United States Men's National Team Coach Bob Bradley

Bob Bradley has completed a full cycle as head coach of the US Men’s National Team.  By most any metric or standard, he has achieved great success and advanced the program.  Here is a partial list of his achievements in the last four years:

• He has a higher winning percentage than any coach in US Men’s National Team history: .644 (38-19-9)
• He won the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup
• He took the US Men to their first FIFA final at the 2009 Confederations Cup
• He won the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying Hexagonal
• He won the 2010 World Cup Group C
• He brought more players into camp in one World Cup cycle than any other coach in US history
• He scheduled more games against European nations than any other US coach
• He helped with the development and maturation of Landon Donovan into the United States first world class attacking player
• Selected, coached and galvanized a group of mostly modestly talented (relative to the world stage) individuals into a unified team that fought for each other and the common good

But now I wonder what Bob does next.  While staying on in his current role is a possibility and by reviewing his accomplishments above would make sense, extensions beyond one World Cup cycle are rare and shouldn’t be counted on.  As a certain coach told me when he resigned from the Chicago Fire, “we could have achieved more, but we had a real good run and change is often best for everyone.”  So, if this is indeed the close of a chapter for Bob, what will the next chapter be?

There are already rumors linking him with two prominent jobs that are not yet even open in London and D.C.:

• Fulham

This  would be an intriguing opportunity for the Princeton grad.  He would be the first American born head coach in the Premiership.  Fulham is a club that has reached out for American players in recent years including current US National Teamers Clint Dempsey and Carlos Bocanegra.  In many ways, this would be a better opportunity for Bob than continuing into the next cycle with the US Men.  While Fulham currently has popular Roy Hodgson in the skipper’s post, he is likely to bolt for Liverpool in the coming days.

• DC United

Returning to his MLS roots where he served as Bruce Arena’s top assistant and earning MLS Cup rings in each of the League’s first two seasons.  Curt Onalfo is in the seat now in his first season as United coach.  Bob still has a close relationship with DC United President Kevin Payne and Onalfo’s team has posted a substandard record of 3-9-1, for ten points which is tied with two other teams for fewest in the 16-team MLS.

• Chivas USA

Perhaps he could take over his former club that is struggling under new coach Martin Vasquez at 3-9-1, which matches DC United’s ten points at the bottom of the MLS standings.  This would allow Bob to remain in southern California, close to his daughters who attend college in the area.

• Youth Development with US Soccer

Keeping  one of the country’s smartest soccer brains in US Soccer, but redirecting his focus to the sport’s overall development would bear fruit down the road.

Perhaps he will take a less predictable step.

• Major League Soccer

While I wouldn’t expect Bob to take any position that would keep him off the sidelines and training fields, his experience, knowledge and intensity would serve America’s top professional league well in many areas.  While his professional career has been on the competition side of soccer, his intelligence and perspective would also be beneficial on the business side.  Few people realize that Bob has a graduate degree in sports administration from Ohio University, one of the nation’s most respected programs of its kind.

• Collegiate Coaching

Bob isn’t one to make decisions based on popular expectations and coaching out of the public spotlight would allow him the opportunity to focus on what’s important to him – his family, his players and the sport of soccer.  A southern California school position would allow him the chance to stay near his daughters and an Eastern school would bring him back to his roots and nearer other family members.

• Author

Again this is unlikely, because it would keep Bob away from his passion of being on the sidelines, in the locker room and in the editing room working to develop a group of athletes into a successful team.  However, a Bob Bradley book describing his ideas and practices to assemble, develop and prepare a team wold serve as a great resource for coaches in any sport and offer invaluable life lessons to all.

• Broadcasting

Just kidding.  Wanted to see if you were paying attention.  While I think Bob would be the best soccer analyst this side of Wigan coach Roberto Martinez, I can’t imagine him ever wanting to do this.

Whatever path Bob chooses to take, I am certain he will do so with integrity, hard work, intelligence and considerable thought and he will be successful again.

