BONUS BLOGGING! Guest Post About American Soccer

Admit it!  In the summer of 2010, you got interested in American Soccer.  You cheered when Landon Donovan scored that last second goal against Algeria to propel the USMNT into the World Cup elimination rounds.  You were, at least, mildly disappointed when we lost to Ghana a week later.  It was water cooler talk. You started to care!

So, were you looking forward to seeing how the American's would fare during the 2012 Olympics?  Well, you're out of luck because the American U-23 team shit the bed in qualifying.  My buddy Mike was kind enough to write an in-depth (and quite passionate), guest post detailing the loss, it's effect on American soccer, and the future of our team.  On a personal note, as a casual fan, I've grown more interested in US soccer and figured the 2012 Olympics would be a nice showcase for its growing future. Something to help build further interest for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.  So much for that!  I have often heard that the "fun" of being a soccer fan is the constant state of disappointment and misery.  Join in the "fun" below!

Here's Mike's take:

I had to watch everything via the streaming feed on my 24-inch computer monitor. At times, the feed stuck, went out completely for a few seconds, or simply sputtered. But the most important moment of all was crystal clear. As Sean Johnson bobbled the hapless 40-yard shot deep into stoppage time, I watched in disbelief as the ball caromed off his hands
and with a bastard's backspin, trickled over his feet -- bouncing once,
twice, and finally over the line for the third time, into the back of his
net.

El Salvador goal. Game tied 3-3. We needed a win to advance. A tie would
leave us crashing out at the group stage without even the opportunity at a
winner-take-all semifinal for a shot at this year's Olympic games in
London.

When the referee blew his whistle seconds later, Freddy Adu was already
crying. Terrence Boyd, who had been sucker punched once and bloodied, hung
his head low and sobbed as fresh gauze still plugged his nose and mouth.
Everywhere, the U.S. Under-23 Men's National team players were
collapsing to the field in disbelief. Sean Johnson himself was apoplectic with grief. Viewers
at home watching him gripped in the embrace of his fellow teammate, Bill
Hamid, could clearly read his lips as he said over and over "I had it. I
had it."

But they never did. Not once.

A 6-0 drubbing of 10-man Cuba led to a fiasco of a loss to an inspired
Canadian team, 2-0. Going into the El Salvador game needing a win was
the least of our problems, though. Fans are saying it now -- but they
wouldn't admit to it earlier. Heck, the coaches were almost admitting the fact by calling
reporters out on the notion: the team believed their own hype.

So now we're not going to the Olympics. At least not for soccer.
People were talking of medaling this year, but we won't even have a
team on a charter to Heathrow in August. That's the bottom line. But
the silver lining is a bit more mysterious, and fans, both casual and
die hard -- are asking it. What the hell does it all mean?

Is the sky falling? No.

Is this a huge step back? No.

In short, we just suck right now. We're just not there. It's tough for me
to admit that, but it's true. And yes, I know -- "suck" is a catch-all and
a vacuous term to use as an indictment of a sports program. But really,
it's apt. It's a combination of things, you see -- from coaching, to player
development, to an endemic sports culture issue. But I'm gonna try hard to
break it down for you, baby birds, because I still think there is hope on
the horizon.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. "Hope?" Seriously? We just watched
the most devastating loss in U.S. Soccer history and somehow there's a
silver lining of hope?  Yes. And because for every rainy day there is a
rainbow. There might not be a pot of gold (medals) at the end of it in this
case, but there is still a great example to follow. I hereby give you our
friends south of the border. Mexico.

You see, 2007 was a horrible year for Mexican football. They had
budding young stars on a stacked Gold Cup roster that June -- and
steamrolled into the final looking like a locomotive firing on all
cylinders. And then a funny thing happened. They ran into the United
States. Even die-hard fans of the U.S. saw an up-and-coming team full
of unproven new stars with a few holdovers and some aging vets. They
were coached by Bob Bradley -- who that year could have won an award
for Most Boring Human in Press Conferences.  They seemed to stumble
into the final, riding a wave of luck past Canada in the semifinals to
their matchup with El Tri. And then an even funnier thing happened. Mexico
lost to us.

The United States came back from a goal down and beat el tricolores
2-1. Regional bragging rights notwithstanding, the defeat meant Mexico
would lose out on a place in the 2009 Confederations Cup -- a
quadrennial tune-up to the World Cup in the host country one year
ahead of the big dance. It would be a clear chance to test some fringe
players and some tactics -- possibly even to get used to the climate
and altitude in South Africa. Mexican players would only go if on
vacation.

Then, to add insult to injury, the year of our Lord 2008 rolled around
-- and with it came Olympic qualifying. The team's young stars were
still hungry and determined after summer 2007 -- and were without a
doubt the most technically talented group of footballers in the
tournament. However, the team had the gross misfortune of being
coached by a man named Hugo Sanchez -- who was a terrific player in
his day, maybe Mexico's best, but one who firmly believed he was the
closest thing to a walking God since Cuauhtémoc. He was a hype machine
personified, and thought his team could simply step on the field and
Jedi-mind-trick everyone into conceding victory. Problem was, no one
did. Mexico crashed out at the group stage. Their only victory was
over -- you guessed it, Cuba.

This meant Beijing 2008 would be open to the Mexican team only as
tourists. To this day, the Mexican federation can neither confirm nor
deny that any players made their way to China or cried upon watching a
country like Nigeria bobble their way all the way to the silver medal.

