Nagbe autocorrects to maybe, which is somehow encouraging. Maybe this is insignificant. Maybe I shouldn’t be looking for meaning in an encouraging autocorrect. But soccer at any level is a game of maybe.
The 2016 USMNT fan is not distracting himself with lucky charm octopi or witch doctors, but he might want to be. He might want to see that there are comforts in such absurdity, when the limits of control are obvious.
This game of 22-plus people and one ball can sprout cruel and fantastic connections between the heart and the mind of a fan/coach/player/nation. The fan/coach/player/nation might want to laugh at themselves and their luck, occasionally, to help put 90 minutes into perspective. The game is long. Maybe long enough for quality and training to rise to the top, but maybe not.
I went to the Gold Cup semifinals in Atlanta in 2015. I watched the USMNT struggle to get any traction in the game and be unlucky in front of goal when it had chances. These things happen in soccer, and it’s why we play and watch the game; anything is possible. The referees called a freak handball on Brad Guzan, and Jamaica was lucky on the resulting free kick. We lost.
The second game had Mexico down players and losing to Panama until late penalty kick calls arrived and handed El Tri chances to win, which they took, and won.
In the past year, as usual, every move by Jürgen Klinsmann has been scrutinized by Twitter and the press. I have to say I am on board with his overarching view of the game. We can question his excessive tinkering, and we can question his aversion to using the same center back pair ever. But in interviews he repeats that we will enter the game prepared and confident in everything we can control, but realistic in that we are limited in that control. In interviews I like his repeated use of phrases like: “that is a good sign or direction,” “that was kind of a bummer,” and “we were unfortunate to to not take advantage of our chances.”
This year, I watched the opening match of Copa America 2016 with a room full of soccer coaches. We had come together for the instructional phase of a USYSA coaching license. We watched the first half of the USMNT vs. Colombia match as the game analysis segment of our weekend. Our job was to watch and then figure out how to improve what we saw. In a sense, we were supposed to find fault and design training to tweak averages and balance to either create or destroy success. It feels like science, but it is a soft puzzle of many moving, mostly human, pieces. The game is many things simultaneously—like light, both particle and wave.
My group of coaches was assigned to watch the strikers and develop a training plan to improve something. What? We hoped the USMNT would win. We were of the mindset that a victory could be engineered. We were encouraged by Clint Dempsey’s overhead attempt. We wanted more from Gyasi Zardes and Bobby Wood. At halftime, the USMNT was down 2–0 and all of its shots had been from set-piece restarts from the central channel, 25-plus yards out. We decided to design a session to improve the scoring chances from wide positions. But I also thought, we were just unlucky.
I watched the USMNT play Costa Rica on a laptop, texting friends rather than trying to devise a plan to improve our defensive alignment. This game saw a U.S. team that was more aggressive, more willing to take risks. And through the ticking of the clock and fortune (no goals conceded early), the USA was able to stay alive in the match, believe, tilt forward, and eventually the goals started adding up.
A friend texted, “Is Costa Rica really this bad?” My gut reaction was “stfu! don’t jinx this, let’s just get out of this game with three points!”
The game can be cruel. The Netherlands will miss out on the Euros this year. How? Who cares? Keep playing. Don’t look the soccer gods in the eye. Sometimes it is just kind of a bummer.
Read more Slate coverage of Euro 2016 and Copa America.
