It’s amazing how quickly one’s perspective can change over the course of 90 minutes.
Minute 1: you’re absolutely buzzing, still hungover but with beer in hand nonetheless, and dreaming of the lifelong memories the could be produced by the match unfolding before your very eyes.
USA Fans at a watch party (Via VisitKC.com)
The vibes are high, and the expectations are too as a result. The draw against England and the victory against Iran gave you all the hope you needed to truly believe that we could down the Dutch, and go toe-to-toe with the G.O.A.T and Argentina next in an all-time World Cup run.
Minute 90: you stand in the same bar, beer still in hand, and while maybe a little less hungover, you’re wondering how you allowed yourself to be so naive in the first place.
USA 1 - 3 Netherlands (Via Sports.NDTV)
Hindsight being 20/20, it’s a very understandable and acceptable result in a lot of ways. The Netherlands have a more talented squad, have a deeper squad, and have a manager whose tactical proficiency simply outclassed that of our own on the day. But going into the match, none of those very obvious facts entered my mind even once. Maybe that’s just one of the symptoms of World Cup fever - disillusion.
But while this individual result stings, and this particular performance was simply not good enough, I think it’s important to view the USA’s showing at the macro level rather than the micro. Years from now, when we look back at today, the question won’t be “how did the USA do against The Netherlands in the round of 16”, the question will be, “how did the USA perform at the 2022 World Cup”.
Denzel Dumfries celebrates his goal vs USA (Via The Week)
And frankly, the latter a very difficult question to answer. I suppose it all depends on how we define “success” for the USMNT at World Cups. I wrote a piece on this very topic a few months back, which you can find here, but my theory was that reaching the “Round of 16” was the easiest way to define success, but simultaneously is not the best barometer for a few reasons.
Not making it out of the group stage clearly would have been a failure. Point blank. But what is equally as clear, is that making it to the quarter-finals (round of 8), would’ve unanimously been considered a success. So, exiting in the round of 16 is neither success nor failure. It’s meeting expectation, but not exceeding it. It’s like passing a course with a “solid B”.
So, is that all this World Cup experience was for Team USA? Just a “solid B”? Just, “Eh”? Frustratingly so, I’d probably say yes. But while that might sounds a bit harsh coming from a team that failed to even qualify for the previous rendition of this tournament, I think the fact that we can call a knockout stage exit, “Just okay” is a truly encouraging sign of this program's growth.
Some of the USMNT's best young talent (Via Aitor Alcalde)
High expectations are the result of something positive. The fact that we think we could’ve offered more stems from the fact that we’re increasingly aware of how good this team is right now, but even more so of how good we think this team can be in the future.
And, the future is as bright as its ever been for the USMNT.
We have young talent, a growing domestic league, and a burgeoning academy system, so the assumption would be that our squad should be even stronger come 2026 than it was today. And perhaps most exciting of all? We’ll be playing nothing but home games next time around, and that can provide a hell of an advantage.
So, if the bar was set at “round of 16” in 2022, I can only imagine where that bar could be set in four year’s time. But until then, I’ll keep dreaming, and keep being delusional about how good we actually are. I’d encourage you all to do the same.
Коментарі