When the United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) was beaten in extra time by the Black Stars of Ghana in the round of sixteen, the expectation that a United States team could win the 2010 World Cup was lost.
American interest in the sport of soccer at the international level may only stay at the level of passing flirtation post-World Cup, but the expectation for the USMNT to do well at the FIFA’s flagship tournament will remain. That expectation did not always exist.
Americans suspended, if only for the last three weeks, their ideas of exactly what the word “football” means, embracing the idea that the game we call soccer is as big as the holy trinity of sports (basketball, baseball, and football) in the vast majority of other countries. But really, the sport is bigger.
No other sport allows for physical expression and the creative juices of eleven individuals to be manifested in such a beautiful and fluent manner as the game of soccer.
Nearly 200 countries compete over the course of a year to qualify for 31 spots (the 32nd spot is reserved for the host country that does not have to go through qualification) in one of six continental governing bodies of soccer.
For the USMNT, this governing body is Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, or CONCACAF, which is also home to Mexico and Honduras, who both made this year’s World Cup, but also Costa Rica, Canada, Guatemala, Haiti and Panama who aren’t all your preverbal pushovers either.
It is so arduous and taxing a task, for a national team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, that countries rejoice as if they had won the World Cup, upon learning that they had earned an invitation to the exclusive 32 team party.
And make no mistake, the World Cup is the one party for which everyone wants an engraved invitation. But, what makes it and outstanding event, is its exclusive nature of winners. You don’t even need all of your fingers to count how many countries have one the World Cup in its 80 years of existence.
Since the World Cup was first organized, only seven countries have actually won the tournament and with the exception of France, the other six countries have won FIFA World Cup Trophy multiple times, with Brazil currently leading the rest of the world with five. After this 2010 group stage was finished; five of those seven countries had made it to the knockout round in South Africa.
The USMNT on the other hand, has only made it to the knockout stage three times in its soccer history, including its most recent defeat to a technically sound and savvy Ghanaian side.
Though, the USMNT has finished as high as third place in the World Cup. That third place finish came in 1930, the first year the World Cup was ever contested and the field was literally half of what it is today, at 16 teams. The next significant victory for the USMNT didn’t come for 20 years, when it upset England, the inventors of soccer, in a 1-0 win.
The unprecedented win in 1950 was so unheralded in the United States that the St. Louis Dispatch was the only major American newspaper of note to publish an article on the group stage match. The 1950 USMNT went on to finish third in their group and did not qualify for the knockout round.
The USMNT would not qualify for another World Cup until 1990, in which it was again ousted in the group stages. The team did make the round of 16 in 1994 when the United States was the host country, but failed to deliver in France 1998.
The breakthrough occurred in the dually hosted Japan/South Korea World Cup in 2002, when the USMNT reached the quarterfinals finishing a spectacular eighth and that placing was sweetened with a win over rival, Mexico, in the second round.
In 2006, the USMNT returned to its France 1998 form. By all accounts, the team underperformed, not even reaching the second round in a dismal showing.
Twenty years ago, no such expectation existed and USMNT fans had no grounds to think its national team could contend for a World Cup other than fanatical belief and pride in their country.
In 2002, the USMNT effectively put the world on notice as a team that could play the beautiful game and play it well. In 2009, at the Confederations Cup, the USMNT proved again the talent and work ethic within the borders of the United States was enough to beat a Spanish side that was and is ranked as FIFA’s No. 1 national team in the world.
Now after winning a group, they shared with England and consistently showing heart, discipline and resolve, the hallmarks of American patriotism, there was an expectation that the USMNT could not only beat Ghana, but return to the level of brilliance it had shown in 2002. The USMNT did lose that match, the expectation that they will do well in the future remains, not out of blind faith, but out of tangible and statistically solid evidence.
No, they did not win the World Cup, but the fact that national team players, coaches and fans expect it to happen, shows just how far this country has come in its view and understanding of the game of soccer.
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phoenixtom 1 year, 10 months ago
Couple of missed facts.
World Cup qualifying is more like a 2 year process as opposed to 1 year. The US began qualifications for the 2010 South Africa World Cup on June 15, 2008 against Barbados.
Neither France nor England has won multiple World Cup titles. France has only won it once and England's only World Cup title came in 1966. The other 5 countries do have multiple wins. Brazil has 5, Italy has 4, West Germany got 3, Argentina & Uruguay have 2 apiece.