England pulled a goal back in the 37th minute when a short Lampard corner from the right was played to Gerrard who crossed into the box. Upson, atoning for his earlier error, rose highest above the Germany defence and with Neuer stranded, powered a header into the net. Meetings between these two sides often provide talking points and this one’s came 60 seconds later when Lampard’s shot from the edge of the box struck the underside of the crossbar and bounced down, with the referee ruling the ball had not crossed the goalline.

There is no mention that the ball clearly crossed the line, with the reader left to ponder on precisely where it bounced down and why the referee might have made such a ruling.

Then we have FIFA’s report on the Mexico-Argentina game, with a notable absence in the description of Tevez’s first goal:

Maradona’s side were hardly lacking in attacking menace themselves, however, and Lionel Messi soon embarked on one of his trademark elusive runs before attempting a chip over Oscar Perez that the Mexico keeper judged well. Messi’s hunt for a goal at South Africa 2010 continues, but it was not long before the Barcelona talisman played a key role as another of Argentina’s star forwards opened his tournament account.

Tevez might have thought his chance had gone when Perez raced out to block bravely at his feet, but Messi was quick-witted enough to return the ball towards goal, where the Manchester City striker was waiting to head home. Breaking the deadlock enabled Argentina to take a firm grip on proceedings, and within seven minutes that hold was strengthened as Mexico reached for the self-destruct button.

No mention that “where the Manchester City striker was waiting to head home” was in a clearly offside position, or the bizarre scenes that followed which might just have played into Mexico reaching for that “self-destruct button”.

What’s interesting isn’t so much the banal and blatant official spin here, but that due to a growing suspicion of FIFA, whitewashing accounts like these may only make matters worse for Sepp Blatter and company.

It’s fairly obvious that when referees make mistakes, the finger is going to be pointed at FIFA — and, of course, they are responsible for maintaining high standards of refereeing at the World Cup and in the world’s game. FIFA’s stubborn resistance to even adequately explore goal-line technology is only the most glaring example of failure in this regard.

Many, though, sniff corruption rather than incompetence. The second largest number of visitors that arrived at this site through entering keywords into a search engine today did so by typing “FIFA corruption” into Google (the first was “Pitch Invasion”). The last time that same search term spiked so high was on Friday, June 18th, the day the US played Slovenia: and, pace Henry Winter, that game also had a high-profile refereeing controversy that had many searching for answers via Google. I’m guessing this was indicative of a global trend.

FIFA’s footprint is more obvious to casual viewers of the World Cup than it ever has been, as part of their self-promotional branding of the tournament. Their name is splashed on the screen at the start of every instant replay on television: FIFA, right before we see the ball cross the line by half a mile, or Tevez standing two yards offside, or Dempsey standing onside.

And so we have FIFA trying to keep the lid on these mistakes by cutting out comments on its website mentioning such unfortunate incidents and clamping down especially hard on YouTube videos featuring those particular incidents, as well as the obvious spin in the match report examples above. As Robin Goldstein at Blind Taste detailed right after the U.S-Slovenia game:

As of this writing, of the 343 comments to have been approved by the moderators on FIFA.com’s “Have Your Say” discussion board about today’s controversial US-Slovenia 2-2 draw in World Cup competition, not one of them contains even a passing mention of the main topic of discussion of every article that has been written about the game: the fact that referee Koman Coulibaly disallowed the third US goal for reasons that weren’t (and still aren’t) clear to players, fans, or television announcers.

Other soccer discussion boards, like the Washington Post’s Soccer Insider, were flooded with debate and discussion about the questionable call, which began almost immediately after it happened at about 16:40 GMT (the time zone used by FIFA.com). So were Twitter feeds (although at some point Twitter crashed, as it frequently has during the World Cup). The discussion over the controversy really exploded around the internet after the game ended at 16:51, and before long, USA’s tie with Slovenia already had more Google News blog hits (850) than Serbia’s upset of Germany (701).

