John Riordan: United States no longer okay with a post-Thanksgiving stuffing
DEMPSEY THEN: Clint Dempsey celebrates his game-tying goal against England with the USA bench in 2010. Picture: Andy Mead/YCJ/Icon SMI/Icon Sport Media via Getty Images
The US have scored two goals in the two World Cup showdowns they have refused to lose against the English.
Both games endure deeply in the American soccer psyche; a miraculous win in 1950 that wasn’t immediately reported by the New York Times because it wasn’t deemed credible and a tense draw in 2012 that felt like a victory because it carried with it the ghosts of that earlier result.
And both goals share the mythical nature of the unlikely results they helped spur, the sort of frustratingly fortuitous efforts that fill the non-English world with glee while also forcing fans and media observers of the Three Lions to tear their hair out.
Seventy-two years ago in Brazil, hungover Haitian Joe Gaetjens scrambled the ball over the line at the end of an inexplicable and unreliably remembered diving header which nonetheless sparked ecstasy for the 30,000 Brazilians in attendance that June afternoon in Belo Horizonte.
Twelve years ago in South Africa, Texan Clint Dempsey spun into space, 40 yards out from goal and launched a low effort that seemed ill-advised until Rob Green entered the English goalkeeping gaff Hall of Fame by allowing the ball trickle slowly past him, under his limply positioned right hand.
Whereas the New York Times had ignored the stunning wire from Brazil during what had been the country's third World Cup, the notoriously and consistently outrageous tabloid, the New York Post reacted to news from Rustenburg’s Royal Bafokeng Stadium by declaring a 1-1 victory, “the greatest tie against the British since Bunker Hill”.
Whatever happens this evening, the subtext will still be twofold for America: the yearning to be taken seriously as a global footballing power and the fondly recalled Revolutionary War which yielded independence almost 250 years ago.
The reason the Post thirstily cited Bunker Hill was because that Boston battle which was won by the British ended up costing them so many casualties and such a decisive swing in confidence that the restless colonial army came to figure out a path to victory.
Poor Rob Green was the biggest casualty in Rustenburg, already the lead actor in that summer’s goalkeeping crisis which was the obvious Achilles Heel for a Three Lions squad ostensibly at the peak of its powers. Every player in Fabio Capello’s squad was a Premier League star or superstar while Bob Bradley’s US squad was largely uninspiring.
But the Americans came into it amped up by the chance to hobble their illustrious opponents in the opening game. Nike saw fit to design a jersey inspired by 1950 nostalgia with an unmistakable diagonal red sash etched down the front. But of course, this psychological and marketing masterpiece didn’t get to play all the way out since the top-seeded English wore their home strip and the US was forced to change to dark blue, a reversal of the situation in 1950.
While not offering it as an excuse, Green remembers the official World Cup Jabulani ball being difficult to read, especially on the bounce.
David Beckham, part of Capello’s coaching staff that summer, approached Green at half-time to offer encouraging words which ironically, had the opposite effect in that moment because if anyone knew the long-term consequences of a game-defining error, it was David Beckham.
Sixty years prior, the Brazilian locals had come to marvel at mythical England stars such as captain Billy Wright, winger Tom Finney and already iconic centre forward Stanley Mortensen.
They were denied the right to watch Stanley Matthews because he was resting in Rio ahead of the crunch game against Spain as England understandably looked past the threat of a ragtag collection of American semi-professionals.
In his recounting of a semi-mythical victory that shocked the world, author Geoffrey Douglas chronicles in The Game That Changed Their Lives how the hastily assembled squad was accumulated by scouting around less than a handful of footballing hotbeds, with St Louis and specifically the immigrant section of that city being the chief supplier.
US Soccer Federation president Walter Giesler also served as a scout and because he lived in St Louis, over a third of the squad he helped select benefited from the fact that they grew up and lived in the city of the man who would get them on the flight.
"I don't kid myself," Irish-American player Harry Keough told Douglas. "I wouldn't have made the team if I hadn't lived in town. So I owe that much to Mr Giesler. But I like to think I proved him right."
The US players enjoyed a pre-departure banquet at the Waldorf in Manhattan and, as if underlining the apathy of both squads to their upcoming clash, among their fellow guests for this meal were some of the English players who just 11 days later would be put to the sword.
"From the moment we landed there," Tom Finney told reporters later, "nothing was real, nothing was quite right. It was as if we had flown into some strange, impossible fantasy land."
Douglas cites a telling report from the Belfast Telegram which describes how: "The Americans came strolling into the dressing rooms in Belo Horizonte, surely the strangest team ever to be seen at a World Cup. Some wore Stetsons, some smoked big cigars, and some were still in the happy, early stages of hangovers."
But a few hours later, after the US somehow held on for victory, Walter Bahrin still had an ounce or two of energy left to catch a ball lofted just before the final whistle. He seized it, fell on it and held on as long as he could. Ultimately, it was ten years of holding on before he agreed to swap it for a wristwatch with the US Soccer Federation. The match ball now has pride of place in Belo Horizonte, proudly displayed in the stadium's trophy room, the treasured memento of World Cup folklore, a tremor that shuddered out to the world from their own back garden.
If they have any chance of winning today, the 90 minutes at Al Bayt Stadium will need to be treated in isolation by the US players and coaches, away from the centuries of distractions. Whatever the result, it’s all forward-thinking now. “What we’re looking to do is change the way the world views American soccer,” US coach Gregg Berhalter has been saying consistently since he was appointed in 2018.
Friday's offering is ideally primed to be the most-viewed soccer game in the history of US broadcasting. It’s the day after Thanksgiving and most of the country is off from work and happily at home with family.
“That's what we're here to do,” forward Christian Pulisic said last week. “Maybe [soccer] hasn't been the top sport, or whatever, back in the States. We want to change the way that the world sees American soccer. That's one of our goals.”
