Get Up Kids
6/23/2010 – USA 1, Algeria 0 – 1-0-2, 5 points, top of Group A
(via omg yanks)
When you're a sportsblogger and your fiancé is getting her PhD in a humanities field, you spend a lot of time explaining yourself. (She doesn't because a few years ago the explanation became "it seemed like a good idea at the time," which fair enough.) After the beer flew and the rage subsided against Slovenia, I was asked to explain what the hell it was with me and the USMNT, and I thought about it systematically for the first time.
My first attempt to explain was jingoistic. I like the United States and would like to root for some sort of national ideal. The Olympics are far from sufficing because they don't seem fair or competitive. Hey, we grew this Michael Phelps guy in a lab, let's see how badly he can crush humans without flippers. Etc. The national team is good, but not so good that rooting for them feels like ugly Americanism.
That was kind of right, but missing the important thing. When Dodgy At Best put out an Algeria preview, his bolded section headers read "Karma," "Revenge," "Hope," "Fortune," and "Fate." Because I am who I am mine were "stop Nadir Belhadj" and "get a lot of set pieces"; DAB got it right, and I got it wrong. I can break down a football game all day. Basketball is given over to tempo-free numbers. Baseball could be played between computers these days and no one would notice. If you are so inclined, you can delve into the details of any and reject the narratives people layer on top of them because randomness can't happen and everything must have meaning. The analysis will be better and smarter but the experience a little poorer.
Soccer defies that. It is opera on a field. Not the Italian variety where a series of humorous misunderstandings yield mildly sexy results, but German opera—Klingon opera. Plenty of tridents. Sheets of rain. Thunderbolts cascading from the sky. In the background armies march through the mud, toward each other. Patterns converge in a rumble, pressure building until it's unbearable and someone falls over, a spear jutting out from his breastplate.
I don't have any critique in me any more. Jonathan Bornstein started a World Cup game and that's fine. The US went up and down the field and didn't shut down space in the midfield and didn't finish and had everyone in bars across the country three minutes from crumpling into the sort of heap that national manias are born from. A typical example will transpire later today when Serbia tries to shake off old Yugoslav demons:
Perhaps some of the Europeans there – certainly the French journalist opposite – were driven by anti-German feeling, perhaps some were instinctive Slavophiles, but when the three locals at the MTN (South Africa-based mobile telecommunications company) desk reacted to the final whistle with a group hug and collective dance, the appeal of Serbia's inner turmoil becomes difficult to deny. Unless they'd had a bet, I suppose, but when asked one said he'd decided to support Serbia because "they seemed to be trying to lose".
English journalist Simon Kuper dedicated a good chunk of his most recent book to explaining the English fatalism towards their team, one that echoes the national narrative of empire lost. It's so cliché that multiple books have been written about it, including Kuper's earlier, excellent "Football against the Enemy," but it's true: soccer does reflect the national culture, mostly because people want it to and no one can stop its narrative by dissecting it.
The USA's narrative has been bootstraps. College kids rescuing the program, batty goalies with an American flag fetish, Paul Caliguri, and so on. Tom Friend just published a lengthy story on USA 1990 third-string goalie David Vanole that's veritably dripping with half-truths dedicated to shaping that narrative. The USMNT is the 1980 hockey team spread over twenty years, because that's the way we want it.
We don't roll around on the ground. If we fall over, we probably just fell over. We run and and run and run, and late, when everything is stacked against us in a game where it's just so hard to finish the job, we do it Puritan style: ugly effort. A minute into stoppage time, the ball's just lying there and it's all about who will get there first.
This is the best piece you've written in months. This isn't a critque, merely an enaboling of the love that you have for the Nats. When Donovan placed that ball perfectly I kissed several humans of both sexes, picked up my lady friend and then almost dropped her, despite her weighing about 110 pounds. The Nats got what they deserve, going through. With two brilliant goals disallowed and the mounting pressure of 310 million people waiting to see what happens Landon Donovan delivered.
Amber waves of grain and all that shit. Today, to be an American is great.
Also, yesterday I was wearing a Get Up Kids t-shirt from circa 2001:
"In the sky, there is the moon
A large yellow circle
finds her in the mood
but in her eyes I can see it all
short plaid skirt
white short short sleeve shirt
My dreams aren't premonitions
cause I'm dreamin of....
impossible, impossible outcomes
I've tried to understand, but I don't understand
empty sign posts, seen through large windows
late one fall afternoon
after school, in the cool suburban breeze of Louisville.
unaffordable.
unavoidable.
