Neil W. Blackmon
The draw for the 2016 Copa América Centenario was last night in New York City and when it ended, the host United States was drawn into a very difficult group with Colombia, Costa Rica and Paraguay. The tournament, which begins June 3rd, represents a chance for the US Men’s National Team, coming off the most difficult year for the program in recent memory, to cast 2015 asunder and gain confidence and momentum heading into the meat of the World Cup qualifying schedule that awaits on the back end of 2016.
When the draw was over, many fans took to social media to voice their concern and trepidation about the Yanks being placed in a group that includes two darlings of the 2014 World Cup in quarterfinalists Colombia and Costa Rica, as well as a Paraguay team widely viewed as the most capable side in its selection pot. The words “Group of Death” were tossed around with some degree of regularity, as well as the usual Twitter dot com doom and gloom and bark and snark about how the Americans could easily end the tournament on zero points. And all that’s fun, even if it comes with a tired crying Jordan meme or a link to something actually sad, like an Evpatoria Report tune that contains the final transmissions from the space shuttle Columbia and ground control in Houston. But as often happens in the rush to win the retweets, the center cannot hold and things fall apart. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. At the least, perspective takes a flight to Saint Somewhere and what’s left isn’t just adrift from reality, it is an actual retelling of where the center and expectation should be.
And so in this vein, we noted the following Sunday evening:
https://twitter.com/nwblackmon/status/701587467921661957
Yes, Copa América Centenario’s Group A is the toughest of the four groups (see inset).
Yes, it includes three teams involved in the knockout stages at the 2014 World Cup, including two quarterfinalists.
Yes, the Americans haven’t played quality soccer since they vanquished Holland and Germany in back-to-back friendlies last June. And those were friendlies.
But here are some other realities.
The US are playing at home.
Colombia will surely have a lively supporters section in the opening game in Santa Clara, but the Americans will have significant homefield advantages over Costa Rica in Chicago and Paraguay in Philadelphia. Costa Rica is too small a nation to overwhelm the US with road support, even in a place such as Chicago where the US can sometimes be overwhelmed by away team support. And Philadelphia, site of a raucous US crowd for the Send-Off Series in 2010, has always been a stronghold for both the men and women’s sides.
The US have navigated more difficult groups before. The Yanks weathered a Group of Death in Brazil 2014 and escaped an even more difficult group in 2002, one that featured a host nation and a pre-tournament favorite. As good as Colombia are, they still aren’t fancied to win the tournament.
Further, while Costa Rica were World Cup quarterfinalists in 2014, they have struggled since the departure of manager Jorge Luis Pinto shortly after that tournament, and the US have had tremendous success at home against the Ticos historically, with 15 consecutive games unbeaten (12-0-3).
And finally, while Paraguay did eliminate Brazil from the 2015 Copa América on penalties, they were bounced by Argentina 6-1 in the semifinals. And until they beat Venezuela on the road in CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying last autumn, they had not won a true road game in three years, and had only won 7 of 31 matches in that span. They remained around the top 50 in the world via the FIFA rankings in that span thanks largely to a brutal schedule that weighted losses a bit more generously and a defense that produced a fair share of low-scoring draws.
Given that perspective, the group seems less daunting. Fair to classify it, as Jurgen Klinsmann has, as “difficult, but doable”? Yes, I think so. But one has to be a bit of a credulous individual to accept his next claim that the US “had a similar situation in Brazil.” They did not. Germany, Ghana and Portugal on foreign soil is a much more difficult draw. And the US came out of that group without playing particularly good soccer, save a nice 75 minutes or so in the rainforest of Manaus.
A group of death it is not, then.
Jeffrey Loria’s home run art sculpture, a monstrosity straight off the set of Dexter.
