I have a confession. I actually like watching the US men’s national soccer team. I know that is something that shouldn’t be said too loudly in some circles in the states, but I feel the buffer of the Atlantic ocean and my proximity to England has given me confidence to bring this out in public. Unfortunately, coverage of the men’s soccer team in US media is only slightly above the US men’s national rugby team. Did you know that there was a national rugby team in the US?
I have been surprised to learn that the BBC has televised some Confederations Cup games on the tele here. So I managed to catch the last half of the Italy match (ugh!) and the second half of the semi-final match versus Spain. The game was great to watch even if it fell into one of the two patterns of USA soccer:
- Fall behind early, look disorganized, and hope no more goals are given up.
- Get lucky and score first, collapse 9 men in the box and hope the other team can’t score.
To be fair, they executed #2 to perfection and even got lucky to poke in a second goal at the 74th minute. It should be noted that their 3-nil victory over Egypt came out of nowhere.
Good luck USA in your Confederations Cup final against Brazil or South Africa.
As an aside, I was only able to watch the second half of the matches because the games were played on Mon. or Wed. and I was at Welsh class. But tonight was the last Welsh class of the year. I passed! (Of course if there were grades I may not have.)
