This was a few months ago, in a small conference room just down the hallway from the main hockey rink at GM Place in Vancouver. The next day, the United States and Canada would play in a gold-medal game for the ages, an overtime thriller that sent chills down the collective spine of one country and disappointment through the bloodstream of another.
Brian Burke, the general manager of the U.S. team, had spent a considerable portion of the Olympic fortnight talking about how much of an accomplishment it would be if his upstart Americans could sneak into the Canadians’ backyard and steal the first gold medal since the Miracle Boys had pulled off their glories 30 years before. After two weeks of hearing the same speech, someone finally called Burke on it. And he smiled.
“Look,” he said, “we’re the United States of America. When as the last time we were underdogs at anything? Lexington and Concord?”
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It was a good line, the kind you’d expect from a Harvard man, and it underscored a primary reason why we should all take a few periodic siestas from the relentless spring and summer drumbeats of Yankees-Mets-LeBron over the next few weeks and pay attention to what’ll be happening in South Africa, where the World Cup undoubtedly will be the focus of the rest of the world’s imagination.
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I know how hard a sell soccer can be in this county. I understand that the millions upon millions of 8- and 9- and 10-year olds who play soccer grow up and usually choose to re-allocate their devotions and their dollar to baseball and basketball and football. I know there have been a dozen stars and stops for people hoping soccer will finally gain, pardon the pun, a foothold in the Colonies, from Pele and the Cosmos to Brandi Chastain and the sports bra to the sprouting of soccer-only stadia all around the country — including Red Bull Arena in our own back yard.
And usually, as quickly as the interest sparks, it fades.
But this time around . . well, I think we all could use the distraction, frankly. Yankees fans obsess over every two-game losing streak. Mets fans chew their fingers to the quick every few hours, fretting about that team’s brittle path. And if we have to endure much more of the LeBronathon before we reach some kind of resolution, the city as a whole is going to be ready for some quality horizontal time on a shrink’s couch. All of these things are important, don’t misunderstand.
But for as long as the United States is alive n the World Cup, won’t those two-hour respites be a worthwhile diversion for you? Not only as a different way to pass the day, and not only because the tournament’s South African setting provides a wonderful realization about just how much our world has changed for the better, but because of this added bonus: Nobody — and that is to say, nobody — expects the United States to make any noise in this tournament because, let’s face it, we never make any noise in this tournament.
We are the 14th-ranked team in the world, according to FIFA, just ahead of Serbia, just behind Greece; if our soccer team were playing in the NCAA tournament, we’d be the MAAC champion. We’ve placed exactly once ‹ and that was 80 years ago, when we finished third in the 1930 Cup n Uruguay. Our all-time record in international competition is 218-212-117, meaning if we were a pitcher we’d be, roughly, Charlie Hough (216-216).
We are Americans; we are rarely underdogs. Further, we are New Yorkers; we are never underdogs (even when we are, let’s face it). The first American match is Saturday, 2:30 p.m. local time, against mighty England — which is to World Cup what the Red Sox used to be to the American League, perennial contenders who haven’t won it all in 44 years. You might argue that a loss in 2010 at Rustenburg to the U.S. would in its own way hurt just as much as
the loss at Yorktown in 1781. Which means it is absolutely worth rooting for. And certainly worth watching.
The Yankees will be there at match’s en. The Mets, too. And man doesn’t live by LeBron alone, after all, as much as we may try to disprove that theory day after day.