Shoot and miss
MISSING THE WORLD CUP SHOWS THAT US FOOTBALL NEEDS A TOTAL REEXAMINATION
The backlash was instantaneous. The moment that the US men’s football team completed its loss to Trinidad and Tobago, the worst team in CONCACAF (The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football), and unforgivingly failed to advance out of the most forgiving region in World Cup qualifying, the howls began.
Loud and surly.
There’s no sugarcoating: This was a disaster of the first order for men’s football in the United States. The World Cup, the great quadrennial lure of new fandom, will take place in Russia next year with no American squad for the country to rally behind. This will have financial repercussions for the US Soccer Federation (USSF), but will hurt far more deeply at a psychic level, taking “something out of the soccer (football) soul of the country,” in the words of veteran football journalist Michael Lewis, speaking to Sporting News.
Garth Lagerwey, general manager of the Sounders FC, admitted he watched in disbelief the stunning
turn of events last week, when the perfect storm of imperfection took place: The US losing 2-1 to Trinidad and Tobago, which finished last among the six teams in the final stage of qualifying, while simultaneously, Honduras beat Mexico and Panama defeated Costa Rica (on a stunning late goal by Roman
Torres of the Sounders).
If any one of those results went a different way — and all were considered upsets — the US would have stayed alive. Heading into the day, the US odds of advancing had been calculated at 97 per cent. But it all went awry. “I was angry if I’m being honest,” Lagerwey said. “I don’t think it should have happened. But that’s not my purview, and I have to try to solve the things I can solve.”
Therein lies the silver lining that can come out of this failure, beyond the predictable call for heads to roll. Coach
Bruce Arena has already resigned. USSF president Sunil Gulati says he won’t step down, but he’s up for re-election in February and could face a stiff challenge.
More importantly, the stunning nature of the US ouster will inspire an unflinching examination of the entire national programme for men’s football, a reassessment that, if done honestly, can lead to positive change.
There is a precedent for this. Germany’s programme fell into disrepair in the late
1990s, culminating with a disastrous showing at the 2004 European Championship. That led to a total revamping of that country’s system across all levels of the game — and was followed a decade later by a World Cup triumph in Brazil in 2014.
“They needed those big shocks to the system in 2000 and 2004, disastrous Euros, before people realised something is fundamentally wrong here,” said Raphael Honigstein, author of Das Reboot: How German Football Reinvented Itself and Conquered the World, in an interview in The Guardian.
Lagerwey cautions that there are no cutand-dried solutions, as much as people want there to be. The issues are complex and nuanced. “US soccer (football) has had this bad outcome. How do we work together to solve it?” he said. “It’s not maybe a straightforward answer.”
Donna Shalala, a member of the USSF board of directors, tweeted out this week that it’s “More than a wake-up call. Time for a revolution.” Most people seem to be pointing toward youth development as the area most in need of reformation for US men’s football to reach its full potential, specifically the so-called “pay to play” system that often excludes low-income and urban families from participating.
Lagerwey believes that, to some extent, the financial investment by the Sounders, and the rest of Major League Soccer (MLS), in player development through the free academies that are mandated for each MLS team, needs more time to reap the benefits — five to seven years, in his estimation.
“I think from the MLS standpoint, we’d love to be part of the solution,” Lagerwey said. “I think we at the Sounders can develop more players, we can develop better players, and that in turn is going to help the quality of the league and the overall enterprise.”
It seems inevitable that this result will lead to new leadership in the USSF. In fact, Wahl proposed a new generalmanager position be created to dictate strategy in player development and nominated Lagerwey as an ideal candidate.
Lagerwey deflected that talk, saying he was fully focused on the Sounders’ bid for a repeat MLS title. For now, Lagerwey believes it’s incumbent for everyone in the football community to get past the anger and criticism and work toward solutions. Sometimes, a big shock to the system is the best impetus for progress.