It's inevitable.
our eyes, hearts, words are evidence
My dreams aren't premonitions
cause I'm dreamin of....
impossible, impossible outcomes"
That's off of Eudora, so it is probably a cover. DO. NOT. CARE.
that picture of donovan at the end says it all. finally, after 91+ frustrating minutes, the hero was in the right place at the right time, through sheer hard work and determination... and of course talent doesn't hurt. USA!!!
is my new wallpaper
Also: the URL for this is "get-kids," which creepy.
I swore off soccer 8 times, shit my self 5 times, had 2 minor strokes, and got to see 1 hell of a goal that made me believe in God. Ricky Stanzi smiles today, USA USA USA!
I am sitting in my office right now and the only thing i can think of is a gigantic pale ale meeting my lips....on a side note seems as if Rafik Saifi has been hanging out with fat boy slim too much.
Holy God how disgusting:
Don't you mean The Prodigy?
Brian, congrats on the engagement. I don't mean to be a dick, but the female version is fiancée. I recently learned that the hard way.
What exactly is the hard way? I hope no one was injured.
Well, along with the words being spelled differently, they are apparently pronounced differently as well. A male in Ann Arbor doesn't get corrected when they talk about their fiancé. People just go with the flow until you mention "she" or "her".
Likewise, congrats!
But I always though the female version was "finance".
I've been watching the coverage off and on, and had a revelation. I now get what the rest of the world sees in soccer.
As a typical American, I agreed with the viewpoint that "There's no scoring, therefore it's a dumb/slow/stupid game." Then I watched New Zealand score in stoppage time. The realization was this: because there's little scoring, almost every game is in contention the whole time, and the winning/tying goal can come at any time.
The ties are a result of the FIFA round-robin system, and not a fault of the game. If the teams were rewarded more for wins, there would be more offense. As it is, they are punished for losing, so most teams just play to tie and not lose.
It is most similar to hockey, another fringe American sport, but hockey has enough scoring that most games can be won or lost, and the one-goal differential doesn't happen as often. Our local sports guy made the point eloquently when he said about the 7-0 game "It's like 49-0 in football!"
Obviously there's no equivalent to a field goal or safety, but in general, yeah. Soccer at this level is somewhat like, well, Big Ten football in November. A 1-1 match could be a 16-7 squeaker; 4-0 is that 34-3 win where you wonder why the hell they bothered to kick the field goal. (Unless the spread was 32.) 5-3 is one of those crazy 38-30 games where you wonder what would have happened if the other team had found the end zone more often.
I also swore off hockey a few times that game. I think the announcers summed it up quite well, as just a couple of minutes before the goal they mentioned how the team that clearly played better will likely go home winless. Once in a while you can say that about other sports, but because of the infrequent scoring in soccer (and hockey to a slightly lesser extent) such an unfortunate outcome happens way more often than in most sports.
Then we scored, and the anxiety and anger was worth it.
There was supposedly more incentive for wins... three points. Changed from two points for a win starting in 1994.
Yes, teams deserved to get punished for losing.
Great piece of writing punctuated very well by that photo of Donovan. Way to nail why soccer is a sport worthy of following and why it becomes such a collective obsession for much of the world, even for many Americans 1 month every 4 years:
Soccer defies that. It is opera on a field. Not the Italian variety where a series of humorous misunderstandings yield mildly sexy results, but German opera—Klingon opera. Plenty of tridents. Sheets of rain. Thunderbolts cascading from the sky. In the background armies march through the mud, toward each other. Patterns converge in a rumble, pressure building until it's unbearable and someone falls over, a spear jutting out from his breastplate.
I loved the German opera line. Thanks for that, I really enjoy your take on the different feeling emotion of a soccer game vs american sports because so little is written and it is so different. There is something about the ceaseless progression of the clock that leaves me in pieces. Great piece.
...where it's just so hard to finish the job, we do it Puritan style: ugly effort.
I just finished the Baroque Cycle, and this made me LOL.
"America: Doin' It Puritan Style" should be Stanzi's new campaign slogan.
and so I read this article half-heartedly looking for a shout-out to a pretty good band from a few years back.
And, in the Crazy Coincidence category-- my iPod kicked off the morning commute today with "I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel," the unanimously best Pee-Wee Herman-influenced song title ever. And it's even good.
i thought the same exact thing. get up kids --> anne arbour --> mgoblog (even if this is not UM related).
I was reading/waiting/hoping for a reference to TGUK. Are you aware that they've released a new EP? It's quite good.
it made me jump out of the couch...im hope i dont have another injury, since i have an MRI sceduled for tomorrow morning
As I said in another thread, the announcer on the Canadian feed got it right, and uttered (or yelled with extreme excitement, either way) one of my new favorite sayings, for like, everything in life:
"From hope, there is glory!"
it is an obsession....
it is truely a beautiful game....
i dont know what i can say that hasnt been said, those boys, damn, what an effort, what joy, and finally rewarded for that hard work .... they get there glory, our country gets our glory
as i mentioned in an early thread, i wept in Charlies' today waving my revolutionary era war flag around while hugging and kissing other college men i didnt know ... i couldnt be more proud
I enjoyed watching it at the Jug. Good feeling of community, especially as the waiter cursed out the referee.
