I spend a lot of time complaining about this country, but that doesn’t mean I’m not proud to live here. But, since militarized expressions of nationalism are totally passe, I choose to express my patriotism through the medium of sports. And while I do often find myself cheering for other teams in some international competitions (you have to love underdogs), that absolutely does not hold true with soccer. Here, it’s USA-all-the-way.
That’s why I’ll be intently watching the US Men’s National Team play Mexico tonight (at 9 PM on ESPN2) in their first (somewhat) meaningful game since the disaster that was the World Cup last summer. It’s only a friendly, but unlike many of the other international friendlies this week, this is serious business for these two teams – they both want to win badly. Mexico has virtually their entire national team ready and while a couple significant Americans couldn’t be brought over from Europe, for the most part this is the real US team, too.
Apart from being significant simply because it’s another chance to spar with Mexico, this is also a big test for interim coach Bob Bradley. If things go well tomorrow, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the “interim” title lifted. And finally, this is the first chance we get to see whether the newest incarnation of the National Team can live up to the hopes we all had after the quarterfinals showing in 2002 or whether the US will be stuck as a Tier 3 soccer team for the foreseeable future.
I predict a 1-1 draw, with enough good moments to be encouraging. The places to pay the most attention to will be the strikers (where the US, as per usual, is lacking) and the defenders not named Bocanegra. Plus, I am holding onto the faint hope that this will be the game where Landon Donovan snap out of the funk he’s been in and get his career back on the superstar track people were talking about a few years ago. And I’d love to see a little magic from Clint Dempsey, both because it would help in the game and because a good game from him today might be the push to convince Fulham to give him the chance to start.
All that said, here’s the simple version: Go USA!
America, Fuck Yeah! – South Park
Oh, and while I’m talking soccer, let me recommend a podcast I recently discovered: The Game with Danny Kelly from the Times UK. They’re funny, insightful, and informative. And it’s just got a great rhythm. If you’re interested at all in the sport, this is 45 minutes a week that will be well spent.