U.S. Players Say Europeans Just Don’t Understand

U.S. players say the Europeans just don’t understand what soccer in America is all about.

The Americans have been belittled since Sunday’s 5-1 loss to Czechoslovakia and are trying to regroup for the game in Rome’s sold-out Olympic Stadium.

“I think the other teams have no idea what we’re going through, really,” midfielder Tab Ramos said. “If you think about it, if we were any other country and we lost 5-1, we couldn’t go home. We’re in a situation where we lose 5-1 and if we lose the next two games we’ll go home and at Kennedy Airport people won’t know who we are anyway.”

“This is the time to shine,” goalkeeper Tony Meola said. “We had one try, we didn’t do it. This is our second try. We’ve got three tries to shock the world. This is number two here.”