I watched the game from a base in Iraq and it definitely made my week. And from the cheers of the rest of the soldiers/sailors/airmen/civilians/contractors here I wasn't the only one.
I was standing up pretty much the entire game and have to hand it to President Clinton for remaining so collected, even when the president of FIFA, Sepp Bladder, is sitting next to him. I am pretty sure I would've said 'not very nice things' to Mr Bladder after the first goal that was called back...
Good job USMNT and nice post Brian
I thought i saw him offer Bladder a cigar, not sure if it might be 'that' cigar, but.......
Excellent work, as always Brian. Thanks for sharing your USNMT passion with us
I'm still juiced from that game, holy hell.
Two questions about the pile of joy afterwards:
1) Who are the dudes in the FIFA vests? Were assistants, water boys, equipment managers joining in the celebration? Because if so, awesome.
2) When Jozy jumped on top of the already-large pile, did you not fear we'd have our second, third, fourth, etc. set of broken ribs?
Peace
Ty
Also: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
fifa vests = U.S. bench players
The FIFA vests are worn by every team's substitute players... and camera men.
I though Demerit's flip on top of the pile was excellent.
To the, "baseball could probably get played by computers and no one would notice". So true.
U-S-A!!!!!!
Just look at the Tiger's pitching staff in the last two weeks to throw that notion out the window. Galarraga throws a perfect game after not making the team three months earlier and then Verlander gets blasted for an ERA of 22 last night. There's an art and beauty to baseball too, no need to bring it down to build up soccer.
I've tried to like soccer before and failed for all the reasons people state, but mostly because I lacked the patience to understand something new without having someone available to explain it to me.
I get it now. The first full game I watched was the game against England a couple of weeks ago and I jumped up when we scored. I'm super bummed that I didn't get to watch this game but had it on game tracker which is something I never do for anything but football (which isn't a problem).
Anyway, I'm not going to pretend that I'm a soccer guy, but I do look forward to watching our next game. Tivo will be deployed if necessary.
That is awesome to read. This game meant a lot for so many reasons. After failing to do well in 2006, I truly thought that this tournament has a chance to prove our legitimacy to the casual U.S. sports fan in a more profound way that maybe 2002 did for us or even the 1994 World Cup here in our own backyard. And this was the type of story that Americans love. A gritty effort that results in a last minute victory to give us not only the win in this game, but we're also overall group winners (the first time since 1930 a U.S. team has done that).
IMO this win was big on multiple levels. Hopefully we can continue to progress and win more of us over.
Just...brilliant
While watching the USA-Canada hockey game at the olympics (the group stage one), I turned to the Quadz-wife and said, "y'know, everything else being equal, it's fun to root for the hungry kids that like each other over the high paid veterans".
So far, the World Cup has been like that game spread out over two solid weeks. We won the group with 3 studs, 2 guys we stole from Mexico, and a bunch of Joes toiling away at second tier European clubs and MLS!!!
the are watching USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1
USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1
USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1USA#1
cuz, nun of us be paylin attention if da US of A weren't there.
that is all.
That goal seemed awfully similar to Brendan Morrison's 1996 championship winner. Not quite the same thing with the stakes, but the play really had the same action of the great chance, the shot to keep it alive followed by the puck/ball just sitting there to be claimed for the clinching goal.
Amazingly, I couldn't find the Morrison clip on YouTube.
I feel the same way about the Olymics or "The World Series!". This is different.
This was a great win.
Still, that Algerian goalie made one a hell of a stop on that attack, but unfortunately had zero help. You knew Algeria was already in a mess of trouble the second the video clip began - 6 Algerian players way over on the other side of the pitch. Even with their shot on goal, they looked exhausted and the US team looked fast.
The hero of that goal? IMO it was the USA's goalie who quickly launched the ball to the other end a split second after the save.
...distribution was exactly the reason why that goal was possible. Read this great article on Howard's pinpoint outlet throw.
Any farther, Howard would have had to kick it. And a kick wouldn't have been nearly so accurate. A kick would have left a tougher bounce for Donovan to control. A kick would have given more time for the Algerian defense to react.
A kick wouldn't have worked.
The U.S. team is still in this World Cup only because of that throw -- only because a keeper with a good arm miraculously found himself with a great one, just when he needed it most.
anyone have the breakdown of who we will play next, based on today's results? hoping not to play the germans. what are the permutations?
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