We interrupt the usual MFUSA weekend radio silence for a discussion about the importance of a friendly.
Specifically, we're talking about the USMNT's upcoming friendly in Amsterdam, where they'll take on the number three ranked team in the world. Bob Bradley has called in what appears to be the strongest side he can, and while the injuries keeping out two of his best players likely to be in the World Cup team (Clint Dempsey and Oguchi Onyewu) put the Americans twenty percent short of their potential, it will be their first full "A" squad test in 2010. It has meaning and import, both as a World Cup preparation exercise (i.e. for player evaluation) as well as for the greater confidence of the team.
But does it mean more than that? Does the US need a strong performance, perhaps even a win or a draw, to validate themselves in the eyes of the footballing world?
Nigel Reed seems to think so, as evidenced by his piece today on the Canadian Broadcasting Company's website. Forget for a moment the irony of a piece on a Canadian site opining on the need for the United States to prove a point in Amsterdam (okay, so that was a cheap shot, and I think Reed is actually English); even if Reed was writing for an American outlet, I would still have the same response:
No, Nigel, they don't need the validation.
Beating or drawing against the Dutch would be a wonderful, wonderful, thing, and I obviously hope it happens. We would all feel much better about the US chances moving on towards June (with the two May friendlies still to come) if they could beat a top-ranked team on their home soil. The Americans rarely play well in Europe, as evidenced by the most recent trip there in November, where they fell to both the Danish and the Slovaks with mixed A-B sides.
But getting a result in Amsterdam is important only for the here and now, not to prove a point to the everyone else. This isn't some insular "who cares what they think?" typical American attitude, it's pragmatism; if the USMNT starts worrying about what everyone thinks when they play, they're not focusing in the proper direction. They should win for themselves, because they're competitive athletes win the drive to do so, not because it matters what the rest of the world thinks.
Validation from external sources is only important if it brings with it some tangible gain; beating the Dutch is about the Americans, their confidence, and proving to themselves that they're good enough to go to South Africa and do well. If they lose, it doesn't matter that nations with longer and richer soccer histories will still discount them, because that ignominy plays no part in how then can, and will, play come June.
Despite what you may have heard, the outcome of a soccer match is not dependent on the reputations of the teams involved. Brazil doesn't win because they always have, they win because they're good. Spain won't land on African soil as one of the heavy favorites because they have a history of performing well on the biggest stage (they don't), but because they're good. If the United States is to advance from their group, perhaps move on to the quarterfinals, or god forbid go even farther, it will be because they are good enough to do so, not because they've earned the respect of some unnamed arbitrators of such things by beating the Netherlands in March.
The win? Needed, as wins always are. The validation? Not so much, because those things take care of themselves. Do well when you need to, and people will respect you; but that respect means nothing aside from the warm and fuzzies it brings, or the small individual effect it could have on Americans on the club level. I'm certain that much of the world respect, fears, and takes England seriously. That's all very nice, but it will do nothing to help them win games. Fabio Capello knows that. The players know that. Even the fans know that, despite the amount of pride it brings to crow that everyone thinks they're very good. Respect gets you nowhere when another team of eleven men with their own hopes of victory are lined up across from you.
The Americans know all that as well. I can't imagine that as a group they give any thought to their reputation abroad; they may hope for personal validation, because that relates directly to their own career success, but when Bob Bradley is lining them up for training on Wednesday, not a single one of them is thinking, "We need to win this game so the world will take us seriously."
Nigel Reed says the United States needs to send a message on Wednesday. I respond by politely saying they need to win, but not for the message it sends.
