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The World Cup Blame GameHow the USA blew it before they ever got to Germany.

By Robert Weintraub
Posted Friday, June 23, 2006, at 2:25 PM ET

The United States soccer team's 2-1 defeat to Ghana on Thursday won't put a long-term hurt on soccer in America—postponing the USA's inevitable flameout by a few days would hardly lead to the sport's Great Leap Forward. The delay of our long-awaited soccer boom has nothing to do with what happened in Germany. It has everything to do with the shortsighted thinking of this country's soccer leadership.

Let's begin by stipulating that the national team's success will be the most critical factor in growing the game domestically. Let's also assume that the sport's growth will depend on developing star players. That leads us to Landon Donovan, U.S. Soccer's poster boy, and first among the flops at the World Cup. After his breakout performance four years ago, Donovan quickly established himself as the best player in our domestic league, Major League Soccer. In 2005, he moved to Germany's top-notch Bundesliga. His time there perfectly presaged the red, white, and blue's journey through the 2006 World Cup: Donovan looked thoroughly outmatched. Even worse than his performance was his demeanor. He clearly wanted no part of the brutal competition of top-flight European football.

Instead of sticking it out and forging an improved game in Deutschland, Landon scurried home to Manhattan Beach and rejoined MLS. This was a move roughly equivalent to leaving the NBA to play in the Philippines, and it earned Landon such nicknames as "PrimaDonovan."

Far be it from me to tell a guy how to live his life. More to the point, though, is that someone from U.S. Soccer (the sport's American governing body) should have told Landon how to live his life. You can blame Bruce Arena for questionable tactics and poor preparation of his charges. But I blame him most for not insisting that Donovan and other MLSers with the talent to play overseas—Clint Dempsey, Eddie Johnson, Taylor Twellman—do so, forthwith. That is the role of a national team manager, much more than selecting a 4-4-2 formation on game day. The coach must get the team he wants, how he wants them.

What truly ails American players is their lack of experience against the best. The Ghanaian team, for example, is largely composed of players for whom the intensity of a World Cup is not altogether different from their weekly club battles in Europe. Until the day when the majority of American players get paid in Euros—not just a handful—we'll never sniff the World Cup title.

Major League Soccer helps spread the game by building soccer-specific stadia in major metropolitan areas. But what will really cause the game to explode here is huge World Cup success. And there's no doubt that MLS hinders the building of a decent national team. The only world-class international tournament the United States participates in is the World Cup, which happens every four years. The rest of the world competes in a massive international soccer tournament every two years—whether it's Copa America, the European Championships, the African Nations Cup, or the Asian Cup. The United States has been asked to participate in Copa America multiple times, only to be refused because of MLS commitments. The benefits of reducing the time between to-the-death competitions would be incalculable, but U.S. Soccer stubbornly refuses, saying it prefers to build the domestic league.

The mere presence of MLS on national television hurts more than it helps—the inferiority of the product does nothing to lure the next generation of athletes to the sport. The passionless, dull affairs stand in stark contrast to the awesome atmospheres in the English Premiership, La Liga, Serie A, etc. Create a steady outlet for that kind of show, especially with Americans involved, and elite athletes will start choosing soccer.

MLS isn't the only problem. I also have a beef with the businesses that are peddling us soccer—in particular, Nike. The shoe company longs to catch rival Adidas in the soccer market, and has bet heavily on U.S. Soccer making a leap in popularity. The Swoosh is screwing up big-time, though, by plastering Donovan's face on billboards. It should think of the long-term and lean on him play in Europe. Perhaps Nike should also threaten U.S. Soccer with a withdrawal of seed money unless it sends a squad to Copa America in 2008. And it should approach ESPN and offer a mammoth ad buy if the network secures rights to the English Premier League.

Various news outlets have reported rumors that Nike reps leaned on Brazil to start Ronaldo in the 1998 World Cup final (with disastrous results, it should be noted). It says here the company can pull any strings they choose within U.S. Soccer. For the sake of "the future of the sport," or merely saving some face in South Africa four years hence, they need to just do it.

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Robert Weintraub, a freelance TV producer/writer based in Atlanta, writes about sports media for Slate.
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Remarks from the Fray:

It's all well and good to say that Donovan, Johnson and Twellman should be shipped overseas, but from their point of view, why would they want to? They still get compensated very well in the US and arguably enjoy a much better standard of living - less competitive, less pressure to perform. In the MLS they can still have fun playing soccer, if they go to Europe it really becomes a job. [...]

I suspect the issue is more that soccer is promoted as a wholesome middle class sport in the US and invariably attracts the affluent "nice guys", and we know where they finish. It's the lack of attitude rather than lack of athletic talent that creates mediocre soccer in the US. The large-ego mean nasty guys who succeed in Europe probably end up playing baseball, lacrosse or football in the US.

--vanyakazakskii

(To reply, click here.)

The reason more American players don't play in Europe's top leagues is because they are not good enough. Period (remember how the National Team got killed by Real Madrid last year?). Brian McBride is good enough to be the MVP of a middling English Premiere League team. Beasley is good enough for PSV, a competitive team in a league without much depth. Donovan was good enough to not get much playing time in Germany. That's about as good as it gets. If it were as easy as having Chelsea and Real Madrid handing out cash to willing Americans, there would be long lines. There aren't because we just don't have the players.

Why don't we have the players? Lots of reasons, of course, but none of them have to do with the MLS. Ghana certainly doesn't have a strong domestic league, yet they produced Essien. Australia's domestic league is nothing special, yet they advanced with a few players from top European teams. The Ukraine offers Shevkchenko, one of the best strikers in the world. You can go on a long time here.

In reality, the only problem with the MLS is its positioning. The MLS wants to be an American league, filled with American players, rather than being a GOOD league with some American players. The MLS might not be able to spend European money on foreign-born stars, but they can pay a heck of a lot more to solid (if not superstar) foreign players still playing in their home domestic leagues than those leagues can. The MLS should position itself to compete for players with smaller first division European teams, where the MLS can offer more playing time and more money. The result would be that for most non-superstar players, the MLS, rather than other domestic leagues, becomes the springboard to the better European clubs.

How this benefits Americans should be obvious. If Americans will get better by playing with and against better competition, and we're not good enough to go to them, then we have to bring the best we can to us.

--Catorce

(To reply, click here.)

If soccer is to become popular here, people need to understand the game. That means taking a cue from our european friends and leaving all the graphics and scrolling tickers off the screen and having the commentators allow the game to breathe instead talking over it constantly. ESPN would never provide that coverage. They would show one game per week and produce it for same target audience as they do now, soccer moms. No thank you.

--kop182

(To reply, click here.)

Soccer can never become a major American sports interest for the simple reason that there's not enough advertising time to sell on an uninterrupted broadcast of a soccer game. Without the big bucks from TV advertising it will always be seen here as a novelty, sort-of professional, a game that you play as a kid until you move up to the real American games. The only possible exception is the excitement imported with the people who come here from all over the world could possibly seed enough grass roots money to get some big money interested.

--vanload

(To reply, click here.)

(6/24)

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