Perhaps a “Group of Jeff Loria” is a more suitable name. Jeff Loria, for the blessed unaware, is the art dealer who owns the Miami Marlins, and whose bright idea it was to put the multi-colored sculpture that appears to be taken from the set of Showtime’s Dexter out in left field of his brand new ballpark. Which he coerced and pleaded and utilized all manner of smarmy tactics to convince the taxpayers of Miami to pay for, only to immediately sell-off any semblance of a competitive baseball team within weeks of the building opening its doors. Loria is Hobbes theory of life as nasty, brutish and short in human form, and he’s annoying as a feisty gnat hellbent on disrupting a romantic summer walk on the beach, but he’s not death incarnate. Hell, once you take a deep cleansing breath or three Loria is just an annoyance you live with, much like the ballclub that he owns, which features one lovable, gargantuan mountain of a superstar outfielder, a dominant pitcher who spends most his time in the training room and little else worth writing home about beyond Cookie Rojas doing brilliant Spanish game broadcasts on the AM radio.
This won’t be easy for the US. Then again, what in international football for the Americans is or ever has been? Landon Donovan’s gilded run through the 2013 Gold Cup? Perhaps. But little else comes to mind because little else exists.
If the guarded and grim reaction of the typical American fan has more to do with the nature of the social media platform it is found on, so be it. Yet it also seems worth it to ask whether the diminished expectations are the product of a crisis in confidence? This is especially true in the context of Jurgen Klinsmann’s remarks that it is reasonable for the US to set “getting out of the group” as a goal for the Copa this summer.
Is this a reasonable goal or expectation, to merely escape a group in a tournament hosted on home soil? If so, isn’t that a troubling comment on US Soccer’s growth? Sure, MLS has taken root, and despite skeptics, the US has, on attendance and supporter metrics at least, a healthy second division in NASL as well. But if the national team’s goal in an international tournament is the same as it was 22 years ago, how much progress has occurred, really? Has the US really regressed enough in the last year for fans and a manager to genuinely believe the best the side can do in a tournament it hosts is escape a group? Especially a group that includes a team with one road win in three-plus years and another side that hasn’t defeated the US on American soil this century. And if all of this is reasonable, is that an indictment of Sunil Gulati’s willed refusal to make a change at manager? Have we forgotten about Project 2010 the way true Rocky fans have forgotten about Rocky V?
Fans are going to react passionately one way or another because fan is a word that comes from fanatic and that’s what they do. Soccer fans are the best at this, and it is a large reason why the sport is so globally special. This is why they suggest things like “playing your kids because it is hopeless anyway” even though it is ahistorical to do so ((Bob Bradley had to win the Gold Cup in 2007 and only chose a young team for the Copa América that year because he had to give vets a break). Further, as evidenced by Bruce Arena in 2002, Bob Bradley in 2009 and Jurgen Klinsmann in 2014 (paging Julian Green? Anyone? Bueller?), a manager can play some kids and still try to win games. But Jurgen Klinsmann does the program of which he is also technical director a disservice when he limits expectations to escaping the group in a tournament the US is hosting. The US goal in 2016 in a home tournament should be to win the group and then win games after that. Nothing less.
The US have the talent to impose their will on two sides in this group. Let’s dispel with the fiction that the Americans lack good players. Yes, there’s not, at present, a transcendental star like Landon Donovan in the side. But there’s a nice collection of pieces, and in Michael Bradley and Fabian Johnson, there are two players who on their day are elite. Why diminish expectations? What does that tell these players?
https://twitter.com/shinguardian/status/701763233586225153
Perhaps Jurgen Klinsmann didn’t mean to limit or manage expectations. Perhaps he simply wants to focus on what is ahead of the US, which, after a tricky spring slate of World Cup qualifiers, is a difficult group stage. That’s fine. But the choice of the word “goal” seems to repudiate that notion. And in a tournament that is a great opportunity for the US to demonstrate that 2015 was a one-off, and that the side is talented enough to compete once again with the world’s best, that’s a bizarre way to frame redemption.
Neil W. Blackmon co-founded The Yanks Are Coming. You can follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon. If you want him to write for you or just want to tell him how terrible you think this column is, you can do that too, at nwblackmon@gmail.com.