It still kind of hasn’t set in yet. The United States Men’s National Team is not going to the 2018 World Cup in Russia. A loss to Trinidad & Tobago along with wins by Panama and Honduras mean the USA will be watching next summer from home. Unless you’ve barricaded yourself in a pillow fort of sorrow, you’ve seen Taylor Twellman’s post-game rant on the state of our national team. It was glorious, to say the least, and echoed the sentiments from Alexi Lalas’ much-maligned soliloquy from about a month ago. For most of my generation’s soccer-watching life, World Cup qualification felt like a birthright. But now that aura is gone. The question is now how do we as a nation regroup and make sure this never happens again.
First, and sooner rather than later, Bruce Arena needs to be relieved of his duties. He came into his second term with a hill to climb, but it was nowhere as steep as he and his men made it. Arena’s overreliance on names he was familiar with proved detrimental on multiple fronts. It hurt the current rotation in the sense that qualifying came at the cost of development. The blinders were set solely on Russia with no other considerations factored in. Granted, to be perfectly honest, that is what Bruce was brought in for. Get the USA to Russia 2018. But even if they did make it this would still be an aging crop of guys on a career downturn. The look to the future just can’t be “Hey, we let Christian Pulisic play!”
But Arena is just the beginning. Oh, is it just the beginning. Fans of American sports see their club sides “blow it up” all the time. Tank for a high draft pick. Sell off high priced veterans for pennies on the dollar. Hit the reset button because what you are currently doing isn’t working.
A change at the top has to come. US Soccer head Sunil Gulati had his focus set on becoming a world power. That plan included Jurgen Klinsmann and dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into youth development through MLS as well as their own satellite academies. Why put all that money into those avenues and that have the same old players get trotted out there when the chips are down? As Twellman angrily stated, this has been years in the making. A lack of accountability from those who should be held the most accountable is a huge problem. Gulati has to step down for the USA to recover. A new voice is needed. And not a like for like replacement from this administration. US Soccer must start fresh with an “outsider” for lack of a better term.
But I’d be remiss if I forgot about the players. Far too often we neglect to criticise our national team because of what they represent. It is easy to lambaste a member of your club side because they just represent a small subsection of people. They represent the club, their shareholders, and fans. The national team represents the entirety of the USA. The colors that everybody is up in arms about when it comes to the NFL are strewn across the bodies of these 23 men. A nation was let down in Trinidad last night, and it pains every former player, every American Outlaw, as well as every regular schmo like myself that is proud to refer to themselves as an American. But listening to postgame interviews and press conferences, I don’t think that fact hits this team as hard.
I know they are disappointed. But how many are really devastated? Outside of Pulisic, it is a tough search. That is because this old guard has been so shielded from such moments their entire international careers. They always made it to the World Cup. However far they made it in the competition was gravy and each win, or even loss in the case of the Belgium match, was treated like the achievement of the century. There was no striving for better things.
Take Chile as a parallel. La Roja has taken a golden generation of talent and moved on from a dodgy past to become a South American power. They have won the last two Copa Americas, a tournament with exponentially more prestige than CONCACAF’s Gold Cup. But they too will be watching from the sidelines come Russia 2018. Chile lost to a team with nothing to play for as well. But that team was Brazil, who qualified for the tournament in March, not Trinidad & Tobago, a team that hasn’t won a game since March. Chile came in with tempered expectations and was still beyond devastated. Heads will roll.
It is easy to pile on a team when they are down. Pick out all their warts and make it seem like you knew the cure all along. Monday morning quarterbacking is the easiest thing a fan or pundit can do. But the proof is all there in this case. We weren’t good enough to beat Trinidad & Tobago (Hell! A draw was good enough) when it mattered most. How is progress going to be made against the rest of the world when this game can’t draw out our best?
Bruce Arena said that changes do not need to be made and that doing so would be foolish. The only foolish thing we as a soccer nation could do would be to follow that credo. This is going to hurt. It is going to hurt for a while. Seeing our generation’s transcendent talent have to wait until 2022 to go toe to toe with the world’s best is going to be brutal. But when we rip the band-aid off the wound, don’t let it sit there and fester. Put some proverbial ointment on the problem and make sure you don’t do what gave you the cut again. I hope the USA has enough humility to do this. But with the new “American way” being to never admit you are at fault, my hopes may not be realized.
Update: Bruce Arena resigned as National Team coach on Friday, yet on a USSF conference call, director Sunil Gulati reiterated that he would not be doing the same.