The Not Beautiful Game

Let's dispense with the obvious - the US played bravely, did well to get out of the group of death, and had Wondolowski finished (or subbed Green earlier or brought Donovan or coulda-shoulda-woulda fill-in-the-blank) maybe we move on. Fine. I hear ESPN radio guys talking positively about the US - the future is bright, the US are fan favorites in Brazil, our young guys Yedlin and Green looked impressive. But I'm a little more pessimistic. Here's why:

1. Our record in the World Cup games was 1-2-1.

2. Our performance this year was not substantially more impressive than in other World Cups. We've gotten out of the group stage before.

3. We only outplayed the other team in one game (Portugal)

4. We never had the best player on the field in any game.

My problem with US Soccer is with our structure and the way we approach developing talent. We are clearly doing something wrong. We play the same style of soccer, albeit a little better, than we did in 1994. We play hard, we play as a team, we have well-conditioned athletes, and we hope to wear down superior teams by toughness and organization and try to score on counterattacks. This is how we played today and how we played 20 years ago. Approaching soccer in this way gets us into the World Cup in the weak Concacaf. If we get a little lucky, we get out of the group stage. If we get very lucky, we could win a 2nd round game. If we get a little unlucky, we don't get out of the group. If we get very unlucky, we won't qualify.

To improve, we cannot just continue down the same path. We cannot hope to get very far in the World Cup when every team we play has superior on-field talent. We need difference-making field players and currently, we don't know how to find or develop them. We find gritty players. We find strong players. We even sometimes find fast players. But we don't find players capable of brilliance and we certainly don't find multiple brilliant players.

Think about these guys --

Hazard/Lukaku/Mertens - Belgium
Robben/Van Persie - Netherlands
Gyan/Asamoah - Ghana
Drogba/Yaya Toure - Ivory Coast
Modric - Croatia
James/Falcao - Columbia
Suarez/Cavani - Uruguay
Vidal - Chile
Dos Santos/Guardado - Mexico

I purposely did not include the soccer heavyweights who have won the World Cup in the last 50 years and who routinely find top level talent - Spain, France, England, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Argentina.  I won't even bring up Ronaldo or Messi. I'm just talking about countries who managed to find - in some cases numerous - better players than anyone on the US team in the past 20 years.

What the above list suggests is that wide variety of other countries with varying soccer histories, resources, size, athletic tradition, so on, are able to find more creative, dangerous field players than we are. This should be a major cause of concern.

And I see no movement or effort to find these kind of players. We are content to continue in our style and pray for luck to get better. In no other sports or American endeavor would this be good enough. Imagine a basketball team with a bunch of players like Derek Fisher, Chris Anderson, Andre Iguodala, Shane Battier, etc. They would play hard, work hard, and occasionally beat a better team. But anyone with a shred of intelligence would see the flaw: we need a creative play-maker. We need offensive.

So this is my plea for American soccer -- we must think about the game differently -- we must open our minds to creativity and artistry in the game. We must find our Ozil, our Iniesta, our Mueller, our Pirlo. They are out there - they must be - because they exist in most every other soccer country in the world. We must study how the other countries do it. How did Messi become Messi? How did Vidal get discovered? And we must look for our diamonds in the rough.

A SIDE NOTE:

We've gotten better at soccer since 1994 - I do not mean to dismiss our accomplishments and growth - but other teams are better as well. Belgium is not a traditional soccer powerhouse, but their skill, strength, and speed is world class. Germany is better. Portugal is better. Ghana is better. To improve at the margins will leave us in a similar position because the world moves too. I only mean to say - our analysis of soccer is wrong - we must either be content to stay in the middle of the pack or we must change how we approach the game - we cannot continue along the same path and expect different results.