But on FIFA.com, the silence about USA-Slovenia has been deafening. The latest comment to appear on the discussion board has a timestamp of 20:04. In the 193-minute span between the game’s end and the latest comment’s time stamp, only 24 squeaky-clean comments have been approved. For instance: “great fightback by the USA”; “this is the right result on the balance of play”; “way to go USA”; “the match was really exciting!”; “slovenia is the best team”; “USA are becoming a real nice team!”; and “Slovenia had a great chance to qualify in the next round!! But in the second half we were too defensive.”

By comparison, in that same span of time—193 minutes—after the end of Germany-Serbia (which ended today at 14:20), there were already 175 comments posted. That’s more than seven times as many.

FIFA’s efforts at massaging the conversation about the games will only drive people from using their official sources, erode their trust in them as an organisation, and feed conspiracy theories. As Goldstein puts it: “This doesn’t just undermine fans’ trust in FIFA; it also squanders an easy opportunity for the body that administers the world’s favorite sporting event to become a place where fans can share, discuss, and debate the things that they care most deeply about—thus engendering goodwill and helping to spread the good word about soccer.”

Even though we don’t have any inkling of any actual corruption in South Africa, FIFA is surely only engendering unnecessary further suspicion by such heavy-handed attempts to control the storylines.

We all saw the ball cross the line, Sepp, and we’re going to talk about it whether you like it or not.

The United States is a World Cup regular now, in the midst of its sixth consecutive appearance. But back in the stone ages — i.e., the late 1980s — its national team was on the brink, held together by a goalkeeper and his flag.

No one is saying that David “Dino” Vanole is the sole reason the U.S. is in South Africa this month, playing in high-stakes games of soccer. But the people who saw him psyche up teammates and psyche out Neanderthals; the people who heard his jokes and rhymes; the people who covered their eyes when a 1989 penalty kick was headed straight for his throat … think he deserves much of the credit. That he should be on the Mount Rushmore of U.S. soccer.

Smirking.

Read the rest.

Correio*, published in Salvador, Brazil

[Image courtesy of Newseum]

Today, Ed Pilkington, the Guardian’s New York correspondent, reports:

If lack of bunting in the street is any indication, America appears to be living up to its reputation for glorious isolation. While the rest of the globe is already gripped by World Cup fever, here in the US there are scant outward signs of football – or rather soccer – obsession.

There are no Stars and Stripes in the windows beyond the usual patriotic quota, no cars honking horns as goals are scored. Very few papers across the country lived up to the chutzpah of the New York Post, which plastered its post-England game front page with the headline: “USA wins 1-1″.

In the American heartlands excitement levels were decidedly muted by comparison, despite that impressive scoreline. The Houston Chronicle was far more interested in college American football than in the England battle, even though Saturday’s goalscorer Clint Dempsey is a local boy from Nacogdoches in Texas.

But it would be wrong to imply that this country is indifferent to the World Cup. Last Saturday, sports bars across the US were packed with fans, from the 2,000 who watched the game in Studio Square in New York to thousands more who squatted in the home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team to watch the match on its big screen.

About 17 million Americans watched the England game on television – a relatively piddly number compared with the 106m who sat transfixed in February as the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl. But that’s still double the viewing figures during the opening round of the 2006 World Cup, and it even outstrips the popularity of the recent Stanley Cup, the culmination of the 2009-10 season in ice hockey – a game that is considered an American staple.

Yeah, OK, that’s not too bad of a summary on the interest level on Saturday’s game, at least from what I saw. Unlike fellow British columnist Paul Harris, Pilkington doesn’t just visit one New York bar and draw wild conclusions, he at least goes on to speak to a couple of people who know a fair bit about soccer in this country, prolific and experienced soccer bloggers Jason Davis of Match Fit USA and Chris Harris of Florida-based EPL Talk. But the article never strays from trying to tell the whole story of American soccer solely through the lens of that one US Men’s National Team game on one World Cup day: “Evidence of the sport’s halfway house between success and failure can be seen in the coverage the match against England received from the US media. Commentators felt they could only convey the significance of the game by invoking baseball lore; the beautiful game could not be allowed to speak for itself.”

