SOCCER / GRAHAME L. JONES : Surprising U.S. Team Could Become Extraordinary Today Against Mexico
This afternoon, at small and in all likelihood half-empty Jose Artigas Stadium in the Uruguayan border town of Paysandu, the United States plays Mexico in a game of more than passing significance.
If the U.S. team wins, it will reach--drum roll, please--the semifinals of the America Cup.
This would be extraordinary. Two years ago, the American team was humiliated in its first invitation to the tournament in Ecuador, losing to Uruguay and Ecuador, being tied by Venezuela and finishing last among the 12 teams.
Mexico, however, surprised everyone by advancing to the final, where it lost to Argentina by a goal.
This time, Mexico has struggled into today’s quarterfinal game after finishing third in a first-round group that also included Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela.
The United States, however, won its group, beating Chile, 2-1, losing, 1-0, to Bolivia in a game it dominated and then upsetting defending champion Argentina, 3-0, on Friday, a result that sent shock waves through South America.
Argentine Coach Daniel Passarella has been lambasted by the media in his country for fielding a supposedly weak team against the United States, believing incorrectly that his second string would be enough to earn at least a tie and win the group.
Passarella, a classy defender on Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning team who took over as national team coach after the 1994 World Cup, perhaps should have paid more heed to Diego Maradona’s comments about the U.S. team after its loss to Bolivia.
“It’s very emotional to me to see the U.S. playing soccer at a very high level,” Maradona said. “The country that we thought had only baseball, basketball and American football now has very good soccer. They played clean, classy soccer. And, let’s be honest, they didn’t deserve to lose.”
Indeed, the United States has played with such confidence and cohesion that it is difficult to see how U.S. Soccer’s decision-makers can now do anything but remove the “interim” tag from Coach Steve Sampson’s title.
And, as a brief aside, it has also become plain that the federation or then-Coach Bora Milutinovic made a monumental mistake in not selecting Kasey Keller as the starting goalkeeper for last summer’s World Cup. His play in this tournament and in U.S. Cup ’95 has shown him to be far and away the nation’s best goalkeeper.
Brad Friedel, his backup, has the opportunity to attain that same level after being signed last week by Sunderland in England’s first division for a reported $960,000. Since Keller plays in the same division, for Millwall, the two will be facing each other at least twice when the 1995-96 season begins next month.
*
As for the upset of Argentina, Sampson’s team was not in the least bit intimidated by the overwhelmingly pro-Argentine crowd of 21,000 or by the reputation of its opponent.
Defender Alexi Lalas, for example, while looking clumsy at times, showed the value of his season’s experience with Padova in the Italian League by effectively thwarting Gabriel Batistuta, Argentina’s top striker. Batistuta led Argentina to the title in each of the past two tournaments and was the leading goal-scorer in the Italian first division, with Fiorentina last season.
Even when Passarella sent on three first-string players--including striker Abel Balbo of AS Roma, the No. 2 scorer in Italy last season--in the second half in a desperate attempt to salvage the game, the Americans held their ground.
In Paysandu, the U.S. victory was greeted with delight by most of the townsfolk, who have taken the American team to heart during the tournament. The Uruguay-Argentina soccer rivalry is 94 years old and one of the most intense in the world. The people of Paysandu were more than pleased to see the Americans humble their neighbors across the river.
But the victory did more than that, it pushed Argentina into second place in the group and forced it into a potentially explosive and always intriguing quarterfinal match against world champion Brazil today in Rivera, a town on Uruguay’s Brazilian border.
Argentina will be desperate to save face after the U.S. debacle and will throw everything at the Brazilians. They, on the other hand, will remember that it was Argentina that knocked them out of the America Cup two years ago on penalty kicks in the semifinals.
Of course, Mario Zagalo, Brazil’s coach, is having a few problems of his own with temperamental striker Edmundo, nicknamed “The Animal” because of his behavior toward referees, coaches and officialdom of all stripes. Edmundo stormed off the field in Brazil’s last game, angry at being substituted.
Brazil, the only unbeaten team in the tournament, did not bring its two World Cup strikers to Uruguay and, considering Bebeto’s age and Romario’s recent behavior, it is hard to fault that decision.
Just last week Romario, who was sold by Barcelona of Spain to Flamengo of Rio de Janeiro for a reported $7 million after World Cup ‘94, saw to it that the Flamengo coach, Vanderlei Luxemburgo, was fired.
Romario, whose ego rivals that of Maradona, demanded a new coaching staff, exemption from some training camps and games, workouts limited to the goal area and the right to take private bodyguards on team journeys.
Understandably, Luxemburgo balked and the team’s ownership, albeit reluctantly, sided with Romario and fired the coach.
“I have in my hands one of the best players in the world, and one of the laziest as well,” Luxemburgo said before his downfall. Afterward, he was even more blunt.
“Good character and dignity can’t be bought at a drug store or corner bar,” he said of Romario. “Some are born with good character, others aren’t.”
*
Romario wants to play in the Olympics next summer, but whether he gets the chance could well depend on how Zagalo’s new young strikers perform today and, if they succeed, in the rest of the tournament.
One thing is certain, either the world champions or the defending champions will lose today.
In Paysandu, meanwhile, Mexico will come out spitting fire after being humiliated, 4-0, by the United States in U.S. Cup ’95 last month. If the Americans can somehow repeat that feat, who knows what the consequences will be.
If Mexico loses, Coach Miguel Mejia Baron is almost certain to be fired. His predecessor, of course, was Cesar Luis Menotti, the coach who led Argentina to its 1978 World Cup title. And starting on that Argentine team was Passarella, whose decision to risk his reserves against the U.S. team set off this entire chain of events.
Today, it all comes full circle.
