Earlier this World Cup, I wrote about what would have to go right for the U.S. men’s national team to win the World Cup.
I still think the idea — however unlikely — was not absurd. And I still believe the required conditions identified were mostly correct; Christian Pulisic’s durability issues clearly proved a problem. Gio Reyna’s breakout never arrived.
But in processing the dizzying aftermath of a 4-1 round of 16 defeat to Belgium on Monday, it’s becoming increasingly clear that all this chatter about someday winning a World Cup is becoming counterproductive.
What American soccer needs is more workable and achievable goals, benchmarks that would represent meaningful and genuine improvement, but ones that are also realistic rather than paralyzing.
That means less time spent discussing how to become France or Argentina, and more time spent discussing how to become Belgium, Croatia, Morocco or Uruguay: Nations that don’t occupy the space of a truly established world power, but that still consistently produce enough world-class talent that a deep run is possible with the right breaks.
Instead, we dream too big, get carried away with modest success, crumble under its weight, then identify the wrong reasons the foundation gave out.
Case in point: It has become puzzlingly popular to see the USMNT’s loss to Belgium as some sort of referendum on American talent development. And while U.S. talent development has issues, the reality Monday was a lot simpler: this team and its manager just choked.
Desperately, we need a more level-headed, less bipolar USMNT existence so we can identify problems accurately. It just really, really, really isn’t in our national character.
The USMNT had advanced from exactly one World Cup group stage in 64 years when U.S. Soccer began implementing Project 2010 in the late 1990s, intending to become true World Cup contenders in less than four tournament cycles. When 2010 finally arrived, it still couldn’t beat Ghana.
The response to that was to hire Jurgen Klinsmann to reprise his 2006 Germany magic with a 2014 U.S. team that resembled that German side inasmuch as they also wore white jerseys.
When Klinsmann’s idiosyncrasies and an unsuccessful course correction under Bruce Arena left the U.S. out of the World Cup entirely in 2018, we declared our next generation a golden one because of the names on their club badges rather any record of competitive success.
Now that this has also proved false during a home World Cup, a disturbingly large number of folks are asserting it’s just time to give up on the whole soccer thing.
The truth is that the hard work of building academy systems throughout MLS and beyond has improved the American talent level incrementally — but not transformationally — over a generation.
The truth is that the squad that took the field Monday night really did have enough talent to like its chances against Belgium, but not necessarily against Spain in the next round or anyone beyond that.
The truth is that setting the goal of reaching the quarterfinals again, and then maybe even consecutive quarterfinals, would represent meaningful progress.
Instead, American soccer continues to live in this all-or-nothing mentality. It leads to the belief that the team is as good as its best days and as bad as its worst, depending on which was most recent. It’s the opposite of a growth mindset.
