United States 3, El Salvador 3: Late Goal Ends U.S. Bid for Place in the Olympics
By ANDREW KEH
An injury-time goal gave El Salvador a tie, knocking the United States soccer team out of the Olympic qualifying tournament.
-- As regular readers know I love, love, love soccer talk: the "18", in the "sticks", on "frame", pace, "good idea," "unlucky", possession, distribution, and so on.
Even more than this I love soccer talk when the conversation turns to the failure of US men's soccer to compete on an international level. I love these kinds of conversations because they are so breathtakingly obtuse. It is as entertaining as when they ask Ms. America candidates questions ("How would you bring about world peace?") Why, folks ask, can US women do so well in soccer but "our" men fail?
The answer is simple, of course, but soccer talkers treat it like neuro-science.
Briefly, "our" women are good because the US leads the world in women's rights. Feminism was born here, thrived here, and has changed the country (please don't call Rush, L. Brooks, and so on). At my large institution I have (at least) three female "bosses" ahead of me in rank. They deserve to be there. They are smarter, more ambitious, and more organized than I am. As a Democrat, I regret very much Hilary got railroaded by the "hopey/changy" thing. Generally speaking, I consider the women I work for better people, too. It is no surprise, then, that our female soccer teams excel. In some more primitive parts of the US (I regret to say Michigan now fits in that category, ranking last in spending on science research, higher education and so on) this may be easy to forget. Go on to a soccer pitch, a basketball court, a tennis court, a baseball field -- wherever boys' teams are playing and girls' teams are playing and tell me honestly which animal you would choose to coach? The girls are smarter, sleeker, cleaner, better conditioned, funnier, better teammates, more coachable and on and on and on. They are that way because the US decided sometime after "Madmen" to allow and encourage them to thrive.
American boys? Oh, boy. I give a lecture in my early English lit course where I try to explain the difference between Renaissance (as in "renaissance" man) European masculinity and our current American masculinity. The former defined himself by how much he could do -- music, horsemanship, diplomacy, farming, poetry, swordplay, wooing and on and on. The idea is beautifully depicted below in Hans Holbein's famous The Ambassadors. American males tend to define themselves by what they refuse to do or learn: music, poetry, diplomacy, gardening, courtliness and so on. "Real men don't...." goes the t-shirt.
Men's soccer fails here routinely because it is still "new" and male culture refuses to embrace something new and relatively different.
Athletics in America remains defined by American football, basketball, and baseball -- in that order. If America wanted a male team to win they would only have to take all the money they put toward "training" programs now and go to every large American high school and say, hey, give me your 9th grade starting quarterback, point guard, and shortstop/pitcher -- regardless of soccer experience -- and we will guarantee them college scholarships if they play soccer for the next 6 years. Gold medal.
That's probably impractical. So we will just have to wait until some of the current girl players become coaches -- and take over mens' programs.
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