By Nathaniel E. Baker, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- In 1998, U.S. Soccer drafted a $50 million development plan with one goal: to make the men's national team a legitimate threat to capture a World Cup. Its target date for the project? 2010.
The World Cup in South Africa is less than two months away, and few sane people would put the U.S. on their shortlist of contenders. But that's perfectly fine with Dan Gaspar, head men's soccer coach at the University of Hartford and one of the people who helped draft what became known as Project 2010.
"When Carlos Queiroz and I were hired as consultants [on Project 2010], the first thing we did was change the objective," says Gaspar, a longtime assistant to Queiroz, including in the latter's current role as head coach of the Portuguese national team. "The objective now -- what it should be -- is to be in a position to compete in the World Cup."
To Gaspar this subtle difference reveals a lot about U.S. attitudes toward sports. "Countries such as Argentina, Italy and Brazil don't have the audacity to say, 'We're going to win the World Cup in 2010.' There's too many variables, some of which we're not in control of, to determine that kind of destiny."
Indeed, only seven countries have won the World Cup in the tournament's 80-year history: The trio Gaspar mentioned, plus France, Germany, England and Uruguay.
Often the best team doesn't win; some of the most storied teams in the game's history have come up empty, including the Dutch teams of the late 1970s and the French sides of the early 1980s. The Netherlands has never won, in fact; nor has fellow traditional power Spain. England (which invented the game, or at least codified it) and France were only able to win as hosts. Only one country, Brazil, has won a tournament played outside its home continent.
Fortunately, nobody today is expecting the U.S. to win the World Cup in 2010. Soccer has come a long way stateside, but it hasn't come that far. Yet Gaspar and other observers say the U.S. team is right on schedule, positioned for success at this year's World Cup.
Defining success
The question, then, becomes how to define success. Advancing out of the group stage? A quarterfinal berth? Semifinals? As inflated as it might sound, not even the last possibility is outside the realm of possibility. The U.S. made the quarterfinals in 2002, the same year Turkey and South Korea saw semifinal action. Other teams of the Americans' caliber have made the semifinals: Croatia in 1998, Sweden and Bulgaria in 1994.
'Years ago there was absolutely no respect for our U.S. national team. Now, if they don't respect us, they get humiliated.'
Dan Gaspar
The pieces are all in place. The U.S. team was drawn into a group, with England, Slovenia and Algeria, considered one of the weakest in the field. The team's key players -- goalkeeper Tim Howard, midfielder Landon Donovan and forward Clint Dempsey -- are in their prime. Virtually all the starters now earn paychecks in European leagues, where the high standard of play toughens them. And a year ago this June the team proved it can compete with the very best national teams in the world, defeating Spain and playing Brazil to the letter (at least for about 70 minutes) in the Confederations Cup.
But the margin for error is thin. The U.S. lacks the depth of the top-tier teams. Its fortunes are very much tied to Donovan, its 28-year-old de facto playmaker. Donovan is in fine form, having just completed a three-month loan spell with top-flight English Premiership team Everton, where he performed well, but the variables could change in short order.
"Teams that rely heavily on one player, and the U.S. does ... should he get injured, should he get red carded, should whatever, they're not so deep to be able to compensate," says Paul Gardner, an English soccer writer who has covered eight World Cups.
Tough opposition
England, the U.S.'s first opponent, on June 12, could probably replace any of its starters -- with one exception: striker Wayne Rooney.
"England's problem is strikers -- strikers who can win the games," said Hans Backe, who was the assistant to Sven-Goran Ericksson when he was the head coach of the English national team and is currently the head coach of the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer. "They have to hope that Rooney stays fit because they don't have that many other options."
Backe sees the schedule in the Americans' favor. "It's rather good for the U.S. to start versus England because no team, even the big teams, want to lose the first one. They're happy to pick up a point [with a draw] the first and then they go for the second or third game."
