[Dan Loney]

This might not actually be worse than the previous two United States pratfalls in the World Cup, but it feels worse, for me anyway.

In 1990, we were expected to arrive in a clown car. We just about knew how to put the shoes on toes first. My friends (I was in England at the time) scoffed that not only would the USA not win a game, they wouldn't even score a goal. Well, by God, they might have looked hilarious, they might have been overmatched, and they might as well have been foosball table figures for all the trouble they caused Kubik, Skuhravy and company - but they did score a goal. Paul Caligiuri saved our honor, barely ten minutes after Eric Wynalda got himself tossed. For some reason I remember the red card more than the goal.

So dread of what Italy were going to do to us didn't weigh as heavily, at least on my brow. It wasn't as if we were supposed to win, and we were already proven better than people thought...if not by much. The 5-1 score was unfair, since two of the goals came when the US was a man down. And the fifth one was scored in injury time. I mean, come on.

Eight years later, things weren't looking that bad at all. Well, not as bad as they would become. Sure, we had just lost 2-0, and Germany wasn't nearly as fearsome as they once had been, but it was freaking Germany, after all. And hey, if it hadn't been for a couple of huge defensive lapses, we might have escaped with a point. Against Germany. All we needed to do was beat Iran, preferably by two or three, and then the big showdown against Yugoslavia. Heads didn't explode until after the Iran game - well, okay, maybe at halftime of the Iran game. Sure, Eric Wynalda got in very early shots at Steve Sampson, but that was Waldo being Waldo.

This combines the worst of 1990 and 1998. We're facing Italy again, just like sixteen years ago. Although this time they're not hosts, they looked way too good against Ghana. Ghana aren't exactly pushovers, and Italy shut them down without getting too far past second gear. In 1990, we weren't looking, realistically, for a point or three (ha!) against Italy, either. Let alone points that would save American soccer. The 1990 team was being built for the future. This year's team was supposed to be the fulfillment of all that. Whatever you can say about the 1990 team, they sure had an easy forty years of acts to follow. This year, the team is in its own shadow, and a victim of its own hype.

In 1998, although we played remarkably badly, we at least played with heart. No team with Frankie Hejduk and Cobi Jones has ever been called heartless, although they've been called many other things. This year, you have people quite understandably wondering where Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley have gotten to, and why they apparently thought a World Cup game didn't warrant their full attention. Once we fell behind in the Czech game (unlike ESPN announcers, I can say "we" (although I'm not on the team, hell, I'm not even in Germany (but if they DON'T want us to think of their team as a "we," they should take the "US" off the badge and call themselves "Some guys we got together to play some soccer and maybe sell some Gatorade and Nikes"))), we looked like the Flatland National Team on a road game in the third dimension.

Except Flatland wouldn't have kept sending balls in the air to the Czech defense over and over and over again, like we did. When was that going to work, outside of a video game? Kasey Keller in "Twenty-Two Foreigners In Funny Shorts" told Pete Davies that US scouting assured the 1990 team that they would be bigger and more muscular than their opponents. Then they took one look at Tomas Skuhravy and thought, "Well, there goes THAT scouting report." Point being, you think we might have learned something since then. When Bruce was saying "Send it high to McBride," didn't Keller feel a little deja vu?

Like in 1998, the knives have come out for Arena after game one - this time, in my opinion, with even more justice. Like in 1998, the players are starting to grumble - Convey and Beasley this time starting the chorus. Convey might be a little young to realize this, but saying the team wasn't clear on their assignments is pretty much the same as going up to Sunil and demanding Arena be fired on the spot. Oh, and by the way, a team that had made it to the quarterfinals four years before lost worse to the Czech Republic than a team starting Mike Burns did to Germany. If Arena can inspire this team against this opponent after that performance, he should run for President. Of the world.

So I've got more dread than Bob Marley right now. Marx said history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. So what will the third time be?

Fine. Maybe six games from now, when Claudio Reyna is holding up the trophy to a shocked world, and Landon Donovan is thanking all of the Americans who believed in them "except for one guy," I'll cheer up. Right now, I'm making the protagonist of Johnny Cash's "Mercy Seat" seem like Jiminy freaking Cricket.

[Rahbiefowlah]

We just better give a sh!t tomorrow.

[Brrca Fan redded]

We better fight like hell. Remember in 2002, the Italians lost to Koreans. Because they fought like men.

[Jambon]

Thank you,Dan, for writing the only "blog" of the whole lot on these boards worth spending the time to read, and you're not even in Germany!

More history and thought-provocation, less autobiography and train schedules please.

[DSM1]

Oy! That 1990 scouting report is ludicrous beyond belief. I will always remember the ref letting the bib, strong Czechs kick the hell out of our boys -- and that's what they were -- then Wynalda getting baited into retaliation and Eric got the red card! From a sheer fighting spirit standpoint if we had 11 Heydudes out there tomorrow, Italy would for damn sure know they were in a match. Go USA!

[DSM1]

Speaking of disasters, there is a gem of quote from Whiner about the 98 team in the Today's News story from USA Today about how ESPN is amazed at how good WC TV ratings are:

."ESPN studio analyst Eric Wynalda says even if the U.S. team finishes last, it still will be better than the 1998 cellar-dwellers:


"The difference is that this is a real team. Regardless of the game against Italy, I guarantee that the veteran players will not be sitting in the lawn chairs in the middle of the night throwing wine bottles at the coaches' suite — like we did in France."

I can't imagine that happening in 90 or this year for that matter.

[Mel Brennan]

Originally Posted by DSM1

Oy! That 1990 scouting report is ludicrous beyond belief. I will always remember the ref letting the bib, strong Czechs kick the hell out of our boys -- and that's what they were -- then Wynalda getting baited into retaliation and Eric got the red card! From a sheer fighting spirit standpoint if we had 11 Heydudes out there tomorrow, Italy would for damn sure know they were in a match. Go USA!

Eh; it takes all types to make a team, and commitment is shown all kinds of ways. 11 Frankies would result in six cards, methinks. His no fear attitude, however, needs to be transmuted by every player into doing, without thought, those things they do best. Hopefully they slept with their soccer balls and envisioned their success, specifically, a-la what Lynn Swann used to do.

In any case, for me, if the effort and mindset isn't there, I can only blame one man.