To get back to something true that Pilkington wrote: It would be wrong to imply that this country is indifferent to the World Cup. Yes, indeed. But not to get all Paul Gardner on this, what Pilkington misses in explaining why this is true is in his typically Anglocentric way of believing that the story of soccer in this country can be boiled down to the interest level in the US Men’s National Team during the World Cup.

OK: I live in a house near Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Next door to me, on one side, are a family we call “the Italians”. Quite recently, loud noises emanated from their house in the middle of the afternoon, including inexplicably loud cheering and worryingly noisy groans: yes, they were having a party because the country they support in the World Cup, Italy, were playing. On the other side is a Mexican family. I didn’t hear much cheering today even when Blanco notched a goal in a World Cup finals tournament for the third time, but I wouldn’t be guessing wildly if I had said their primary interest in the World Cup would be in the Mexican national team. In my house, there’s less interest in the World Cup than there might have been because Poland, the country of my wife’s birth, were last seen losing 5-0 to Spain in a humiliating warm-up game that seems to have jinxed the Spanish. Outside our house a Polish flag flies; in a nation of millions of immigrants, in the city of Chicago with a million proud Poles and a million proud Mexicans and a hundred other nationalities in substantial numbers, judging interest in the World Cup as a whole by the number of stars and stripes flying is foolish in the extreme.

Now, support for the US Men’s National Team is growing in the US. Many of us immigrants like myself will cheer for the US aside from when our country (in my case, England!) is playing them. As Pilkington points out in his piece, there was plenty of patriotic fervor on display at US soccer bars for the USMNT team on Saturday. The US men’s team is growing a substantial, informed, passionate supporters’ base like it’s never had before amongst soccer fans in general, immigrants or not. Brilliant, and an important development for the sport here, for sure.

Yet there’s still a reason why the second highest paid player in Major League Soccer history is not an American, and it’s not a bad thing. It was today’s Mexican hero Cuauhtémoc Blanco, who played for the Chicago Fire from 2007 to 2009. A man worshiped by millions in the United States. But to judge from the Guardian’s article, it’s as if this entire, obsesssive Hispanic soccer culture does not exist in the United States. And hell, the league he played in may as well not exist too: how can, again, an article about the state of soccer in a country not even mention its professional men’s league?

There’s a reason why the biggest television audience for Blanco’s goal today was probably not on ESPN, but on Spanish-language Univision. Univision, not incidentally, paid $325 million for the Spanish-language broadcast rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the 2007 and 2011 Women’s World Cups, and the 2009 and 2013 Confederations Cups (ESPN/ABC, incidentally, only paid $100m for the English-language rights to the same package). Univision is not messing around here:

The nation’s largest Spanish-language media company plans nearly 900 hours of World Cup programming from South Africa with all 64 matches broadcast live and in high definition as well as live streaming of events on UnivisionFutbol.com , video on demand, a futbol phone app and mobile alerts on everything from points scored to game finals.

A lot is riding on the World Cup for Univision, which has the exclusive Spanish-language broadcast rights in the United States mainland and Puerto Rico for the event.

Not only are Hispanic viewers crazy for soccer, but the World Cup — or the Mundial as it’s known in Spanish — is also regarded as the perfect vehicle to demonstrate the strength and growth of the U.S. Hispanic market.

“This World Cup is extraordinarily important to us,” said Cesar Conde, Miami-based president of Univision Networks.

It’s interesting that these massive $$$ numbers never seem to be printed in British newspaper articles about soccer in the US: the fact the World Cup is a richly valuable media property in both Spanish and English in the United States, but even more in the former language, doesn’t fit the narrative very well. The fact that the current $425 World Cup rights deal represents a four-fold increase in the value of the package from its predecessor suggests capitalist America has figured out the sport has a massively growing popularity and value, across American culture.