Familiarity with the English game, "its pace, its physical traits," is another advantage, said Backe. "The U.S. seems to be well-organized. I'm not surprised if it gets a tie [against England]. I'm not sure they can win."
Six days after the opener, the U.S. faces Slovenia, a country smaller than all but 48 of 50 U.S. states and one that has only appeared in one World Cup, in 2002, since its 1991 secession from what was then Yugoslavia. But the Slovenes are viewed as a dangerous side that matches up well with the U.S. "A lot of people look at Slovenia and say, 'There's three points,' but I wouldn't be so sure," says Jack Bell, a soccer writer at the New York Times.
Even the most passionate U.S. soccer nut is unlikely to be able to name any of Slovenia's players. Virtually all of them play outside their home country, though few compete for clubs Americans would be familiar with. The one exception, 19-year-old Rene Krhin, is buried deep on the bench at Italian powerhouse Inter Milan and will probably not see much time in South Africa, if he makes the national team at all.
Reuters
U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard celebrates after an October 2009 qualifier against Costa Rica.
Despite the dearth of big names, Slovenia is well-respected in the international soccer community. "Slovenia did well in Europe in the qualification -- they surprised everyone," Backe said. The team was drawn into a qualifying group with Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Northern Ireland, Poland and San Marino and finished second with a 6-2-2 record. It then upset Russia in a two-game playoff.
The team's strikers could give American defenders fits. Milvoje Novakovic is a prolific goal scorer for his club team, Germany's FC Cologne, with 51 goals in 108 appearances. Zlatko Dedic, who plays for another German club, Bochum, was instrumental in Slovenia's upset of Russia, scoring the winning goal in the return leg. Twenty-three-year-old Valter Birsa starts for Auxerre, currently second in France's Ligue Un.
Algeria, the Americans' fourth and final opponent, is a bit of a mystery to most. Known as "Les Fennecs" (the desert foxes), the team won a contentious and sometimes violent playoff against archrivals Egypt to qualify for South Africa. The two teams met again in the semifinals of this year's African Cup of Nations. Egypt won the rematch 4-0 but not before three Algerian players were red carded and sent off. No less an authority than England coach Fabio Capello has called Algeria "the most dangerous side in our group," according to the Daily Mirror.
The opinion is not shared on the U.S.'s side of the Atlantic. "They always do well in Africa, but when they go to the World Cup it seems they don't really get the success," Backe said of the Fennecs. "I don't really know why. Technically they are excellent, but I just have a feeling they are in a way not good enough."
"Algeria should be a slam dunk [for the U.S.]," said Bell. "On paper, everybody is looking at this as three points."
Advancing guesses
After that, it's anybody's guess, though a look at the elimination-round draw -- should the U.S. qualify -- indicates a deep run will likely require winning the group. The second-placed team in the Americans' Group C faces the winner of Group D, which is composed of Germany, Serbia, Australia and Ghana.
"It seems to me that if they finish second in their group they probably play Germany," said Gardner. "That will be difficult. I wouldn't see them getting past that."
Germany was the Americans' quarterfinal opponent in 2002. The game was very close, with a first-half goal from Michael Ballack the only thing separating the two teams.
By defeating Portugal in group play and Mexico in the round of 16, the U.S. showed it had arrived as a soccer nation to be taken seriously -- eight years ahead of Gaspar and Quieroz's schedule. The team's disappointing performance in 2006, when it failed to advance out of a very tough group, was a setback that should prove to have been temporary. Nobody, not even Brazil, looks past the U.S. anymore. Win, lose or draw, the U.S. national soccer team is in a position to compete at the game's highest level. The amended vision of Project 2010 has been realized.
"We've grown tremendously," says Gaspar. "We've taken some tremendous leaps. Years ago there was absolutely no respect for our U.S. national team. Now, if they don't respect us, they get humiliated. ... You have to respect the U.S. national team."
Nathaniel E. Baker is the editor of AmericanSoccerNews.net
For U.S. team, World Cup success is hard to define - MarketWatch
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