grade. This is why Stuart Holden got a 4.5. He did well while he was on, but he was only on briefly.
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Here are the qualifying scenarios for the USA:
USA is in with a win in either of its two remaining qualifiers (at Honduras on Oct. 10, vs. Costa Rica on Oct. 14), a tie vs. Costa Rica, or a loss by Costa Rica to Trinidad & Tobago on Oct. 10.
USA can also qualify with a tie vs. Honduras and a Costa Rica tie vs. Trinidad & Tobago on Oct. 10.
USA can also qualify with a tie vs. Honduras and a Honduras tie or loss at El Salvador on Oct. 14.
USA can also qualify with two Mexico losses, vs. El Salvador on Oct. 10, at Trinidad & Tobago on Oct. 14.
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What did you think of the U.S. team's performance on Wednesday night? Happy with the victory? Worried by the team's form? Think it's unfair to criticize the team after a win, or do you have similar concerns about the team's form in qualifying?
Share your thoughts below.
