Over and Done With
NUREMBERG, Germany — When traveling abroad into the heart of the soccer world, the only thing worse than being an Ugly American is being an Ignored American. That describes the U.S. soccer team. A non-factor here in a Fussballland obsessed with its home team, enthralled with Brazil and cautiously observant of England. The Unites States is the smallest big nation here.
I’ve seen this played out during the World Cup, from souvenir stores that don’t stock U.S. gear to, most ominously, a lack of respect from officials on the field. It all manifested in a horrible call that became the turning point of the U.S. team’s 2-1 loss to Ghana Thursday, a defeat that ended the U.S. tournament run and sent Ghana to the round of 16 in its World Cup debut.
Plenty of soccer people -- and you can count U.S. Coach Bruce Arena among them -- believe that the star system exists in World Cup officiating. That’s bad news for the U.S., which isn’t a star team and doesn’t have any star players. (In the U.S. they might try to push Landon Donovan as a star; here in Germany he’s remembered as the guy who couldn’t cut it in the Bundesliga).
So during stoppage time in the first half with the score tied, 1-1, and the ball headed toward the U.S. penalty area, Oguchi Onyewu knocked it away as Razak Pimpong slid underneath. Apparently referee Markus Merk thought things were a little too hard out there for Pimpong, and he gave Ghana a penalty kick. U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller guessed left, Ghana’s Stephen Appiah shot right and the Black Stars had the winning goal.
“That’s a big call, by the way,” Arena said for the benefit of us soccer neophytes.
“We had control of the game, we go in halftime down a goal. Those things happen. They happen a lot to our team, but those things happen.”
They’re going to keep happening as long as the U.S. isn’t considered a credible threat to win the World Cup.
The U.S. should have known trouble was brewing when Merk was assigned this game. Australia is still fuming that its team received only nine free kicks to Brazil’s 25 on Sunday, when Merk worked that match.
The Brazilians are the big-time rock band here, the U2 in this piece -- right down to the single-named stars. All you need to know about the respective places in this universe was that Ghana’s Michael Essien told Appiah: “We have to show Brazil who we are.” He said this in the hours before the U.S. game the Ghanaians had to at least tie to get a chance to play Brazil. It was as if they had nothing to prove against the Americans -- and nothing to fear, either.
Why worry about an offense that can’t score? (The U.S. benefited from an own goal by Italy in the 1-1 second game).
“We didn’t have the good attacking power that we needed,” said DaMarcus Beasley, who set up Thursday’s score with a beautiful pass that Clint Dempsey hammered home. “We only scored one goal in the tournament. That can be the downfall for us. We need to get better in that department of our team.”
The U.S. team has guys with heart, it has guys who are tough, it just doesn’t have guys who have mastered the art of putting the ball in the net.
Just before I sat down to write I saw some Ronaldinho highlights on TV. You know how some countries are still years away from developing nuclear technology? The U.S. is years away from developing a player who can do the things Ronaldinho does with a soccer ball.
The Americans can complain all they want about the penalty kick call (even the foreign journalist across from me said, “a penalty it was not”), and how it allowed Ghana to play defensively and have players stall by dropping to the ground in agony like the extras in “Saving Private Ryan.”
They still weren’t able to score a second goal themselves. They weren’t able to win the game that would have sent them to the round of 16 thanks to Italy’s victory over the Czech Republic.
As a result, they weren’t able to consider this World Cup a success.
“We came here to get to the next round,” Brian McBride said. “So yeah, there’s disappointment.”
“We definitely underachieved as a team,” Beasley said. “We just have to move on from it.”
They’ll move on without Claudio Reyna, 32, one of the few effective players in this World Cup who saw his international career come to an end when he injured his knee on the play that led to Ghana’s first goal. He came back on the field, but wasn’t effective and had to leave.
After the match, he was the last player to leave the field, another memory coming to him with every step.
“It’s amazing to think how far the team’s come and how far the sport’s come,” Reyna said. “If anything, the expectations have changed. You can see we’re disappointed not to get out of the most difficult group in the World Cup. That alone shows how far we’ve come.... I think we’re getting there. We’ve made great steps and I’ve been part of that. It’s been, for me, an incredible ride to be a part of that.”
Ghana Coach Ratomir Dujkovic tried to find some nice things to say about the Americans afterward.
“They’re very strong,” Dujkovic said. “They’re very good.
“Unfortunately, they have to go home.”
And they leave on that note, from the coach of a debut World Cup team that didn’t worry about them beforehand and felt sorry for them afterward.
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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande, go to latimes.com/adandeblog.