Then there’s the small matter that the US Men’s National Team is not the most popular American national team: at least, if we judge by the biggest television audience ever for a soccer match in the United States: that honour remains with the United States Women’s National Team, for the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup final in 1999, with 18 million tuning in. It’s safe to say that men’s soccer has grown in the US to the point that if a men’s team reached the final, that number would be beaten, but that’s besides the point. Speaking of women’s soccer, it’s so absurd to think the article might even mention the fact the United States currently has a professional women’s league (featuring the majority of the world’s best players) and England is vaguely hoping it might get one next year, that I almost didn’t notice its absence.

The success and the attention paid to the US Men’s National Team is important. But it also isn’t important, because soccer here thrives at youth level, at men’s club level, in women’s professional soccer, in colleges, in parks, in playgrounds, and elsewhere so much aside from that. A men’s national team game not being the Super Bowl does not mean that soccer is still trapped between success and failure as a whole. The Super Bowl is, and Soccer is. The latter is there for you, almost whereever you are, in some form. And maybe it’s better that as much as it grows, it never is the Super Bowl.

The Guardian used to convey both the elite and grassroots diversity of the sport of soccer in the United States to its readers easily, because it employed a man who understood better than most of us how soccer toils and bubbles and thrives and spits just below the surface of the American mainstream of sports, without it really mattering what the mainstream is: the late Steven Wells. So I’ll just leave you with this column from Wells on the Guardian’s site in 2008, and a nugget from it: “A Martian visiting the US for the first time would think soccer has been around forever and is hardwired into the American soul.”  Not a martian posing as an English journalist in New York, sadly.

Glenn Beck: “Barack Obama’s policies are the World Cup.” In an extensive rant on the June 11 Glenn Beck Program, Beck purported to explain how President Obama’s policies “are the World Cup” of “political thought.” Beck stated, “It doesn’t matter how you try to sell it to us, it doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn’t matter how many bars open early, it doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run, we don’t want the World Cup, we don’t like the World Cup, we don’t like soccer, we want nothing to do with it.” Beck stated that likewise, “the rest of the world likes Barack Obama’s policies, we do not.”

As Media Matters previously put it, seeing soccer as a conspiracy against America is pretty odd when Fox runs the main soccer channel in the United States. Fox! But, oh well.

Then there’s Paul Harris in London’s Observer today (the Guardian’s sister paper published on Sundays), doing the typical once-in-four-years go to New York and wander in a bar (in this case, Pete’s Place in NYC) and report casual conversation as serious analysis thing on the state of the game in America:

The failure of Americans to fall in love with soccer is as old a story as the World Cup itself and the social reasons are the same as ever. Americans love their own sports. The “big four” of American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey are faster, more intricate and higher scoring than football, with a tendency to create single moments of high drama and a strong aversion to anything that resembles a nil-nil draw. According to Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s fake conservative pundit: “Soccer is just one more thing the rest of the world is trying to jam down our throats, like the metric system.”

Colbert’s persona is a joke but his point is true. Yet every four years the American media promises a great breakthrough in the nation’s attitude to the “beautiful game”. This year was no different. Time magazine put the sport on its cover and an inside article was titled: “Yes, soccer is America’s game.”

But not many really agree. The bubble of football popularity soon deflates. Almost 17 million Americans watched the last World Cup final, but 106 million tuned into the last Super Bowl – and 48 million to the final of the men’s college basketball championship.

So, while the passion was there at Pete’s – and the rest of America – it appeared a transitory thing. “I don’t expect any fisticuffs between American and English soccer fans after this,” laughed Hauge. “The World cup is great but soccer is not that important.”

It’d be funny to go to England and write an article about soccer there without mentioning the professional soccer league there, but Harris manages to do this, with not a word about Major League Soccer’s growth. And not a word about the changing landscape of soccer in the States that anyone who has lived here for some time and paid attention to it can patently see, from massive participation at youth levels to diverse vibrant fanbases that see growing audiences for the sport on television and in person. Yeah, it’s not the national game. So what?  17 million people watching the World Cup final is still a shitload of people, and that number will rise again this year, probably beating out a number of other major sporting events (the NBA finals are currently averaging 15 million viewers per game, for example).

