What to make of the American reluctance to embrace Arsenal’s next Fabregas?
Jon Levy
When you’ve traveled a great distance, bested many rivals, and completed a seemingly inexhaustible list of Herculean labors, it’s an awe inspiring exercise to look back at where you started.
That’s not what this story’s about.
Rather, this is a story about a moderate amount of progress, and a monumental change in perspective. Some of our readers and fellow writers won’t like the following narrative, but to quote the mid-90’s industrial pop-rock hit by Gravity Kills, “Hey, hey, hey I’m guilty… (guilty), and you’re guilty too.”
First off, let’s quickly dispense with the story of Arsenal academy member Gedion Zelalem’s declaration of, umm, Americanism? Sure, why not.
So this Germerican kid grows up in Germany’s youth system, represents the country at pretty much every youth level, then decides he wants to represent the US at senior national team level. Probably because John McClane, Jay-Z, and CM Punk are American, so c’mon, who can blame him?
As of late December 2014 what we have in young Master Zelawhatever is a new player to the US Soccer pool who was a midfield mainstay for Germany at age-level, and who’s currently honing his craft near the top of Arsenal’s youth system.
Now follow closely, because it’s in reacting to the prompt above that the US Soccer fan base goes from 2008 Oklahoma City Thunder “Yay! We got a team!” to 2015 OKC, which is all, “Don’t even talk to me until we’re back in the damn Finals.”
The Outlaws in Manaus represented some of the best of US Soccer optimism. The Zelalem reaction, some of the worst.
Let’s pretend for a minute that a teenager of Zelepukin’s prodigious pedigree declared his unwavering Americanization just after the debacle that was the 2006 World Cup. Well, the much smaller, but still fervent, US Soccer community would have deemed him the prize piece of the latest “recruiting class.” We’d all know how to spell and pronounce both of the young man’s names. Hell, the 2006 version of me would be right pissed at the treatment I’ve given Jadeveon up to now! “Dude, Michael Bradley and Altidore are solid players, but Zelalem and Freddy Adu are the guys that are gonna catapult us into the world elite.” That’d be me. Stupid, stupid, stupid 2006 Jon Levy.
Of course the Jeff Carlisle’s of the world would rightfully try to temper those expectations, but even the most sobering column would never be a complete buzzkill. Things were going to get better, it was just a matter of figuring out how high we were going to fly. Heady days I tell you, and I was no naive teenager back then. We’re talking popular sentiment amongst grown-ups here.
So let’s flash forward with our given prompt to the months that followed the 2010 World Cup. Gideon Zoroaster or whatever decides he’s ‘Murican. At this point the Germerican concept isn’t completely foreign to us; we’ve been closely following the saga of veteran Bundesliga midfielder Jermaine Jones as he tries to change his nationality and play for the USMNT. But Jermaine is like, old, and defensive and stuff. We’re full up on good defensive midfielders; he’s not so exciting. Besides, it’s not like he’s a big game player that’s gonna shine brightest on the biggest stage.
Zapatista, meanwhile, is the kind of exciting prospect that’ll make your mind race and your mouth water. Especially after the uninspired but pragmatic “flag drill” attack the Yanks ran in World Cup 2010.
Meet Garlos Zela, no Gedion Zelalem. The nuanced playmaker the US needs?
Looking back at the high hopes that The Yanks Are Coming had for the likes of Diskerud, Agudelo, and Bunbury after one friendly near the end of that year, I can tell you the Arsenal kid would already have a site appointed nickname. Maybe Geezy Zee or Garlos Zela or some crap like that.
And you know what? That’s alright. He’s a really talented young player. We all know he’s young (Garlos turns 18 a week from Dr. Martin Luther King Day). Do we really need 47 tweets, 86 retweets and 305 favorite tweets reminding us of all the things that can go wrong?
He isn’t in the 18 at Arsenal yet, you say. I say he isn’t 18 and he played in the Champions League.
He isn’t even the top prospect at Arsenal, which he once was, at least debatably, you say. Well, he’s undoubtedly one of their top prospects, I say. He plays in the double pivot for the Arsenal youth team that plays in the UEFA 19’s, alongside highly regarded Ainsley Maitland-Niles (soccer’s version of the Law Firm, name wise). He’s the Aaron Ramsey in that particular role. For the U-21 side, he plays the number ten role. Wenger and Arsenal are cross-training him for both spots because they have the confidence he can develop at either spot. That speaks volumes.
