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This is not the end of Rico
Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 06:07 PM by Dan Loney
If you saw Cornell Glen's miss and Rico's wonder strike, you saw the game. In fact, I'm jealous of you if that's all you saw.
Nevertheless, yesterday was as good a day to be an American as it was a lousy day to be Argentine or Northern Irish.* Bottom-lining it, the very worst case scenario is needing a draw at home to Costa Rica to go directly to South Africa. A loss gets us a playoff game. That's not an option we'd have been thrilled with when the Hex started, but it's well within the bounds of reason. Especially - and I can't emphasize this enough - because Honduras and El Salvador were better than advertised.
Even more especially because C'MON. That sexy home qualifying record the US is sporting didn't just happen randomly, and it isn't meaningless just because Mexico's is so much better. Our World Cup qualification - our direct WC qualification, I mean, there's even a second chance after the trapdoor, for heaven's sake - is at risk on something that has never happened before. We're FINE, guys.
Now, one might complain that based on this past week's performances, our trip to South Africa will be nasty, brutish and short. Well...yeah, but that's what they said about the last one.
I hate to be a stupid, rosy-cheeked fanboy on this, I really do. You're right, all of you. We were nigh-unwatchable, except for highlights totalling, what, a minute of actual run of play? The nicest thing I can say about the defensive performance is that I loved the way Bocanegra plays left back. We knew Jozy needed playign time, but doesn't AC Milan have, I dunno, some reserve games or something for Gooch? And if Dempsey or Donovan gets themselves marked out of a game next summer, wow, is that going to be doubleplusungood.
All of these things are true, all of these things are worrisome, and fortunately, we have months to work on them. There's not really a correlation between qualifying form and tournament form. I think Simon Kuper's upcoming book touches on that subject, but anyone who's followed Spain or Greece might have suspected. And while Italy did win their qualifying group last time around, they did it while losing to Moldova, which in CONCACAF terms would be like losing a road game to the Empire of Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah. We lost a home qualifier in 2001 before our terrific 2002 Cup, we won the Hex in 2005 before going one two three kick the next year.
This is the national team that can beat Spain and sweat bullets against Trinidad. That's life as an American soccer fan, and it's actually way better than it was. If you can't handle it when Americans don't win easily, well, there's always NASCAR, the NFL, and old World War II movies.
But let us now praise Ricardo Clark, who brought his World Cup roster spot chances back to life like a white-hot phoenix, Germany Jones be damned. Curmudgeons and killjoys will recall a Gold Cup goal scored by Benny Feilhaber that was equally wonderful, but led to Feilhaber's career going precisely nowhere. There is no such thing as gratitude in World Cup roster spots, and even if there were, both Feilhaber and Michael Smith have been deep mid goalscoring threats in the past.
But none of those guys stomped on Carlos Ruiz. Is it too late to get Josh Wicks a game?
*It must have been so good to be English there for a minute. Sweet, cold revenge for the Euro qualifier on the same day that Argentina loses and Scotland and Northern Ireland crash...except today, Germany crushed them in the Euro finals. England fans also live and die with the women's team, right?
Nevertheless, yesterday was as good a day to be an American as it was a lousy day to be Argentine or Northern Irish.* Bottom-lining it, the very worst case scenario is needing a draw at home to Costa Rica to go directly to South Africa. A loss gets us a playoff game. That's not an option we'd have been thrilled with when the Hex started, but it's well within the bounds of reason. Especially - and I can't emphasize this enough - because Honduras and El Salvador were better than advertised.
Even more especially because C'MON. That sexy home qualifying record the US is sporting didn't just happen randomly, and it isn't meaningless just because Mexico's is so much better. Our World Cup qualification - our direct WC qualification, I mean, there's even a second chance after the trapdoor, for heaven's sake - is at risk on something that has never happened before. We're FINE, guys.
Now, one might complain that based on this past week's performances, our trip to South Africa will be nasty, brutish and short. Well...yeah, but that's what they said about the last one.
I hate to be a stupid, rosy-cheeked fanboy on this, I really do. You're right, all of you. We were nigh-unwatchable, except for highlights totalling, what, a minute of actual run of play? The nicest thing I can say about the defensive performance is that I loved the way Bocanegra plays left back. We knew Jozy needed playign time, but doesn't AC Milan have, I dunno, some reserve games or something for Gooch? And if Dempsey or Donovan gets themselves marked out of a game next summer, wow, is that going to be doubleplusungood.