Harris continues, “The build-up to the World Cup in America has been a distinctly quieter affair than most of the rest of the world. The back pages and sports sections of the newspapers are still dominated by baseball and basketball.” Yes, this is true compared to the coverage in England. But the World Cup is not exactly invisible here, and the presence of the game on the prime national sports network ESPN is saturation to a level not often seen. Yesterday, I went through several hundred newspaper front pages (not back pages), and found the World Cup front and center on dozens of them around the country — not just in the major metropolitan areas where outside of Harris says soccer is “seen as an exotic, foreign beast.”  Sure, to some extent that’s still true, but it’s probably less true than Harris thinks (not that he bothered to go anywhere besides New York to draw his conclusions, judging from the article).

Harris is painting a static picture of the game when that’s just not the true story. Wandering into a bar in one city and garnering a few random opinions is not good enough as a basis for judging an entire nation of 300 million people’s appetite for anything.

As for this: “While virtually every pub in England is draped in the flag of St George, the bars in America feature all the flags of the World Cup nations.” Well, actually, that’s kinda cool. Instead of every person being expected to wrap themselves in the U.S. flag, we have a diverse country with millions of soccer fans who support different teams (sorry, Glenn Beck). Sure, there’s a growing passion and audience for the US team, and many bars (most of them official partners of US Soccer) are US team-focused now. But it will probably always be the case that there won’t ever be simple absolute kneejerk support for one nation in the United States by all soccer fans, even as the game as a whole continues to grow. It’s pretty awesome to see how Korean fans packed out a Chicago bar yesterday morning at 6.30am.  And then for the same bar to be packed with US national team fans starting US chants just hours later.  There’s a beauty in that and if you can’t see it, you’ve been staring at way too many St. George’s flags for your own good, my friend.

SmallBar Fullerton, June 12th, Chicago (photo from the SmallBar Fullerton Twitter feed), South Korea vs. Greece:

There is something jarring about being in semi-rural Southern Africa and finding yourself surrounded by drunk Englishmen with doughy faces and nerd-chic glasses framed by the fake chainmail armor of a medieval knight.  Around the US-England game Saturday there were many similarly jarring scenes, but on both sides they all seemed embodied in that: bizarre claims on national identities oblivious to little beyond the stony hands of Robert Green.

I have my opinions about what happened on the field at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium between the US and England, but on that too much has already been said.  Instead, my particular take is that of a lone fan following the throngs by mini-bus from the big city to Rustenburg—or really a small suburb outside of Rustenburg.  We descended like a thirsty, good-natured hive of locusts onto the dusty blocks around the stadium, a neighborhood that seemed to be on the poor side of working class without being destitute.

It was, I should re-emphasize, a mostly good-natured hive.  The thousands of English and American fans were often loud and obnoxious, but rarely mean-spirited.  But the transportation and the parking were a mess, so the throngs trampled about through the dirt yards and alleys and lives of the entrepreneurial locals selling parking spaces and bobbles.  Locals who all, no matter their social class, all seem to have been able to procure sparkling yellow Bafana Bafana jerseys that are selling for 499 Rand at the local sports shop (about $65).

Approaching the stadium the proportion of English to US fans didn’t seem overwhelming—certainly more with the St George’s Cross, but not dramatically more.  But upon entering the stadium we might as well have been at Wembley.  The English papered every square inch with their flags and their cadences, while we Americans could do little more than muster an occasional U-S-A or a “Goooooch.”  It was clear to me that while the US is getting there on the field, our fan culture still needs to develop some texture and style.  The numbers were there, the spirit was there, but like the sound of the vuvulzelas we US fans have a conspicuous absence of presence.

