A Gold Cup to Remember – And Have Nightmares About

Blake Here:

So how about that Gold Cup? There have only been a few sporting events that left as bad a taste in my mouth as that one did in the end. The 69 Super Bowl when the Jets beat my beloved (and heavily favored) Baltimore Colts 16-7. The 69 World Series when the Mets beat my beloved (and heavily favored) Baltimore Orioles 4-1. The famous Kings-Lakers series when David Stern called the refs after the third quarter of the sixth game and told them “Make sure the Kings Lose”. And now this. Losing to Mexico. On home soil. For the first time in 11 years. 5-0. 5-0! Are you kidding me – that was perhaps my lowest moment as a U.S. National team fan. Worse then going out in the first round or the World Cup in 2006 and knowing we could have done better. Worse then all those defeats in Azteca in qualifying. But in the end perhaps not entirely unexpected. We had seen signs of cracks in this team. Going down 2-1 to Haiti in group play. Giving up goal early in the 2^nd half to Panama. And seemingly after each game, additional members of the squad released. Steve Cherundolo released back to Hannover 96. Freddie Adu released back to Benfica. Charlie Davies released to his new club Sochaux. Benny Feilhaber released back to AGF Aarhus. And so in the finals we are playing a team of which a grand total of 3 maybe 4 have a chance of traveling to South Africa should the U.S. National Team qualify. Those 3 would be Ching, Pearce and Holden with Robbie Rogers having an outside chance. And if anyone says what about Kenny Cooper, despite scoring 2 goals, he demonstrated again why Bradley doesn’t call him in on a regular basis. He came in against Mexico and did what?

The worst part about the game was that every time the U.S. wasted a scoring chance against Mexico in the first half (and their were 5 or 6 chances simply wasted) the feeling of dread gnawing at my stomach got worse. And then the horrible penalty call was made. As Greg Seltzer (of No Short Corners and Soccer365 blogging fame) put it “since when is being elbowed in the mouth a penalty foul?” Which takes me back to that infamous Kings-Lakers game 6 when Mike Bibby was given a foul for hitting Kobe’s elbow with his face. In both cases I knew the gig was up if for completely different reasons. Once the foul was called and the PK made, the air went out of the U.S. National team and they looked collectively like a deer in the headlights. Defenders almost colliding trying to mark their men, Mexican players with time in the middle to take a nap and then keep dribbling. It was an astonishing collapse. And after the game they had an interview with Brian Ching and he could barely contain his anger. Now I am not a big Ching fan, but that anger was what this whole team needed after the PK. I don’t want to hear about tired legs and B team or C team. This is Mexico. We haven’t had a loss that bad on home soil since 1985 (a 5-0 drubbing by England). And to Mexico? Our biggest and most hated rival? And the worst part of it all was having to listen to the egregiously bad FSC announcers. I tried watching with the sound off, but just like being unable to look away from a bad accident, I kept turning the sound back on.

And what exactly was Bob Bradley doing with the team roster. Increasing the level of difficulty for each match by letting good players leave? Thumbing his nose at all his critics and saying “I’ll show you – I’ll get to the Gold Cup final with a sandlot team and recreate the “Bad News Bear”? I recognize that this is not a sanctioned tournament and particularly for the European players being in camp for pre-season is important. But Jay Heaps? And I am a NE Revolution fan. I love Jay – but he is not a right back for the national team. If you’re going to bring in a Revolution player to get beat for goals why not Kevin Alston? He at least has speed to cover for his mistakes (and they would be many). And he has potential for 2014. Or course as the Marvell Wynne experiment proved, that might have turned out to be a worse disaster. But really 5-0, 6-0, 7-0? At that point, what is the difference? Why not Geoff Cameron? After watching him in the MLS All Star game, he has some definite potential. Why not Edson Buddle? Why not Jeff Laurentowicz? If you’re going with the sandlot team lets go all out. Now it is nice that Jay Heaps got 4 caps with the National Team, but I don’t think he’ll be telling his grand kids the story of the 5-0 defeat at the hands of Mexico.

So what if anything good came out of this Gold Cup. Well – we did get to the finals with a sandlot team. We gave Stuart Holden and Robbie Rogers a taste of what it’s like to play in a high stakes final in front on a hostile crowd. We gave Sam Cronin some baby steps in the national team mix. We gave Heath Pearce another 6 games to work out his kinks (and hopeful land a playing gig in Europe). And maybe with any luck the game will leave such a bad taste in the collective mouths of the U.S. National Team that they will take it out on Mexico in Azteca.

And as bad as it was – at the end of the day on Sunday I was able to shrug it off and go cook dinner because I am 40 years older then the kid who was crushed when his favorite teams lost in 69 and bad as the ref was, he did not steal the game like the refs did in that infamous Kings-Lakers game 6.