John Riordan: Uruguay-Colombia episode sums up damning week for US soccer

Luis Suarez showing his discontentment after the final whistle of the Copa America clash with Uruguay on Wednesday.

I’ve never witnessed as chaotic a match aftermath as the one served up by the second Copa América semi-final in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday night.

The game itself was everything I’d hoped it would be: Bad football, bad tackles, bad decisions, and bad misses followed by a bad brawl at the centre circle and then on into the stands, overshadowing the entire affair.

By now you’ve probablyseen video and photos of Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez clambering impressively up to the seats alongside some of his Uruguayan teammates as they tried to protect a small pocket of players’ families and federation support staff after they lost 1-0 to Colombia.

I wasn’t close enough to fully understand what was happening in the moment; it unfolded just behind and just past the Uruguayan dugout while our seats overlooked the corner flag closest to the Colombian dugout.

But then a dozen or so women and children started to spill out onto the immaculate turf which is normally trampled around upon by Carolina Panthers NFL players.

Nobody in a yellow shirt was interested in leaving the stadium long after the final whistle, so determined were they to bask in the victory this warm summer night had delivered them.

The distraught Uruguayans wanted to be anywhere else.

I spotted Nunez making his way slowly back towards the centre of the pitch with a man and a woman who was carrying a child. He seemed to break down and hold her close to him.

Luis Diaz saw this scene and split away from his jubilant Colombian teammates, crossing the halfway line to commiserate with his shattered fellow Liverpool forward.

I had laughed at the contest for what seemed like 100 minutes, thoroughly enjoying the anarchy of these two teams desperately bidding for the next challenge of dethroning Argentina on Sunday. But it wasn’t funny any more.

Nunez’s male connection saw Diaz approach and the pair embraced. Diaz then gently interrupted the other embrace and I looked away as the rest of the Colombian players ramped their joy back up, bouncing around, flailing arms riling up their fans, seemingly in direct response to the melee in the seats.

Certainly in response to the handbags that broke out at full time. And without a doubt in response to the overall manner by which they eked out a win in spite of playing terribly with a player less.

It was clear that Uruguay boss Marcelo Bielsa — whose quirk of managing the game from his seated perch atop a water cooler entertained me ceaselessly — had set his players up to frustrate the free-flowing Colombians. A Copa tale as old as the tournament itself.

The implosion gene was at its most Colombian a few minutes after James Rodríguez’s dependably cultured left foot created the only goal of the game, a Jefferson Lerma header.

Colombia and Uruguay fans clash in the stands after their Copa America game.

Instead of seeing out the half calmly and tactically, Daniel Munoz earned a second yellow when he elbowed Uruguay's Manuel Ugarte in clear view of the referee’s assistant and fourth official. The first yellow was a textbook two footed sliding hack on Maximiliano Araújo, the sort of tackle that was high up on my bingo card.

It was all very melodrama from there on.

America is melting this week and it was too hot for football at kick-off. And it seemed to get hotter as the players of the two teams found new ways of betraying their stress and strain.

Local news media was quickly delighting in the scenes at the top of the 11 o’clock news and it seems that football media has moved along to a new zero tolerance Liverpool management having a thing or two to say to their divisive frontman.

But the football itself had enough tension to trick you into thinking that what was happening here was in any way related to the beautiful game.

Almost 70,000 Colombian supporters vastly outnumbered the Uruguayan fans who watched on helplessly as their team simply refused to take the opportunities shambled their way by their erratic opponents.

There was even a Luis Suarez cameo which, in spite of the timber, is still able to offer a deft touch, intricate movement and a chance or two, one of which was off the mark by an entertaining amount of yards.

Similarly, Nunez had a shot on goal in the first half that ended up camouflaging itself as a skyward defensive clearance and not even a good one at that.

The Colombian fans were game enough to find their own ineptitude hilarious. With Uruguay pressing deeper and more frantically, two counter-attacking breakways produced two comic failures to find the back of the net: One an open goal and the other a one-on-one which resulted in the crossbar being cracked when it was easier to score and end the contest and the chaos.

An empty vessel

The most laughable element of all of this is that the US Soccer Federation could think themselves anything other than an empty vessel in which Copa America could incubate its wildness at excessive temperatures for a few weeks.

Of all the attractions of true football culture that the US thirstily imports; gallows humour riding sidecar with failure is not one.

There is zero tolerance for failure in this still new thing. They’ve had enough of it in their indigenous sports. I’m reminded of the Cleveland Browns fan whose dying wish was to be buried by his team’s defensive line so they could leave him down one last time. And one of the best sports documentaries of the summer which tells the take of 1990’s worst and most morally corrupted baseball team, the New York Yankees.

There’s enough to be miserable about without the other football sauntering in and exposing their frailties when they’re still not ready to be as incompetent as they are.

Just hours before kick-off, Gregg Berhalter was fired from his job as US coach. A group stage defeat to Uruguay was his final act but his goose was cooked previous to that when his team was outsmarted in the dark arts by Panama.

Watching the sour cream of true Copa teams float to the top of the tournament the US hosted and failed so hard at, the difference is stark and bodes badly for two years hence when the big show comes to North America. This was the most damning week in over a decade and no amount of Copa circus sideshows will distract from that fact.