THE WORLD CUP : Short Memory Makes for a Confident U.S. Team
As the U.S. soccer team prepares to play its final exhibition game on home soil today before departing later this week for Europe, the players seem more sure of themselves, more--should we say it?--cocky, than at any time since they beat Trinidad and Tobago last November to get into the World Cup.
Is that sort of attitude setting them up for a big fall next month in Italy? Or is it necessary in order for them to have a chance in the first round against Czechoslovakia, Italy and Austria, not a slouch in the bunch?
No one can even begin to answer those questions until June 10, when the United States opens World Cup play in Florence.
Meantime, the Americans will try to continue building momentum in exhibitions today at the Yale Bowl against Partizan Belgrade, a better-than-average Yugoslav professional team; on May 30 in Eschen, Liechtenstein, against Liechtenstein, and on June 2 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, against Switzerland.
“We want to use these next three games for further polishing,” Coach Bob Gansler said Thursday at a luncheon in New York.
When the players gathered for the first time this year in January in La Jolla, Gansler said his goal was to advance to the second round of the World Cup, which probably will require at least a victory and a tie in three first-round games. But it was apparent from the comments of other U.S. Soccer Federation officials Thursday, and even some of the players, that Gansler’s goal has become their expectation.
They may be dreaming, but the United States has played respectably enough in its last three exhibitions, earning two victories and a tie, that a berth in the second round no longer seems totally beyond the realm of possibility. Opening-game opponent Czechoslovakia, in case you haven’t been following, has been far short of awesome in its exhibitions.
“Like in any sport, you play better with confidence,” forward Peter Vermes of Delran, N.J., said. “We’re starting to think really optimistically. There’s a realistic chance to get to the second round.”
Also at Thursday’s luncheon were the critics, or perhaps realists, including some journalists and longtime followers of international soccer, who were quick to point out that the most recent results were against highly disrespected Malta, rebuilding Poland and an Amsterdam professional team, Ajax, that was without several starters.
Many of those same critics continue to second-guess Gansler, whose primary coaching experience before he became involved with the USSF was at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. They tend to disregard that he coached the under-20 team in 1989 to a fourth-place finish in the World Youth Championships, the best result for any U.S. team in an international tournament.
He has been criticized for experimenting too much with his players at different positions, for not establishing a lineup sooner so that the starters could become accustomed to each other and for not playing a more difficult schedule.
“A lot of people used European and South American barometers to measure us, and you can’t do that in the United States,” he said.
For instance, he said, the best players in Europe and South America compete in professional leagues that require them to play one or two games a week. National team coaches, for the most part, evaluate the players they will use in the World Cup by watching them play in those leagues.
Since there is no professional outdoor soccer league in the United States that plays in the winter, Gansler has not had that luxury. He used training camps and exhibition games to learn of his players’ skills and fit them into the team.
Some of his experiments, such as using gangly forward Bruce Murray of Germantown, Md., in the midfield, did not work. But it was only through a similar experiment that Gansler learned that forward Eric Wynalda of Westlake Village could play in the midfield and, with Murray back at forward, give the United States a more concerted offense.
As for the charge that he has used too many players in games, Gansler said that, besides hoping to develop inexperienced talents such as UCLA freshman midfielder Chris Henderson, he felt he had to have more than 11 players match-fit for the World Cup.
“If some of these players weren’t going to play in games with us, then they weren’t going to play at all because they had no league,” Gansler said. “Am I just supposed to get 11 or 12 guys ready?”
It remains to be seen whether the U.S. schedule has been too soft. They have played only three other World Cup teams, losing once to Costa Rica, once to the Soviet Union and twice to Colombia. But since only the second loss to Colombia, 1-0 in Miami, was recent, the players seem to have forgotten the others.
USSF President Werner Fricker said Thursday that Gansler has brought the team along “just right.” Fricker might feel compelled to give the coach a vote of confidence, however, since the federation has given Gansler a contract through the 1994 World Cup.
Fricker also seemed unfazed by criticism from veteran players such as Hugo Perez and Ricky Davis that Gansler did not give them opportunities to earn places on the 22-man roster, which has an average age of 23.
“Whenever in my life that I’ve terminated employees, I’ve never taken time to listen to their reasons about why I was wrong,” he said.