So does his passing, and we’re not just talking about the popular clips of him dicing up defenses on Arsenal’s Asia tour. He’s a slick short passer who can make the long ball that gets the crowd going. His vision, according to Wenger, isn’t just advanced, it’s special- the kind you don’t see in many footballers period, let along young ones.
Quotes on Geds, like this one “don’t help”, as Top Drawer Soccer wordsmith Will Parchman put it, but then again, people don’t say this kind of stuff every day:
This quote from Zelalem’s youth coach is not helping. pic.twitter.com/vjESxhj8ch
— Will Parchman (@WillParchman) December 30, 2014
Is he thin? Sure. Does his positioning need work and will he need to learn not just to track back but to put in a tackle? Yes. Are those scathing indictments that warrant relentless cynicism? No.
But our “next big thing” prospects always let us down, you say. No. They don’t. Michael Bradley has been tremendous, regardless of whether you were disappointed he returned to Toronto. Jozy Altidore jokes and what happened pieces (we linked the best one) are all the rage, which is fine. But we weren’t making that many of them in 2013 when he was essentially unstoppable for club and country. Landon Donovan? He turned out okay. DaMarcus Beasley? We weren’t calling him a bust when he was covering back post flawlessly in Natal, were we?
Finally, some will suggest the reaction to young Geds has been measured and pragmatic? Maybe from a few. But the general tenor has been reject any excitement and take caution to the point of excess.
Are US fans really just tired of Agudelo’s breaking up with them on post it notes?
In hindsight, excitement first, with a reasoned level of caution, is probably the type of view we should take with exciting prospects. It’s not blind hope or belief. After all, Freddy Adu was already down to his last six or seven strikes by that point. And Eddie Johnson had already broken up with us via Post-it like Berger did to Carrie… or was it us that broke up with him?). Either way, we knew what it was to be burned, but we were still willing to give the next guy a fair shot. Skeptical optimism gets a bum rap sometimes, but shouldn’t it be the rule rather than the exception when it comes to escapist endeavors like sport? After all, it’s not like the USMNT has a history of lies and ineptitude on par with the Washington Redskins, New York Mets or New York Knicks.
Still, timehop with me all the way to present day, and let’s look at how Garmin Zodiac’s entry into the US talent pool is being received.
If you’re not on Twitter the best way I can characterize the general sentiment is “malignant pessimism.” If you do have a Twitter account and you follow adults who write and tweet about US Soccer, you’re probably seeing four “slow your damn roll” tweets about the player for every one that talks about skill or promise. Sign of the times with respect to social media and negative energy? Absolutely.
But it’s not all that.
And the negativity isn’t all wrong either. I mean you’re reading this article on a site where just six months ago we practically breezed past Tim Howard’s record-setting performance against Belgium so we could chastise Jurgen Klinsmann for abandoning his progressive ethos in that match. And we stand by all of that! But we don’t have to play the role of Chicken Little all the time. After all, the sky isn’t actually falling, right?
It should be a loud and clear wake up call for the US Soccer community when English sports writers are insinuating that American footy fans have become THEM. And they’re not talking about our relatively new penchants for skinny jeans and genre bending electronic pop acts. When the English look at us as a group of fans and see a bunch of sad sack skeptics it’s time to get real about ALLOWING ourselves to be excited. And when those same sportswriters across the pond are more excited and less cynical about a talented player like Zelalem than we are—well, that’s nearly a starting point for a polemic. And the modern era of the sport in this country- Paul Caligiuri vs. Trinidad and Tobago to now—is too young for a polemic. Some internationals are going to dismiss and deride US Soccer fans no matter what. Let’s not give them splendid reason to.
Guys. I’m sorry that Stuart Holden didn’t turn out to be Frank Lampard, or a footballer who could stay healthy. I’m sorry we don’t have a nailed-on position for Mix Diskerud yet. I’m sorry Ale-Alejandro Bedoya isn’t Juan Cuadrado. And I’m definitely sorry that Joe Gyau hasn’t lived up to the standard you set for him on FIFA 12 with Tottenham Hotspur.
That said, count us TYAC writers as fans of Gedion Zelalem. That guy’s gonna be awesome.