Well, the Great American Soccer Journey in Brasil has reached its conclusion, but before the casual soccer fans crawl back into their man caves for the next four years; we should reflect back upon the amazing time we have shared over the course of the past three weeks.
It began abruptly three weeks ago yesterday when national team captain Clint Dempsey scored the quickest World Cup goal in American history against Ghana. In that match, we watched sphincters clinched for over eighty minutes as the boys in the rocket popsicle to tops fended off the advances of the menacing Ghanaian attack before finally relenting and allowing the equalizer. It was at this point that a new hero was born when John Brooks, the son of an American serviceman and a German mother (like so many of our other players), scored the winner in the 87th minute with a thunderous snap down header off a Graham Zusi cross. Pure joy.
When next we met up with the lads of the men's national soccer team, a new chant had swept the sporting landscape across America; a chant that old fans of the beautiful game had known about for the past couple of MLS seasons:
I
I believe
I believe that
I believe that we
I believe that we will win
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN!
And along with "I Believe", we were introduced to new hashtags: #OneNationOneTeam (abbreviated #1N1T), #IBelieve, #IBTWWW and #USMNT. Anyway, back to the matches:
When next we met up with USMNT, we found ourselves sporting white golf shirt tops while entrenched deep within the Amazon rainforest. Our foes this time around: Portugal or more accurately, Cristiano Ronaldo and 10 other Portuguese men. If you had asked me going into the match if I would be satisfied by a draw with the supposedly fourth-ranked national team side in FIFA, my answer would have been a resounding YES! But, after going down a goal within five minutes of kickoff and then grabbing the lead with less ten minutes plus stoppage time remaining only to squander that lead after 4:30 of 5 minutes of stoppage time, my answer became an irrational NO!
We could have clinched passage to the next stage at that moment, but instead, we found ourselves battling it out with the other sides remaining in our group not named Germany for qualification into the knockout stage. Of course, this would not be easy given the fact that our next opponent was Germany. On a rain drenched day, the Americans battled valiantly until the Germans remembered that they were the Germans and eventually, put us away 1-0. Fortunately, Cristiano Ronaldo became an unlikely American hero when he propelled Portugal to a victory over Ghana.
It was at this point that soccer or World Cup fever was hitting its fever pitch and our next opponents in the first knockout stage match: Belgium. Of course, if you have seen the news, then you know what happened. But, I will say this: The USMNT has NOTHING to hang their heads about after their performance. It was a truly valiant, truly American performance and it was fantastic. Thank you USMNT for making us proud.
Edited on 1 July 2014 @ 21:25
Edited on 1 July 2014 @ 21:25
