Phil West - I Believe That We Will Win: The Path to a US Mens World Cup Victory

This edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2018

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ISBN 978-1-4683-1520-2

I BELIEVE THAT
WE WILL WIN

THE PATH TO A US MENS
WORLD CUP VICTORY

PHIL WEST

With 11 color photographs

A mericans love to win. But when it comes to soccer, the worlds most popular sport, the US womens team has delivered three World Cup victories in as many decades, while the men have not advanced past the quarterfinals in nearly ninety years. In October 2017, the US mens National Team (USMNT) startled fans by failing to qualify for the upcoming World Cup, an episode that led both the USMNT head coach and US Soccer Federation President to step down from their positions and which launched a new era of reckoning for US Soccer as a whole. As the 2018 World Cup begins with the US sidelined, fans are becoming impatient: What will it take for the USMNT to finally rise to an elite level and bring home the FIFA World Cup Trophy?

In I Believe That We Will Win, veteran soccer journalist Phil West delivers a compelling assessment of the history and future potential of American soccer on the international playing field. With insightful commentary and endless enthusiasm, West examines every aspect of the USMNT and their competition, detailing how the US returned to the World Cup in 1990 after forty years, delving into the growing symbiotic relationship between the USMNT and Major League Soccer, and exploring how the US is cultivating young talent through MLS academies and the US Development Academyand how Latino outreach initiatives can be better integrated into US soccers quest for talented players. Along the way, West touches on the controversial tenure of former coach Jrgen Klinsmann, the role of dual-national players, Christian Pulisic and the new wave of American players playing abroad, and other issues that have engaged American soccer fans in spirited debate.

Punctuated with dozens of revealing interviews from players, coaches, and journalists, I Believe That We Will Win is both the definitive history of American World Cup play and an incisive and inspiring analysis of Americas potential to win big in the near future.

To Emmeline, Lucas, and Noah,
my first and foremost hopes for the future

A MERICAN SOCCER FANS WOKE UP ON O CTOBER 10, 2017, FEELING CONFIDENT and expecting to clinch an eighth straight trip to a World Cup. They went to bed that night reeling from what will go down in the annals of American soccer as a Day of Infamy.

It hadnt been an easy qualifying campaign, as opening November 2016 losses to Mexico and Costa Rica left the Americans in very real danger of missing out on the global tournament for the first time since 1986. In the ten months that followed, the United States Mens National Team (USMNT) won and drew enough to stay in contention, though they reaped two unfortunate outcomes in September 2017a 20 loss in New Jerseys Red Bull Arena to Costa Rica, followed by a 11 draw in Honduras. This left the US fourth in the six-team competition to determine which three teams would automatically advance to the 2018 FIFA World Cup to represent CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football), the federation of forty soccer-playing nations founded in 1961. With only the Mexican team clinching a CONCACAF berth by September, the two international dates in October would determine who else would go on to the Russia-hosted World Cup and who would stay home.

In their penultimate qualifying match, against Panama in Orlando, the US won 40 and looked every part the cohesive team that could go deep into a World Cup, let alone qualify for one. The team then traveled to Trinidad & Tobago for the final qualifying match, playing before a mere 1,500 fans (including a small-but-spirited contingent of Americans) in the 10,000-seat Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva.

A win over Trinidad & Tobago, most everyones expected outcome, would send the USMNT on to Russia. Even a draw would sufficein part because the US had padded its goal differential with the Panama win and by overwhelming Honduras 60 earlier in the campaign. Even a loss, in almost every configuration, would have allowed the Americans a pathway to at least the November home-and-away playoff against Australia, the Asian Football Confederations fifth-place team.

ESPNs SPI (Soccer Power Index), defined by the sports media giant as an international and club rating system designed to be the best possible representation of a teams current overall skill level,

The stray 7 percent chance of not qualifying was bound up in an unlikely but still possible scenario: Panama beating Costa Rica and Honduras beating Mexico, coupled with a US loss against Trinidad & Tobago. (Given the latter two teams relative strengths, that outcome would be considered more a collapse than a loss.)

The first domino fell relatively earlyand, unexpectedly, in Couva. In the seventeenth minute, USMNT defender Omar Gonzalez attempted to clear a crosspresumably over his teams goal linebut it looped sickeningly upward, in a parabola that arced over goalkeeper Tim Howard and behind him for an own goal. Twenty minutes later, Trinidadian right-back Alvin Jones sent a speculative shot from nearly thirty yards out, and it swerved and arced past Howard to double the lead.

Then, the rest of the awful equation began to lock into place.

Honduras came back from a 21 deficit in its game, outlasting Mexico 32. Hondurass goals came from Alberth Elis and Romell Quioto, who are key offensive players for the Houston Dynamo (of Major League Soccer (MLS), the United States and Canadas top-tier soccer league), as well as from a bizarre own-goal sequence in which a Honduras shot caromed off the crossbar, hit Mexican goalkeeper Memo Ochoas head, and bounced in.

The Panama/Costa Rica match provided even more drama. Panamas equalizing fifty-third-minute goal came on a corner kick in which veteran striker (and notorious agitator) Blas Prez, formerly of MLSs FC Dallas, fell near the ball and nudged it with his shoulder (or, illegally, his arm) toward goal. Replays clearly showed that the ball never crossed the line, but the goal was controversially counted all the same.

These matches played out simultaneously; by the time Panama had equalized in its match, the US had just crawled halfway back from its unexpected 20 first half deficit with a forty-seventh-minute goal by Christian Pulisic. A second US goal bringing the match to a tie would automatically send the team to the World Cup even if Panama scored five more times.

But if the US didnt score again, Panama could fulfill its own World Cup dreams with just a single goal. In the eighty-eighth minute, Panamanian defender and MLS player Romn Torres scored, and in the ensuing moments, the sick, sinking realization of defeat descended like a fog over the American fans in Couva and across the US, as the end of regular time gave way to five futile and fruitless stoppage-time minutes.

Ten months after leading his Seattle Sounders FC to its first MLS Cup win, Torres had lifted Panama into its first World Cup appearance, taking the third and final automatic qualifiers spot. Honduras, by virtue of its win, secured fourth place and an intercontinental playoff date with Australia it would eventually end up losing. The US wouldnt even get that opportunity; it was definitively and shockingly locked out of the World Cup for at least the next five years.