YOU WOULDN'T WANT THEM TO DO THIS STRATEGICALLY...:

The Goal That Wasn’t (Joe Posnanski, June 18th, 2010)

I thought about her Friday morning as I watched the United States soccer team put together one of the most remarkable comebacks in the history of the World Cup. I thought about her and all those people in America who were watching world class soccer more or less for the first time.

And I was thinking just what an overmatched referee named Koman Coulibaly cost us all.

Understand: This was Nolan Ryan’s seventh no-hitter. This was Jerry West’s 60-foot shot. This was Montana to Clark in the end zone. This was Bobby Orr’s flying goal. This was the young Tiger Woods at Augusta. This was all those things multiplied several times because this was happening on the giant stage, in the world’s biggest sporting event. A team does not come back from a 2-0 halftime deficit to win in the World Cup. It doesn’t happen. It had NEVER happened. In soccer at the World Cup level — with its impossible mix of passion and fury and consequence and vuvuzelas — each goal is a minor miracle. Two goals is something like insurmountable, especially when a team has shut you out for an entire half.

Slovenia dominated a shaken U.S. team for an entire half. The American players looked tentative … frightened even. It was hard for a half to believe that America was the favorite coming in. In basketball, coaches talk a lot about those 50-50 balls — the loose balls or rebounds that could go to either team. These 50-50 balls are at the core of soccer, at the heart of winning. And Slovenia was getting to all of them.

Then came the second half … and a Landon Donovan goal for the ages. He dribbled toward the net a sharp angle and when got close he rifled a shot at about a 75-degree angle — not quite straight up, but close enough. The ball smacked into the top of the net — the first clean American goal of the World Cup. And that was the goal that changed the complexion of the match. The U.S. intensity level jumped up even higher. Of course, intensity does not make goals — world class goals still need a combination of timing and skill and luck and something wordless. But the U.S. team just kept playing at this spectacular level. It would take another 34 minutes of that before Michael Bradley, the coach’s son, would race in to the box after Jozy Altidore’s header and deflect the ball into net for what soccer fans like to call “the equalizer.” I tend to think we should try to fit “the equalizer” into our baseball lexicon as well — it’s just better than “tying run.”

Getting the tie was something close to miraculous. But, of course, you know by now that this should not have ended in a tie. Because four minutes later, Donovan’s free kick was cracked into the goal by teammate Maurice Edu, a beautiful play that should have given the United States a 3-2 lead … and, surely, a 3-2 victory. This comeback would have been the greatest achievement in American soccer since America’s famous 1950 victory over England. And, in many ways, it would have been even better because, frankly, there was a whole lot of fluke in the 1950 victory. That was a generally weak team (the U.S. would be outscored 8-3 in their final two games) playing way over its head for one day.

There was no fluke in this comeback. The United States team, facing all those sports death cliches — back against the wall, everything to lose, on the brink, all of them — played a magnificent half of soccer and had done something transcendent. Yes, this was Nolan Ryan’s seventh no hitter … you didn’t have to know soccer, appreciate soccer, understand soccer or even like soccer to be in the moment.

Only the winning goal was disallowed by Koman Coulibaly. And nobody knew why. Nobody. They showed the replay on television again and again … there was clearly no offside on the play. There was no foul — and if there was any foul it had to be on Slovenia. There was nothing to call. There was nothing but a brilliant goal. But the brilliant goal was disallowed anyway. Donovan would say after the game that the players asked Coulibaly for the simplest thing: Just tell them the call. Just tell they WHY he had disallowed the goal. Donovan would say that Coulibaly refused.

When you are watching a sport you don’t often watch, things happen that you don’t quite understand. Why didn’t that play count? Oh, the offensive lineman was holding. Why was that basket disallowed? Oh, that guy was standing in the lane for three seconds. Why was that home run taken away? Oh, the umpire said it went foul. This happens in every sport.

But what made Coulibali’s Call-of-Folly so maddening is that even soccer experts could not tell us why it happened. Even an honest bad call — even Jim Joyce’s imperfect game call, for instance — is something digestible. He thought the guy was safe. OK. But this … what did he see? What mistake was made? Can a referee simply disallow a goal for fuzzy reasons only he seems to know?

The world has grown used to the foggy quirks of soccer — extra time, diving, stretchers for players who immediately run back out on the pitch, calls made without explanation. But most of us are not used to these things. And, for so many, this was a lousy introduction to the fog.

...but the fact of the matter is that for the US under Bob Bradley this was pretty much a routine game.

Thanks largely to the refs, the US was on the verge of elimination in the Confederations Cup lalmost exactly one year ago, but then... U.S. headed to semis (AP, 6/21/09)

Outplayed by Italy and Brazil, the U.S. soccer team once again was on the verge of first-round elimination from a big international tournament.

To reach the semifinals of the Confederations Cup, the Americans needed to beat Egypt by at least three goals while the world champion Italians lost to Brazil by at least three.

Astronomical odds, right?

Well, advance they did.

Charlie Davies scored in the 21st minute and Michael Bradley -- the son of U.S. coach Bob Bradley -- connected in the 63rd to get a Father's Day goal for the second straight year. Clint Dempsey then broke a nine-month international scoreless streak in the 71st, giving the United States an improbable 3-0 victory Sunday night.

And in a game played simultaneously, Brazil scored three times in the first half to defeat Italy 3-0.

...and, in the final game of World Cup qualifying, when we basically only playing to defend our record on hoime spoil, U.S. Takes Top Spot In CONCACAF (US Soccer, Oct. 14, 2009)

With a berth to the 2010 FIFA World Cup already secured, the U.S. Men’s National Team took care of one last piece of business during its 10th and final game of CONCACAF Qualifying, mounting a furious comeback that finished with just 10 players on the field while earning a 2-2 draw with Costa Rica on a rainy night at RFK Stadium.

The draw, in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 26,243 fans, coupled with Mexico’s 2-2 tie against Trinidad & Tobago, gave the USA first place in the group. The USA finished the Hexagonal with a total of 20 points, ahead of Mexico (19) and Honduras (16), who finished above Costa Rica (16) on goal differential. Costa Rica was just 30 seconds away from finishing in third place in the group and earning an automatic berth into the World Cup when Jonathan Bornstein scored off a header from a corner kick by Robbie Rogers in the 95th minute to tie the match.

The USA had fallen behind 2-0 midway through the first half, but launched a fierce comeback that included a 72nd minute goal from Michael Bradley, who finished a rebound of a Landon Donovan shot, and then came Bornstein’s dramatic header with the final seconds ticking away.

The USA was reduced to 10 men for the last seven minutes of the game, plus five minutes of stoppage time, after defender Oguchi Onyewu went down in the Costa Rican penalty box with a torn patellar tendon in his left knee, suffered while he was backpedaling after a corner kick. He had to be stretchered off and, as the USA already had used all three of its allowed substitutes, the Americans played a man down the rest of the way.

...and, of course, in the first game of this Cup we just shrugged off an early gift to England and would have won going away but for a lack of ambition on the part of the coach.

Over time we'll develop a proper regality and win easy games easily, but in the meantime the Cardiac Kid act makes for decent drama.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 18, 2010 3:39 PM