All of these things are true, all of these things are worrisome, and fortunately, we have months to work on them. There's not really a correlation between qualifying form and tournament form. I think Simon Kuper's upcoming book touches on that subject, but anyone who's followed Spain or Greece might have suspected. And while Italy did win their qualifying group last time around, they did it while losing to Moldova, which in CONCACAF terms would be like losing a road game to the Empire of Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah. We lost a home qualifier in 2001 before our terrific 2002 Cup, we won the Hex in 2005 before going one two three kick the next year.
This is the national team that can beat Spain and sweat bullets against Trinidad. That's life as an American soccer fan, and it's actually way better than it was. If you can't handle it when Americans don't win easily, well, there's always NASCAR, the NFL, and old World War II movies.
But let us now praise Ricardo Clark, who brought his World Cup roster spot chances back to life like a white-hot phoenix, Germany Jones be damned. Curmudgeons and killjoys will recall a Gold Cup goal scored by Benny Feilhaber that was equally wonderful, but led to Feilhaber's career going precisely nowhere. There is no such thing as gratitude in World Cup roster spots, and even if there were, both Feilhaber and Michael Smith have been deep mid goalscoring threats in the past.
But none of those guys stomped on Carlos Ruiz. Is it too late to get Josh Wicks a game?
*It must have been so good to be English there for a minute. Sweet, cold revenge for the Euro qualifier on the same day that Argentina loses and Scotland and Northern Ireland crash...except today, Germany crushed them in the Euro finals. England fans also live and die with the women's team, right?
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Total Comments 18
Comments
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It may be lousy to be Northern Irish...
...but it is glorious to be Slovak.
And that's not something you get to say every day.Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 06:10 PM by clashcityrocker 
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I'll tell you what's underappreciated here. The use of "white-hot phoenix" in a sentence.
Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 06:26 PM by Spry
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Where do you find these people?Quote:...which in CONCACAF terms would be like losing a road game to the Empire of Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah.Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 07:22 PM by BigKris
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Hey, it could be worse, you could be Scottish or Saudi. From what I heard what happened in particularly the Saudi game, i can understand if people want to kill themselves over there.
In any case, there are no gimmes. Costa Rica is a wounded animal right now. They're gonna come at the US with everything they got. Beating Honduras at Honduras will be tough. But the US should make this WCPosted 10 Sep 2009 at 07:45 PM by Q Exp
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Rico. . . .Suave
Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 09:17 PM by DoctorD
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Oh no, this is not the end of Uncle Rico. He can kick the ball way over those mountains.
"Maurice Edu took a little spill at the sand dunes today. Broke his coccyx."
Maybe Uncle Rico won't need injuries to make it onto the 23.Posted 10 Sep 2009 at 10:35 PM by Asprilla9
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You're right to mention Benny's super goal, but I think Bob Bradley will agree that a player who can come in like this and score for your squad, after not playing many games, is VERY VALUABLE. This goal might not secure his WC place, but it will put him in serious contention as a player the US can rely on...assuming he doesn't screw up big in the next few months.
Winning is winning. Let's be glad we can blog about the way in the which we won.Posted 11 Sep 2009 at 01:37 AM by brine
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Every game since the gold cup final has lowered my expectations further. By the world cup I will be uncorking Champagne for draws against teams from Asia.
Posted 11 Sep 2009 at 02:33 AM by Jammer101
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Given whom we've drawn in the last three WC finals, I'll pop a cork in November if we GET an Asian side in our group.Quote:Originally Posted by Jammer101
Every game since the gold cup final has lowered my expectations further. By the world cup I will be uncorking Champagne for draws against teams from Asia.Posted 11 Sep 2009 at 08:32 AM by Martininho
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Don't forget that we had a nice little run of results going into France '98. How'd that work out for us?Quote:Originally Posted by Dan LoneyWe lost a home qualifier in 2001 before our terrific 2002 Cup, we won the Hex in 2005 before going one two three kick the next year.
The bottom line is that all of our recent (since 1994) successes on the international stage have had one thing in common: getting an unexpected result.
1994 World Cup: beating Colombia
1995 Copa America: beating Argentina
2002 World Cup: beating Portugal
2009 Confederations Cup: beating Egypt 3-0, while Brazil is beating Italy 3-0; beating Spain
Assuming that we qualify for South Africa, we're either going to have to
a. get drawn into the Group of Soft Fluffy Pillows, or
b. get another unexpected result or two
to have a successful tournament. It's a little depressing when you consider that that would've been the recipe 15 years ago as well and that nothing much has changed in that respect. OTOH, you can say that what constitutes "an unexpected result" has changed, and that some results have gone from "almost impossible" to "merely unexpected."
So I'm not getting all wound up about style points in the process of getting to South Africa, merely that we get there, because in the end, we're going to have pull something out of our asses anyway if we want to do well.Posted 11 Sep 2009 at 09:03 AM by ElJefe 
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