abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz: Gold CupKing Haile Selassie I

Many soccer fans cannot remember the last time the US were knocked out of the quarterfinals. Well I remember as I happened to be in town from college.

The US played a Colombia side still licking their wounds from the 1998 World Cup and set adrift after the departure of Carlos Valderrama.

Still in that match, they took the Cafeteros to the limit at an Orange Bowl that was pro-Colombia. The penalties, well they didn’t favor the home side as that would leave the door wide open for Canada to win their first and only Gold Cup back in 2000.

Flash forward 11 years and we see an uninspired US squad not really proving much in the group stage and even losing for the first time ever in that phase of the competition.

I will never criticize a player’s motivation for they have my full respect. Although there are people that will question their commitment; a few getting upset at “Wedding Gate” during an international competition… outside of that- nothing much.

There is very little doubt that they will be facing their first big obstacle- Jamaica. Although if they saw what Honduras did to neutralize their attack, they know that Jermaine Jones and Michael Bradley will be a huge factor. At the same time they will be facing a team that will be evenly matched on several levels and come in more confident.

Confidence means very little when you can’t keep up with the opponent. For various teams, it’s not about performance… it’s about execution and generating ideas on attack. It could be said that Clint Dempsey just had a bad day in Kansas City. He should be given the benefit of the doubt based on his performance compared to most of his other teammates. So far the US have been lackluster at best. Jermaine Jones and Michael Bradley have been the most consistent figures on this team.

I remember when Spain shellacked them in Foxboro, the comments I brought up about that being a wake up call for Bob Bradley’s troops. Pardon me, but hasn’t he been fielding relatively that same “inexperienced” squad in this first stage of matches? If that match wasn’t the an alert then consider this match against Guadaloupe the bucket of ice cold water thrown in the middle of someone’s four or fifth dream.

For Bradley’s sake, I am kind of glad that he is the US coach. He has done He will get little to no pressure as we know how cushy the national team coach job is. Doubt he will get sacked if there is a debacle in this tournament. What will be questioned is the direction that the program is taking. No Gold Cup title, Confederations Cup, and U-20 World Cup might not be what many fans of the Stars and Stripes would consider a step in the right direction.

To some this might sound like criticism, and it surely is not. What the US media need to understand is the urgency of the moment. One cannot cling on to ball calls, or the “they have it in for us” syndrome. Hearing US fans still have sour grapes over the refereeing of Marco Antonio Rodríguez in the match against Panama. That moment is over and the team looked on to the next challenge.

With all that being said, we know full well that this team is capable of playing at their maximum potential when their backs are to the wall. This epoch of the Bradley era saw this team start out terribly slow in previous tournaments only to end with a positive result as far as the growth of the game is concerned.

Is it a step forward or taking several steps backward to get a running start? Well this match against Jamaica will be the first telltale sign.