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BY DAVID WALDSTEIN
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
For 45 minutes the United States, a nation of superb baseball, football and basketball players, had the best soccer team in the world.
For a half the Americans played with flair, confidence and determination, and a lot of skill, too. They passed the ball cleverly, they forced the action aggressively and almost made it look easy against the world's most renowned soccer country.
For three quarters of an hour, the U.S. actually looked like a real footballing nation.
Then reality set in as the U.S. players became tired and overwhelmed by the superior skill and experience of the Brazilians, conceding three goals (and really four) and losing 3-2 in the final of the Confederations Cup.
It was a hard loss to swallow for the plucky Americans, but it was still a loss tinged with important long-term victories. The Yanks showed that when they stick to their plan and work together, they could play with anyone in the world.Spain was the hottest team in the world when the U.S. cut it down 2-0 in the semifinals. Brazil was on its heels and in shock for 45 minutes, and it took the best they had to offer to desperately salvage what would have been a devastating loss.
So, they lost. But in that loss they gained the kind of experience that no American team has ever really known before.
And here's the real victory in Sunday's game, and the victory over Spain, too. Somewhere in America — probably somewhere in New Jersey, actually — there were three or four 8-year-old boys who saw some American men put on a tremendous display of guts and skill, and in a dozen years or so, those boys will help lead the United States to a World Cup final.
It's inevitable. The steady progress in soccer of this huge nation continues, and the Confederations Cup is another significant step forward. It joins the 1990 team that qualified for American's first World Cup in 40 years; the '94 team that advanced to the second round before losing to Brazil; the 2002 team that beat Portugal and Mexico and made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
During that 20-year progression, the U.S. saw the simultaneous bloom of soccer at the grass-roots level throughout the country. A safer, cheaper and more athletic alternative to American football, the game proliferated like iPods.
Terms like Soccer Mom were used by political pundits to describe middle-class suburban families in socio-economic terms, but few ever really acknowledged the real outcome of it — good soccer players, and good soccer teams.
Fifteen years ago the average American kid didn't know Liverpool FC from liver and onions, Today, they walk around with their Chelsea shirts talking about Man United winning another EPL championship. They can watch real games on TV. They can talk about them with their friends. They can go to a stadium and watch.
American soccer is on its way up and there is no stopping it. The argument about whether it will overtake baseball or basketball is irrelevant. It doesn't have to (although there is no way it's less popular than hockey). It just has to be popular enough to produce good players, players good enough to knock off the hottest team in the world and then put a fright into the world's mightiest soccer nation.
Sunday's loss was not a step backwards. It was a body check from which the team, its fans and the ever-expanding pool of talented players will grow stronger, until one day, it will reach a World Cup final. And one day after that, win it all.
