The World Cup has finally finished and France has been crowned champion. Over the past month I’ve spent an unconscionable amount of time watching soccer games, and I have to say, most of the games were mediocre. The best soccer is in the Champions League, and that’s been the case for years now.
But something about the World Cup has always excited me. Like many a soccer fan, I measure out my life by the tournament’s four-year increments. Every four years, the tournament makes me mind drift back to the first World Cup when I was a kid that truly brought me under its spell: the 1994 World Cup.
And yet, this World Cup was different. I increasingly felt like I was wasting my time watching games. “It’s just a sport, who cares?” ran through my head every time I saddled up a chair to watch a game at my favorite bar. Plus, the U.S. team failed to qualify. The team finished fifth place in its six-team qualifying group. You might not believe this, but the team still would’ve qualified if, in its final match, it fought Trinidad and Tobago to a tie. Instead, the US team lost 2-1.
What really bothers me about the team’s flop is that no one has truly stepped up to hoist the blame onto their shoulders. Every statement from the coach, the players, the federation officials, has been a, “yes, but…” statement. Former US captain Claudio Reyna seemed the only one willing to step forward with some hard truths: that the US soccer community is dripping with arrogance and failure is the result.
It’s hard to argue with that. Exhibit A is coach Bruce Arena saying that he has nothing to learn from Pep Guardiola and wishing for the “European hotshots” to play against central American teams, then they’d see how hard the US’s qualifying road is (England bested Panama 6-1 at the beginning of the tournament).
US soccer would do well to follow Iceland’s example. We’re talking about a country of 330,000 who’ve managed to pump out enough quality players to qualify for this World Cup and the last Euro. How did they do it? They invested in coaching. Every coach in Iceland, down to youth coaches training seven-year-olds, studied for a UEFA A license. That’s serious. They learned how to develop players. That’s something US soccer needs.
I could go on. But then again, it’s only a game.