It’s game day USA!
Just remember, win or lose, this is further than anyone expected us to get.
That includes our head coach. At least that’s how the American, “We’re Number 1″ mindset interpreted Jurgen Klinsmann’s comments from the beginning of June. Here’s the quote from the New York Times:
“We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet.”
Light the torches, sharpen the pitchforks—our coach has realistic expectations based on the experience and level of talent on our national team!
The fact that realistic expectations were considered controversial comments says a lot about our nation’s vanity.
I have to believe that the ones who got truly worked up about this are simply ignorant of how international soccer works and the amount of loyalty and dedication to the sport that exists in much of the world, so I’ll explain:
There are a lot of other countries out there, and a lot of them are better at soccer than the U.S. is. That’s just the way it is. Those countries with the better teams, they also have fans who pay attention to the sport beyond the World Cup. Yes, soccer is played at a professional level more often than every four years.
But what do I know, we already made it past the Group of Death, sure we’re playing an undefeated in this tournament Belgian team, but I suspect that this is a case where our coach would absolutely fine with being proven wrong.
USA!!!
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NYT: How Jurgen Klinsmann Plans to Make U.S. Soccer Better (and Less American)
…bi-daily smile…
