2014 U.S. World cup review

    What happened to the U.S. team? How did Brazil look for the development of U.S. soccer? Who's to blame? So many people want to "blame something." Many people chalked it up to "technique" which the Americans still lack. All the effort is there. There's passion. There's will power. But these things fall short when technique is absent. Mind you, the technique is being compared to players from Belgium, who defeated the U.S., Germany, Argentina and others in the tournament. The technical players exist in the U.S. but the system at large tends to avoid picking them for the higher ranking teams, including the MLS and national team. Americans want bigger and stronger, so consequentially the players that look like Xavi and Iniesta - who played a large role in dominating the game for over seven years - get overlooked. It would be nice to clone Clint Dempsey and Chad Deering but that's not legal. When I speak with novices of the game they tend to give more insight than the experts. They have an innate understanding of what they're seeing, and not seeing. One guy I spoke to recently, an artist, pointed out that despite his own personal skill level playing the game he could see that the Americans lack a "creative passer." He was short on names, but he'd be referring to players of yore like Ronaldinho, Zidane, Platini. Pirlo is a name you can throw in there too, but I tend to think of Pirlo as a great shoe craftsmen, that takes a lot of breaks. His through ball capability hits an accuracy of about 5-7 out of 10, while Platini and others hit 8-9 out of 10. The through pass is an important feature of the game, a pass that usually has to "die" in pace some where so that the attacking player can run onto it in an advanced attacking position. That sounds like manager talk. It's hard to do (using manager talk and explaining a through ball pass). Yet, somehow, many "top class" players have such a difficult time making the pass. I have no idea why. It's inexcusable. Are the Italians blaming Pirlo for their early exit? Probably not. He'll never retire, and they never want him to leave. He looks like a 55-year-old Italian lumberjack - in a good way. Anybody like that, you wanna hold on to. Just keep him around. How do we, the Americans, blame our team for yet another loss and early exit at the World Cup? I suggest we look into the Soccer Moms. They're to blame. Why not? Let's blame somebody. Somehow, in 1974, during a friendly match in which the United States Men's team lost to Italy, in Rome, by the score of 10-0, the Italian fans swarmed the locker room, throwing things at the doors for over two and half hours. They wanted to blame somebody for something. I have no idea how they turn a 10-0 victory into a blame game but it was something they felt passionate about. Back to our Soccer Moms: They're an out of control group of yelling, badgering, and forceful ladies that tend to transition their experiences from baseball, football and basketball to the world of soccer, which they fall short of understanding. Screaming at players, referees, coaches, other parents and by-passers doesn't help the growth of soccer. Screaming things like "shoot it!" "kick it!" and "win!" don't help much either. It's usually not wise to yell "shoot it!" or "score it!" when the ball is at the half line. These uninformed members of the soccer community are holding back the future participants of the World Cup from succeeding. Are all Soccer Moms to blame for "soccer failures?" Well, of course not, and the first person to point that out would be: a Soccer Mom. "You know," Pam might say, "Not all of us are negative."
    I would say, "I wasn't suggesting 'all' of you literally were" -
    "You can't say 'all' of us are like that when there are 'some' out there that aren't."
    "Right," I'd add, "I didn't mean like every single one is negative." For some reason I'd start to use "like" as a crutch in forming verbal sentences. "Like, it's not like 'all' of you are crazy-negative, out of control, sreaming-yelling lunatics that get their influence from Tammy or Identity Thief," I'd say, fearful for my life. "You guys are totally cool. I have no idea what I was saying."
    All in all, not a good tournament for the United States. Brazil did not pan out. The team was outplayed in practically every game, notwithstanding much of the Portugal match, and the coach predicted his own troops wouldn't win the championship. Is it too much to ask for the trophy? I don't think so. I think it's time the mindset goes from "let's try not to run into each other" to "we're gonna try to win the damn trophy." And if we don't, we can blame the Soccer Dads. What a sorry bunch they are.