world cup 2010
(part six)
((the new biggest game ever))


forget the england match. a week and half removed from that result makes it feel anticlimactic. forget the blown call. fifa made the right decision and banned the dude from showing his face in south africa again. in the subjective world of futbol, that's about as close to satisfaction or retribution as you're gonna get. the governing body of soccer, at the very least, agreed with joe us fan and admitted the ref in the slovenia match was terrible. surprisingly, they released no statement making the same claim against the united states defense. slovenia, too, is in the rearview mirror and at the same time currently setting the pace in the group. that that team plays for a country that holds the same amount of people as houston matters not. all that matters is algeria.

where the frack is algeria?

glad you asked. it's here.

fifteen times the size, in millions of persons, than slovenia, the transitive theory applied to their population would imply that the us is in deep doo-doo come tomorrow morning. if they couldn't put away a country that wikipedia has barely heard of, how in the world are we going to compete with a country of legitimate size and economy? thankfully, the transitive theory applied to anything in sports never matters.

moving on.

i couldn't name one guy on algeria's roster. not one. i don't think alexi lalas can either, and he is one of espn's "experts". he also seems to hate this us team and their lack of moxy, which makes for fairly entertaining television as he rips his countrymen every time chris fowler or mike tirico asks him a question about them. nevermind that alexi lalas is best known for his hair, goatee and being a really solid mls defender. what i mean by crapping on his resume is that i think he kind of sucks too.

back to tomorrow's "most important game ever".

say the us loses tomorrow to "lowly" algeria. what then, other than i care considerably less about the world cup for a few days?

the world cup will move on, but that will be it for this collection of players. not advancing out of this group would mark the last four years worth of qualifying and tournament play a disaster. landon donovan would come back to the mls to die a slow, painful death. you would never hear of herculez gomez, edson buddle and robbie findley again. jozy becomes the face of the team moving forward with stuart holden, michael bradley and several other unremarkable players moving into leadership roles that would soon be vacated by dempsey, onyewu and bocanegra, all much more highly thought of in the states versus the rest of the world. us soccer will be set back. again. another eight years at the least. if this team advances and possibly wins a round of 16 game, the core will be present during the next qualifying run and will be given one more chance to prove their worth in 2014. if they lose or find another way not to advance tomorrow morning, "project 2010" will evolve into project 2018 and younger players will begin early grooming at making an impact somewhere down the road.

there is this great shot that espn keeps replaying of two american guys, probably mid-twenties, celebrating after bradley's game-tying goal. the guy on the right of the shot is completely breaking down, bawling like a baby. normally, i would make fun at such a silly display of emotion. but, dammit, in that moment, i was totally with the guy. just a half-hour earlier, i had written to sarah that the world cup was over. 30 minutes later, life had been breathed back into the us chances, and i was right there cursing at the disallowed goal with the rest of the concerned.

what makes the world cup so intense is the long and grueling process. 31 national teams will spend 6-8 months picking up their collective hearts off the ground (1 will be celebrating for the same length of time), and then they will be forced to look ahead and map out their vision for the next world cup cycle. qualifying runs for 16-18 months. guys come in and out of the player pool, some bringing more hope with them than others. there is a good result that makes a fan believe a semifinal world cup result is possible. then the team will lose to haiti by five goals and it makes you wonder why you ever watched soccer in the first place.

for four years, you wait, you watch, you read and you agonize over what will eventually boil down to three group games that determine your fate as success or failure in the eyes of your adoring public. FOUR YEARS WORTH OF PROCESS, BOILED DOWN TO THREE EFFING GAMES. swallow that for just a second. and you wonder why these grown men ooze emotion out of their eye sockets every time the world feed slo-mo focuses in on them. the pressure is absolutely insane.

it magnifies mistakes to the point where colombian captains are killed for just one. it champions goals and victories in ways that super bowl or nba finals or world series victors will never be able to appreciate, because their accomplishments, while great, pale in comparison.

four years worth of process, boiled down to three effing games. four years and two games worth of process and tomorrow is all that matters. the result of the england and slovenia matches are now nothing more than a means to tomorrow's end. amazing. the anxiety for me, as a fan, is crippling. as a player, i could not fathom it.

my prediction? landon goes crazy and plays a role in scoring or assisting in two american goals. the us wins 3-1, possibly winning the group. landon will be the best player on the field. he must impose his will on the game early and often.  

i will be a wreck between 9 and 11 in the morning.

game on.