Anyway, Sanchez was fired, and on came a man named Javier Aguirre...
who only wished that he somehow managed to coach the Under-20 national
team come 2009. But he didn't. He was in charge of the full men's
national team that had to watch their younger generation lay a big fat
goose egg in qualification for the Under-20 World Cup in Egypt that year
-- which completed the pattern of two missed youth international
championships in two years to compliment their full team's failure.
Immediately, questions came pell mell:

Are we done?
Has the world passed us by?
Why do we suck so bad?
Are our young stars really entitled brats that have no heart?
Should we take up badminton or something?

Even the Mexican press starting teasing their players in press
conferences about the team's futility. In turn, at one point the
players themselves started blaming reporters. Forward Nery Castillo
took part in a heated press junket in late 2009 that Telemundo had
to cut away from because he and a local El Diario reporter got into an
expletive-laden exchange about what it meant to be "Mexican." It was
deemed ill suited for the consumption of impressionable youth.

But therein lied the problem. The youth. Mexico, it seemed, wasn't
churning out any young talent. Or at least any young talent that could
get the job done. On the surface, this was a comfortable argument to
make -- and one bandied about in press circles and on message boards
ad nauseum. But really, it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

And to understand Mexico’s current state in 2012, we have to flash
back once more. We have to look back ten years -- specifically, to the
afternoon of June 17, 2002. It’s a date that most Mexicans dread. In a
hundred-year sports history, it’s still nationally recognized as the
country’s footballing nadir. As my friend Mizael refers to it,
it’s La Gran Putada. Because as much as Mexico might have tried and
failed to win a World Cup over the preceding hundred or so years,
while punching above their weight, or playing down a level given the
opponent, they had still never let anything befall them as crippling
as the loss they would witness that day. A loss to the USA in a World
Cup knockout game.

June 17, 2002 was a new beginning for both countries. For the USA, it
made the game relevant, for once, in a country that
had consistently thumbed its nose at the sport. For Mexico, it was the
grandest of wakeup calls, a comeuppance that in most people’s wildest
dreams couldn’t have come closer to being anyone’s worst nightmare.
And after that day, Mexico vowed to sure as shit never let anything
like that happen again. Like, ever.

For the first time, the federation realigned how its club teams worked
to produce young talent and stratified its youth academies. The sport’s
governing body demanded that money be funneled into these programs and
go towards scouting, training, and coaching. Whereas before, the
national team held regional youth camps that traveled around the
country to scout its budding stars, within two years, the task was
solely up to Mexican club teams to farm their youngsters and develop
from within. The implements and change came about as a direct result
of the United States game – and we see the results bearing fruit
today. It’s ten years later, and Mexico is a juggernaut.

The 2010 World Cup was supposed to be a coming-out party for the USA.
After going all the way to the final of the Confederations Cup in
2009, some expected the team to make a legitimate run at a place in
the semifinals. In the end, we barely made it out of our easiest group
ever thanks to a last-gasp goal against a woeful Algeria. Even then,
we used all that momentum only to lose to Ghana in the first knockout
round.

How did Mexico fare after missing out on their youth tournaments and
the Confederations Cup in 2009? The same. They met with Argentina in
the first knockout phase in the World Cup and played a great game only
to lose by a pair of heartbreaking goals.

Now, it’s March of 2012 and we’ve traded places with Mexico. We lost
the 2011 Gold Cup final, fell flat on our faces in 2009 with our
Under-20 team, which ably laid the foundation for a giant
shitting-of-the-bed with our Olympic Under-23 team earlier this week.
We’re running 0-3 and now the only thing that stands between us and a
big fat piece of footballing oblivion is a place in the World Cup 2014
in Brazil. I think we’ll qualify, and you know why? Because as much as
our teams have sucked – our individual players have never been better.

And that's what's so strikingly odd about this debacle. And yes, it's
a debacle on a semi-grand scale. The U.S. exists in a region
equivalent to footballing Siberia and international competitions (ones
that mean something) are few and far between. Missing out on the
Olympics is a big deal because now a group, nay -- a whole generation
of young players will not be able to test their mettle at a point in
their careers that weeds out the haves from the have-nots. We simply
won't know the ceiling of these players at the highest level. It will
always be a mystery.

The truth of the matter is that no one can measure long term progress
with short term results. Since 2002, we've been on an upwards
trajectory that only leveled out last year. In order to move forward,
you have to take a step back. Like Mexico, we've taken three of them.
And if history is any indication, we should come back from this in due
course like Lazarus wearing a toga emblazoned with stars and stripes.

Major League Soccer has kept growing since its inception sixteen years
ago. The American player pool continues to expand with each and every
passing year. For the first time now in history, the United States
goes into youth tournaments in our region as favorites. The last few
results have been as much the byproduct of growing pains as a result
of an identity crisis. Whereas the 2002 World Cup team went into the
tournament with the biggest of chips on their shoulders, now, our
teams shoulder the burden of expectation.

Buying into the hype is a rite of passage for a sports fan – the
instant your team crosses the Rubicon from fledgling to force is a
watershed moment all sports fans should be entitled to. The problem
is, the athletes always have to prove their worth and can never get
complacent. That crucible exists strictly for observers and pundits –
the people who have no shot at ever stepping on the field where the
cream has to rise to the top. Complacency begets failure, and the hype
machine will churn you up and spit you out just as quickly as it took
for the ride to the top.

Don’t believe me?

Ask Mexico.