I watched the entirety of the USA/Czech Republic game, and I've been watching a lot of the post-match analysis from the 3-0 drubbing, and I can't believe what denial the whole country is in.
The end result was not about a lack of heart. It wasn't that they were rusty. It's not they were flat. They very well might have been all of those things yesterday, but in the end that wasn't the difference. Plain and simply, the United States weren't as good as their adversaries.
The Czech Republic is one of the best teams in Europe. They have international superstars throughout their roster. If you matched up the Czech Republic and the United States starting lineup position for position, every check mark would go to a Czech.
That's not to say the United States didn't have a chance yesterday. The Czechs lost to a much less-talented Greece side in the 2004 Euro semifinals, and the United States did beat Portugal in the 2002 World Cup opening game.
But there is a reason Brazil has won this thing five times and is favored to win it for an unprecedented sixth — they have unquestionably the most talent in the world on their team. Same thing goes in most sports — if you matched up the Yankees and the Royals, no one's picking the Royals. And that is about the talent disparity the United States is dealing with.
Pavel Nedved is a former European player of the year and stars with Juventus. Arsenal just paid a lot of money for Tomas Rosicky, who before then was the center piece of Borussia Dortmund. Jan Koller is one of the better strikers in Europe. The United States' most accomplished players are Damarcus Beasley, who is a substitute at PSV, Landon Donovan, who failed miserably at Leverkusen, and Brian McBride, who was the MVP ... at Fulham.
I don't mean to dump on the U.S. players, they're all good players, just not up to the level of the Czechs. And there is nothing wrong with that, but the expectations were set so high in this country that they bordered on delusional — people thinking the Americans can get to the semis or even the final. This group is unbelievably difficult, and it will still be an accomplishment if they can get out of it, let alone advancing past there.
Did the United States play well on Monday? Absolutely not, but it's not as simple as they came out lacking passion. The first goal was a mistake — okay, that's a bad start. But the second goal? That was a fantastic 35-yard strike from one of the better midfielders in the world. I grant you, it was a bad clear, but it's not like Oguchi Onyewu headed it straight into the six-yard box. I guarantee if Claudio Reyna struck a cracker like that, no one would be analyzing what an awful clear it was from the Czech Republic.
As for the third goal, that's what happens when you are forced to play three at the back. The Czechs saw the opening in the center of defense, Pavel Nedved fed Tomas Rosicky and he exploited the dead spot down the middle and away he went for the third goal.
We'll see what happens against Italy, but if the Americans are in a position to just win the game at the end, it will be an improvement. Italy is even better than the Czechs, despite what the FIFA rankings would have you believe. And I know a lot of the prognosticators will come out and say the U.S. needs to change their attitude and believe they can win, but the bottom line is talent generally wins out in the end, and once again, the U.S. will find themselves severely undermanned in that department.
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