Untwisting Reality

The United States in the 2014 World Cup

• By Poetry X
• 15 May, 2014
• 2 Comments

Once upon a time, far away, somewhere in a place in China. Two waring nations were fighting to the last man for holding power of the land. Suddenly, a blow of the sword took down the head of the general of one of the armies. The soldiers stopped fighting and started kicking the head around. And that ladies and gentlemen is the legend of the origin of what we call today around the world as football, and as it’s known here in the United States, soccer.

You know that old joke that “Americans don’t like soccer just because they are not good at it.” That statement is actually inaccurate and also sexist. It is sexist because when it comes to women’s soccer, the US women’s national team is ranked first in the world. The team has won one FIFA Women’s World Cup and four Olympic women’s gold medals. Those are 5 international championships-by far the US women soccer team is the most powerful team on the entire planet.

Also, the US men’s soccer team has done pretty well playing this sport internationally-it is ranked 13th in the world. The US belongs to CONCACAF federation, which is composed by the soccer federations of North America, Central America and the Caribbean islands. The US has been five times champion of CONCACAF Gold Cup, just one short of Mexico that leads the chart with six championships.

The best finish of the a US men’s soccer team in an international FIFA event was in the 2009 Confederations Cup. The Confederations Cup is an event that puts together the champions of all continental FIFA tournaments including the World Cup champion-those are eight teams. The US got to the semifinals to play against Spain which had qualified as the European champion. At the time, Spain was atop the FIFA World rankings and was on a run of 15 straight wins and 35 games undefeated. In those semifinals the US defeated Spain by 2–0. With the win, the US advanced to its first-ever final in a men’s FIFA tournament. So the US got face to face with Brazil, unfortunately the team lost 3–2 to Brazil, still a very good score and also, that was a very exciting game.

So now, let me tell you about the major sport event of the entire world, the FIFA world cup. For matter of simplicity, we are going to ignore the reports on human rights violations. The Brazilian government has been kicking people out of their homes to make room for the world cup visitors-because they don’t want give a bad impression to the tourists, you know.

The US has appeared in the last six FIFA World Cups and hosted the 1994 edition. The best performance for the US in a world cup was in the 1930 world cup celebrated in Uruguay, in South America. First of all, the US striker Bertrand Patenaude became the first player to score a hat-trick in the World Cup history. A hat-trick is when a player scores 3 goals in the same game and Bertrand Patenaude scored his goals in the match against Paraguay [wikipedia]. Keep in mind that FIFA made official this recognition just on November 10, 2006 because there are discrepancies on the records. However, the most important achievement of that world cup was the US got to the semi-finals and finished 3rd, which is the best position achieved by a CONCACAF team in the world cup, in fact, that is the best positions ever achieved by any team outside of South America or Europe. People may think Mexico is the team with the best performance, but as I just told you, the US has that tittle.

Currently, the Head coach the men’s US team is Jürgen Klinsmann a major German soccer star. Previously he was the head coach of the German national team and the coach of the prestigious german club Bayern Munich, so the US team is in good hands.

For this 2014 world cup, the US ended up in the G group, a very complicated group [Schedule]. The first task will be against Ghana, he US World Cup nemesis, The US has the blood in the eye with Ghana since in the last two world cups Ghana kicked the US out of the competition, in 2006 in a controversial match [youtube], and in the 2010 in extra time [youtube]. The next play will be against Portugal that has Cristiano Ronaldo who is considered from many the best soccer player on the world [youtube]. And just to make things even more fun for the US in the same group we have Germany, one of the most powerful teams of the world [youtube].

That is a very though group for the US, is that enough fun for the US? oh no, the group G also gives the US the toughest travel schedule of any of the teams in the tournament – over 9,000 miles, including a game against Portugal in the humidity of the Amazon.

So you can see this 2014 World Cup is a great challenge for the US national team, but as always the US is ready to take any challenge no matter how big it is. And also, the most important thing, soccer is beautiful art, not just a sport. So enjoy the game make sure you cheer for the USA.