SOCCER / U.S. CUP ’93 : Game Against England Can Measure Progress

If the U.S. national soccer team ever wanted a gauge for its progress, today’s game against England would seem to be it.

For months, U.S. soccer officials have explained the national team’s dismal 1-5-9 record in international matches by noting that the country’s best players have been playing abroad.

But now, all eight players have been called back from Europe and are available at Foxboro Stadium for the second match in U.S. Cup ‘93, a tournament that includes the United States, England, Brazil and Germany. The United States has already played one game, losing to Brazil, 2-0, last Sunday at New Haven, Conn.

The test is greater against England. Brazil scored its first goal early, and its players were content to amuse themselves the rest of the way. Against England, the United States will face a team coming off a 2-0 defeat by Norway in World Cup qualifying last week. That setback made England’s qualifying chances problematic and brought on a firestorm of criticism at home.

This is England’s first game since, and Coach Graham Taylor assured reporters Tuesday that his team intends to redeem itself.

“The expectancy of most coaches going into a game is to win,” he said. “Back home, we will certainly be expected to beat the United States. Following our result against Norway, the expectancy increases. We must win. It is an expectancy that is placed on us by pretty much all of the people.”

One English reporter, seeking perhaps to drive home the point, said that if England loses to the United States in soccer, “the world will end.”

The idea that losing to the United States is a supreme humiliation seems not to dampen U.S. Coach Bora Milutinovic’s much-practiced optimism. He spoke again of the return of the European-based players and their role on the team.

Milutinovic named his lineup, and the entire front line of the team is made up of players competing in Europe. Thomas Dooley, who plays in Germany, will start as a defensive midfielder; Tab Ramos and John Harkes, who play in Spain and England, respectively, will be on the flanks; Roy Wegerle, who played in England last season, and Eric Wynalda, who played in Germany, will be the strikers.

The talk of the United States’ training sessions has been centered on how long it will take the team to develop the proper chemistry. The U.S. team has grown accustomed to its European-based players bailing the team out. In this tournament last year, the European-based players scored four of the five U.S. goals.

Wegerle said England’s long-ball style--in which a long pass is sent up a flank and chased--will be better suited to the United States’ still-evolving style than Brazil’s possession game.

“Brazil was so confident on the ball,” he said. “They made us chase them the entire game. The English style suits us more. We are going to play better as a team, and I know I am going to do better myself.”

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Milutinovic reconfirmed his commitment to coach the U.S. World Cup team through next summer’s tournament.

Milutinovic was responding to a report in a German publication that had him negotiating with two South American soccer federations to coach their World Cup teams. Milutinovic has coached the World Cup teams of Mexico and Costa Rica and has maintained cordial relations with soccer officials in many Latin countries.

The report also quoted a friend of Milutinovic as saying that the U.S. coach had grown frustrated with the national team’s modest progress and had thought of quitting “many times.”

Milutinovic appeared eager to set the record straight.

“Never, never, never,” he said, when asked if he had contacted South American teams. “This is my dream, to make something good in 1994. I don’t be so stupid to talk to somebody else. This is my dream. I stay.”