World Cup ‘94: 2 Days and Counting : A Day of the Beach : Tab Ramos Knows What Pressure Is--and Playing on U.S. Team Isn’t It
Tab Ramos would like to laugh at the question, but restrains himself. The topic: How to handle the pressure on the U.S. World Cup team.
It’s not exactly polite for him to talk about it, because he could hurt the feelings of some of his teammates, but Ramos knows about pressure, and this simply isn’t up there. He has recently rejoined the U.S. team after ending the season with his professional club, Real Betis, newly promoted into the Spanish first division.
A promotion/demotion situation--in which second-division clubs have a chance to move up to the prestigious first division and first-division clubs are dropped into the lower division--creates the kind of pressure in which a player dares not go out of the house for fear of fan reaction. The fear remains the same, whether the team wins or loses.
If your team is being relegated to a lower division, fans can be violent. If your team is being promoted to a higher division, fans can be excessively attentive and rude.
Having survived his fourth season in the passion pit that is Spanish professional soccer,
Ramos is delighted to be settled into a resort hotel in Dana Point, practicing twice a day in the sunshine and cooled by ocean breezes. The most arduous part of his morning as he prepares for the monthlong World Cup, starting Friday, is the obligatory chat with reporters.
“I feel like I have no pressure at all,” Ramos said the other day from the team’s training center in Mission Viejo. “I’ve been used to a situation where you can’t really go home or when you lose you can’t go out to dinner with your wife. I think that’s pressure. Not what someone wrote about you. They have a job to write whether you were good or bad. You can choose to read it or not.
“But when you can’t go out to dinner with your wife because your team lost a game, that’s pressure. People are rude and they say things to you. Just like they are nice when we are doing well. People are passionate, and because of that, you get the ups and downs. It’s a slap on the back or a slap in the face.”
The only slaps among the U.S. World Cup team are high-fives. Ramos’ return to the fold is like an embrace, so happy are the U.S. coaches to have the benefit of his experience. Ramos brings a steadiness to the team, and having started all three games in the 1990 World Cup, he is able to sort through the notion of pressure and view the situation from the perspective of a professional.
Ramos, 28, along with former New Jersey neighbor John Harkes, has been forging a career in Europe for four years, having used the last World Cup as his launching pad. It has been difficult, rewarding and--to sports fans in the United States--obscure.
In the two-year buildup to the World Cup by the U.S. team there have been many jealousy-tinged remarks made about “the European players,” who appear to breeze into town for a match or two and hog what little glory there is, taking all the credit and little of the blame.
From Ramos’ perspective, such a scenario ignores the everyday drudgery, the work . Ramos has worked to be taken seriously in Spain, where American players are rare and lightly regarded. He has faced a daily battle to make the starting lineup because of the restrictions on foreign players.
Because the United States automatically qualified for the World Cup as the host nation and had no qualification matches scheduled, Ramos was never released by his club to play for the U.S. team in international exhibitions--except last July in the U.S. Cup, after the Spanish league season had ended. U.S. General Manager Bill Nuttall said Ramos and Harkes have been by far the most difficult players to get released from their clubs to play for the national team.
Respect came to Ramos soon after he was sold two years ago by Figueras to the more prominent Real Betis. The transfer fee was $450,000 and another midfielder.
Said Ramos, who thus was ultimately judged by his monetary value: “You have to prove yourself, it seems, every day. I think it helped to get transferred from one team to another. When the people in Spain saw that I went to a big club and what the club paid for me, that was a big deal. Still, it’s like when you’re an American, they wait for you to make a mistake so they can say, ‘Well, he’s an American.’ Whereas, if you come from Argentina, they can go through all your mistakes until you do something good, then they say, ‘See that? He’s from Argentina.’
“The rules say teams can have only three foreigners playing at a time. My team has six. Every single (foreign) player was an international for their country, so it was a difficult situation just to play every weekend. That’s the type of pressure you have to go through. It’s very difficult. I’m sure my team will sign more foreigners after the World Cup. I accept the challenge. I’ll just keep fighting for my spot, trying to play.”
Because the United States has depended so much on the foreign-based players to augment the team for big matches, there was the inevitable harping by some of the Mission Viejo-based players. The situation festered until the coaching staff made some changes. Shortly after the first of the year, there was less talk by the coaches about the players in Europe, and the players in camp understood that all jobs were open.
Although Ramos was seldom with the team, he has been aware of the friction that has existed.
“I did feel it a little bit,” Ramos said. “For some reason, when the whole team is together, we’re pretty united. When we’re far away from each other for so long, stories start to come up.
“Back in January, I read an article in one of the magazines, (in which former U.S. team member) Desmond Armstrong was saying something about the guys overseas. That was in retaliation for something that an overseas player said about the guys here. I called Desmond and told him, ‘Look, we have to get together.’ He agreed with me on everything. I think (the players) were never as far apart as people wanted to write or as people thought we were.”
The problem might have something to do with a general lack of understanding of the lives of the players abroad. The notion that they are fabulously wealthy, live in mansions and drive expensive cars is inaccurate. Also missed is the fact that for many American players abroad, their choice of leaving the United States and finding work in Europe was because of the lack of a professional league here.
The strain on a family can also be great. Ramos’ wife, Amy, who left behind a career when the couple went to Spain, is not able to work because of Spanish law and 23% unemployment. They miss their families in New Jersey and would like nothing more than to come back and make a living in the United States. At the moment, that is not possible.
“I do feel a bit isolated,” Ramos said. “I like the guys on this team. I miss them sometimes. In Europe, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, and everybody is fighting for his thing and no one cares about anyone else’s life--especially now that I am at a big club where there’s a lot of money. I feel a little bit isolated. I understand that it’s my job, and I have to make a living. I’m sure there are people with a lot worse situations than I have. I’m not complaining, by any means.”
Some players think they would love to have his problems, but Ramos keeps it all in perspective. He will concentrate this month and next on his second World Cup. After that, it’s back to the day job.
World Cup Player at a Glance
Name: Tab Ramos.
Born: Sept. 21, 1966, Montevideo, Uruguay.
Height: 5-7.
Weight: 140 pounds.
Position: Midfielder.
Club: Real Betis (Spain).
National team debut: Jan. 10, 1988, vs. Guatemala.
Caps (international matches): 50.
Goals: Three.
Little-known fact: Played two years in the former American Soccer League. Was an ASL all-star.
Honors: High school player of the year in 1983. All-American at North Carolina State, Atlantic Coast Conference top scorer in his senior year. A member of the 1988 Olympic team. Started all three U.S. games in the 1990 World Cup.
