Brazil proves U.S. team still has a long way to go
Too bad Brazil doesn't have an NFL team.
Because as long as the game is what Brazilians call "futebol" instead of what the rest of the world calls "American football," the United States still doesn't stand a chance.
Sunday's match between the two was billed as the "Clash of Champions," but it ended the same way all but one of 13 previous meetings dating to 1930 has, this time by a 4-2 score.
"You just saw the best 18 athletes in Brazil, probably, playing," U.S. striker Landon Donovan said. "We might have Nos. 75 through 100 of the best athletes in America, if even that. The others are playing other sports."
Large as that gap remains at the moment, it's hardly the largest one.
The U.S. national team doesn't get outhustled or outmuscled by the top teams anymore, and the program has done an even more impressive job of closing the experience gap. Fourteen of the 19 players on coach Bob Bradley's squad are holding down jobs with top-division clubs in England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany -- though not even one could displace anybody on Brazil's bench.
The problem isn't fan support, either.
On a sun-splashed afternoon, with the Bears opening the NFL season at San Diego, a loud crowd of 43,543 turned out at Soldier Field. But it was telling that there were still plenty more yellow jerseys than red, white and blue ones sprinkled among the stands, and that more than a few TVs in the concourses remained tuned to the Bears.
"They are on the right path," Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho said the day before the game, "and I believe in the future, it's a country that's going to have a soccer with a very high level."
If all you see are the highlights from this one, it's easy to believe the United States is close. The Americans notched the game's first goal when defender Carlos Bocanegra bundled the ball from a corner kick off his chest and into the net. And the score was 2-2 as late as the 73rd minute when Clint Dempsey, Bocanegra's teammate at Fulham in the English Premier League, deftly one-timed a short pass from teammate Steve Cherundolo into the far corner of the net.
What the highlights won't show, though, was how much more skilled every Brazilian was than his American counterpart. Or how they instinctively moved without the ball to create space and routinely strung together series of short, intricate passes to play their way out of tight spots or create chances close to the goal.
What they share is a common purpose, a swiftness of thought and imagination that comes from generation after generation playing one game -- and only that game.
"It's a little bit like the shell game, where they just keep moving things around, and they wait for you to go for the wrong shell and then they run through," Bradley said, not hiding his admiration.
The U.S. team has come a long way in a short time, bolstered by funds and the marketing muscle of the shoe companies, and participation numbers at the youth level outstripping any sport save basketball. Since the 1994 World Cup on these shores, the U.S. team has shot up the charts to its current ranking of 17th, and it's probably even better than that.
But no one inside the program is kidding themselves about how much further it has to go. Asked when the United States might develop a player with the touch and creativity of Ronaldinho, the two-time FIFA player of the year who runs Brazil's shell game from his midfield position, a wide smile creased Bradley's lips.
"The $64 billion question," he said.