Warming up at the Royal Bafokeng

Perhaps our numbers were too busy trying to corral armfuls of plastic bottles of Budweiser (available virtually no where else in South Africa other than as an exclusive FIFA partner at the stadiums) from the overwhelmed concessions stands.  The stadium itself was perfectly serviceable, but also a bit out of its league.  There were, thankfully, enough bathrooms—but there was no functioning stadium clock or scoreboard, let alone any hopes of video replay.  I wonder the last time players like Steven Gerrard or Landon Donovan had to ask the referee how much time was left as though playing in a local pub league.

On the way out the feeling in the air was of resignation.  The English satirically singing “Rob-ert Green, Rob-ert Green,” the Americans happy with the point and unsure of how to find a ride back to the big city.  My own ride was a mini-bus with a few civil Brits and Yanks, until a slurring drunk US fan talked his way on for a ride to the Jo’burg airport.  He looked to be about 16, but loudly blathered to the English fans about how excited he was that the investment bank he worked for in New York was transferring him to London.  He insisted the Brits tell him about the neighborhood he was moving to in London, but when the patient Englishmen tried to explain they were from Leeds and didn’t know all the neighborhoods in London the young American banker was perplexed—Leeds?  Never heard of it.  Is that a city?  The Englishmen offered it was kind-of near Manchester.

I broke a little bit inside when the blathering banker went on to tell everyone that because he worked in Manhattan and took week-ends in the Hamptons he was from “the heart and soul of America.”  It was all I could do to try and have my own quiet conversation on side: why does Rooney like playing with Heskey anyway?  As the bus jerked and jabbed through the remaining mobs, amidst Uncle Sam top hats and three-lion makarapas, through the window I caught the sight of neighborhood boys half hiding behind trees and pillars.  Wide-eyed, totally silent, hypnotized by the scene; it may be, I’d guess, the most they will ever know first hand about England and America.

On the left, Dr. Who’s companion Rose Tyler, born and bred Englishwoman. On the right, the mysterious Jack Harkness, a friend of Dr. Who from the future who often takes on an American guise.

Photo credit: Ŕooner on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Click on each image for the full-size version.

United States

England

Check out more of Bill’s brilliant maps at Bill’s Sports Maps.

While it was not put on the same scale as the Americans’ upset of the British in the 1950 World Cup, their 2-0 win over England in Foxborough, Mass. on June 9th, 1993 not only surprised their foes and the rest of the World, but also themselves.

“Are we surprised,” US midfielder Tab Ramos said at the tine. “Sure, we’re surprised. This will be headline news in Europe.”

Ramos turned out to be one of the offensive stars of the match, played before a crowd of 37,652 at Foxboro Stadium. He set up both US goals – a header by defender-turned midfielder Thomas Dooley – with two minutes remaining in the first half – and another header by Dooley’s replacement, Alexi Lalas in the 72nd minute.

“Nobody expected us to score two goals,” said goalkeeper Tony Meola, who made several late saves to preserve the victory. “I don’t think anybody expected us to score against England.”

The funny thing is, in England, I don’t really remember anyone being particularly surprised about it: faith in Graham Taylor’s England by then was very low amongst the media and public. At least, I remember watching it an television and not being surprised. England were bloody awful in 1993, and everyone knew it. Just a couple of weeks earlier, England’s doomed qualification campaign for the 1994 World Cup had hit the rocks: a lucky 1-1 tie in Poland thanks to a late goal was followed by a 2-0 defeat to Norway, England absolutely outclassed by a team comprised of some very mediocre Premier League players.

As James Corbett writes in his book England Expects (full review forthcoming), England’s defeat to the United States just a week after that debacle “had an aura of inevitability”: England were, as was obvious to all in the old world, dispirited, disjointed and dreadful.

That’s not to take anything away from another historic victory for the U.S. on 9 June 1993.

Curiously, England turned it around somewhat after that result, perhaps the nadir they needed: they played pretty well against Brazil and Germany in the two games that followed in the U.S. Cup, then played outstandingly against Poland when World Cup qualifying resumed in the autumn, before returning to being bloody awful and sitting out the following’s summer’s World Cup.