Part Two of a Series on Style in American Soccer

*As the U.S. National Team attempts to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, I will write a series of pieces concentrating on the style, or lack of it, of American soccer.

I watched the U.S.A vs. El Salvador qualifying match at a trucker bar seventy miles North of Los Angeles. Called Rusty’s or Rocky’s, it was the type of place that moved in blissful ignorance of the world around it. A family and a few burly men watched a Monster Truck Jam, playing on every TV in the place, with the same rapture that they licked barbeque sauce off their fingers.

“Aw man. One wheel! … Aw shit. That guy just won’t flip. Don’t matter.”

All this while one of the best games of the NCAA Elite Eight, Pittsburgh vs. Villanova, was coming down to the wire. No one in there cared. This was comforting in a way. Mainstream sports news had as little bearing as any other news. “Don’t Stop Believing” blared over crunching cars. I asked the bartender to switch one of the TV’s to the soccer game, but not to worry about turning on the sound because one of the two burly guys was carrying a pretty good tune a few octaves below Steve Perry, and I didn’t want to throw him off.

So I watched the game to a familiar Classic Rock soundtrack. The two burly guys took turns picking tunes on the jukebox. The one with longer hair and rougher hands actually made some pretty good selections: A lot of Rolling Stones, Credence, Yes …

Quintanilla buries a stunning goal into the bottom corner.

I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.

El Salvadorian fans bear their teeth and yell through a rocking fence.

The other burly guy, rounder and redder, picked a lot of glam rock and metal: Bowie, Poison, Guns n’ Roses. The soundtrack proved as predictable as any in any bar anywhere in America. But it was still an enjoyable way to watch the game. Instead of listening to Harkes wail on about all the mistakes the U.S. had to correct in the second half, I got Welcome to the Jungle!

It all got me thinking, could the U.S. National Team have a soundtrack, or a sound? Different games create different rhythms, but the instruments and spirit remain the same. I’m pretty sure Bill Simmons has proposed a similar game based on comparisons between sports teams and rock groups.

But by the time the first half ended, I didn’t think the U.S. had earned comparison to any of the bands that had played. Maybe Poison, I thought, for their predictable and straightforward songs. But even Poison has an underrated versatility, dipping into darker ballads and crunching through poppy rockers. And they play with such clear and piercing purpose that I thought the comparison would be doing them a disservice.

The U.S. didn’t play like Poison in the first half. Poison would have scored. The U.S. played scared, disjointed, devoid of ideas. Maybe like a late version of The Police, on the verge of breaking up.

More accurately, the band comparison didn’t work. Not just because I couldn’t describe the U.S. playing style with adjectives that would fit a good band, but mostly because the U.S. failed to impose its will, or its style, on the game at all, until about the 70th minute. At that point they started to possess the ball around the El Salvadorian 18-yard box. They played with more purpose, opening up the wings, and trying to combine their way to more shots on goal.

But for the majority of the game the U.S. were a will-less, punch-less group against one of the lower-rated teams in CONCACAF.

Yes, the U.S. showed their typical grit and determination to get back into the game. And they probably would have won if given ten more minutes. Also, El Salvador should be given credit for playing with so much determination, for surprising the American players with their speed and guile after so much talk about how they didn’t stand a chance.

Why does the U.S. so often fail to impose its will on weaker teams, especially away?

Many pundits have blamed Bradley.

Jamie Trecker writes in his blog on FoxSoccer.com: “You cannot blame [Bradley] for not being able to teach top-level tactics — because the guy clearly doesn’t know any. How would you, if the great majority of your time was spent in MLS? No slight on MLS or Bradley, but it’s unreasonable to expect someone to succeed when they don’t have the tools to do so … What the Americans need to progress is not a coach that ‘understands the American player,’ but a coach that understands what a team needs to do to succeed at the international level.”

I guess it would be nice to have an internationally qualified coach. But to blame Bradley for the performance against El Salvador seems short-sited and wrong.

I can’t come up with an apt musical comparison for the national team yet, but I do know that playing good soccer works via many of the same principles as making good music. To make good music takes talented musicians playing together, hitting the right notes at the right times. It takes individual creativity, and united purpose.

The coach can share some of the blame for any failure. Maybe he gave misguiding direction. Maybe he chose the wrong personnel. But simply blaming Bradley blinds us to the deeper problems of player talent and development in this country. Both suffer. And both hurt us, immensely.

But both are getting better. The players are out there, in the Los Angeles parks and the Mid-western suburbs. We simply need to find them and nurture their talents the right way.

I dream of the day when we can field a team of players that have personalities as rich and diverse as all our musical talents have. When we have players that spring from our many landscapes as organically as Blues or jazz or folk music did. When we have a Coltrane at right back. When we have a John Fogerty tying down the central defense. A Nas in central midfield controlling the tempo.

Thinking about my dream American musician lineup (Dylan and Stevie Ray Vaughn at outside midfield, B.B. King in net, Biggie and Miles Davis up front), I realize that we need to make it as easy for our soccer players to express themselves as our musicians.

Then we’ll see style. Then we’ll see willpower. Is this possible?

Then Hejduk scores the game-tying goal with a few minutes left to play. Hejduk, maybe the least talented guy on the field, is all willpower. Arms outstretched and pumping in celebration, hair flying, he’s somehow all style too. Some nineties grunge lead singer. Chris Cornell (Soundgarden)? Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains)?

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