USA-CZE II: the game

You’ve seen the result so I won’t say anything about that. I’ll just pose one metaphysical question: it’s a given that tragedy plus time equals comedy, but how much time will it take for yesterday’s tragedy to seem anything other than the embarrassing unmitigated disaster it was? I have a very hard time imagining myself laughing at that memory.

I’ll make only one substantive note about the game: it’s not true, as many have said, that the US is constitutionally incapable of playing big, burly central European teams well. On the contrary, one of the best games we played was the 1-0 loss to Germany in the quarters of the last WC. I think the more salient point is that when we go down an early goal, especially to world class competition, we tend to fall apart.

Last WC, our big wins were punctuated by early goals, and the tie against South Korea also featured us scoring first (and in the first half). But when we gave up a goal early against Poland, we fell to pieces, losing almost as badly as we did yesterday. I don’t know how much of this is psychological and how much is strategic, but I suspect that as usual there’s some of each at play. This team tends to be insecure, so an early goal by a strong team shakes our confidence and makes us play scared and tentative. But also, when a particularly strong team goes up early on us and then bunkers in defensively, we don’t seem to have the patience and technical skill necessary to hold the ball, pass it crisply in small spaces, and break down their D.

So this sets up the following scenario: we need a miracle against Italy or we’re as good as done. Vamos a ver.

{Pic: Czech fans celebrate Jan Koller's early goal as dejected US players trudge back to the center circle.}