A Joyfully Defiant U.S. Mens National Team Takes the Gold Cup
Okay, this happened a few days ago, but since nobody posted about it...USA 2 Jamaica 1.
The Gold Cup is not the most prestigious of soccer tournaments. The winner moves on to represent the CONCACAF region—countries from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean—at the quadrennial Confederations Cup, a dress rehearsal, of sorts, for the World Cup. For many countries, the Gold Cup is primarily an opportunity for coaches to observe young and fringe players in the hopes of strengthening their teams for the big show.
For the United States, however, this year’s tournament took on a little extra significance. Last November, the men’s national team struggled through the final round of World Cup qualifying, losing in heartbreaking fashion to Mexico and then getting thoroughly embarrassed a few days later by Costa Rica. That left the United States at the bottom of the region’s World Cup qualifying table. Coach Jürgen Klinsmann was fired, and replaced by Bruce Arena, whose largely unruffled disposition sits in contrast to a more excitable Klinsmann, and who coached the national team for several years in the late nineties and early two-thousands. Arena was supposed to restore the confidence of the American players, believed by many to have dwindled during Klinsmann’s bumpy tenure.
On Wednesday, in Santa Clara, California, the U.S. faced off against Jamaica in the Gold Cup final. The Jamaicans, dubbed the Reggae Boyz, were the tournament’s upstarts, advancing farther than anyone expected, thanks to talented youngsters and the magisterial performances of the goalkeeper Andre Blake. The match remained deadlocked for most of the first half, until the forty-fifth minute, when the veteran striker Jozy Altidore put the U.S. ahead on a free kick from about thirty yards out. Altidore, a longtime fixture on the national team, has struggled in recent years to make his mark in a major tournament, thanks to recurring hamstring injuries. But when the referee blew his whistle for the free kick, he steadied himself, took two steps toward the ball, and struck it with force and composure. The ball curled around a wall of four Jamaican defenders, ascending and bending toward the left side of the goal, and past the outstretched arms of Dwayne Miller, Jamaica’s backup goalkeeper. (Blake was taken off the field with an injured hand in the nineteenth minute of the game.) Altidore thumped the U.S. crest on the left side of his jersey.
Altidore, whose parents came to the United States from Haiti, is one of many sons of immigrants on the U.S. team. There’s Omar Gonzalez, whose parents are from Mexico; Matt Miazga, the son of Polish immigrants; Darlington Nagbe, born in Liberia; and Juan Agudelo, who was born in Colombia. Watching them celebrate, I thought of the kids I had seen the day before playing soccer at a park near my home, in Washington, D.C. Their foreheads glistened in the afternoon sun, their brown bodies moved with the raucous howl of their adolescent voices. With the promise of that pluralism seemingly under siege as of late, the rejoicing of the men’s team felt almost defiant.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/a-joyfully-defiant-us-mens-national-team-takes-the-gold-cup
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