Soccer featured prominently on U.S. television on Sunday afternoon, as a high-profile tripleheader was shown over two channels. At 3:00, a second-string U.S. national team battled Mexico in the Gold Cup final on Fox Soccer Channel, while ESPN then showed the last two games of the inaugural World Football Challenge, featuring the Milan derby at 5:00 and Chelsea-Club America at 7:00. I probably wouldn't have moved from my couch once all afternoon, except I had scored sweet tickets to the AC-Inter game a couple months ago, planning to watch the others afterwards. While your final opinion of the games probably depends on your loyalties, the coverage afforded to each game clearly shows the priorities of American viewers, and it shows some worrying trends for the immediate future of American interest.
By now, you've undoubtedly read about the drubbing the USA got at the hands of Mexico in the Gold Cup final, and the media reports pretty much tell you the whole story. With young prospects like these, it's often pretty simple. Up until the final, their superior talent had sufficed for winning games, albeit often while getting their act together at the last opportunity. But of course, when you face strong competition like Mexico, you can't simply rest on a good pedigree,
you also have to play cohesively and incisively. As the USA practically refused to take the chances offered, Mexico finally converted a 57' penalty to blow the gates of U.S. inexperience wide open. As they say, the rest is history.
The media absolutely should be this critical anytime the USA loses, and especially so when they lose this comprehensively, but not everything is as bad as this Gold Cup indicates. Most obviously, the final showcased the future stars of such superclubs as Arsenal, Tottenham, and Villareal... playing for Mexico, against the "finest" of the New England Revolution and Columbus Crew. This was our second-string squad, did we really expect anything different? Giovani dos Santos grew up at Barcelona, what the hell is Jay Heaps supposed to do to him?
A win (or not losing by 5 goals, for that matter) would have been nice, but the USA did what it intended in this tournament: evaluated the prospects of the team's future leaders. Stuart Holden's dynamic play and Troy Perkins' solid positioning indicate their bright futures, and judging by Holden's post-game tears, these guys are now committed to working even harder for the cause. Kyle Beckerman continues to imitate Xavi, able at this level to totally control a game's pace and unlock defenses. Meanwhile, Logan Pause hasn't demonstrated any reason to be on the field, while Robbie Rogers knows that he may want to find some sort of killer instinct or, you know, crossing ability whatsoever. We may have lost humiliatingly, and this blowout certainly restokes the rivalry, but it's not like the U.S. National Team suddenly took a giant step backwards.
At 5:00 was the Inter Milan - AC Milan clash, where I sat with 3 of my buddies in some great second tier seats. Even though the game and its crowd got strangely stale occasionally, the game was still amazing to attend, since these teams are so much more skilled and exciting than the only live alternative for Americans, the error-prone MLS. Plus, a fairly standard result was made more intriguing by signs of how each team has dealt with major departures.
Inter's ability to replace Zlatan Ibrahimovic was much clearer on the day, since new signing Diego Milito scored both goals in the 2-0 win. Despite losing two of their best strikers in Ibrahimovic and Hernan Crespo, Inter have pulled off two swap deals to maintain a stellar offensive presence through Milito, Thiago Motta, and the missing Samuel Eto'o. As opposed to an attack that looked static last year whenever Ibra had a bad day, Inter's multi-faceted offense looks positively dynamic this year. Moreover, they even made money out of all of this, mostly due to the ice-cold €45 million that came with Eto'o for Ibrahimovic. Inter have been shrewd players in this summer's market, selling high and buying low to maintain a strong squad.
AC Milan took a different approach to Kaka's departure, relying on a previous buy to rediscover his genius. Much has been written about Ronaldinho's inability to play with Kaka for Milan, and so now that Kaka belongs to both Jesus and Real Madrid, we're starting to see signs of the bucktoothed one's reemergence. With a couple of brilliant balls through, he showed that his singular vision has not left him, but whether his body can keep up is another question. He lost possession much more often than he did three years ago, and as my friend George remarked during the game, "I love watching him, but I'd be a nervous wreck if he was on my team." Then again, such things are
much easier to fix than mental lapses, and after all, it is still their preseason. He probably won't reach the dizzying heights of his world-dominating peak, but Milan is hoping that we could yet see those trademark free-kicks on a regular basis once again.
It's also worth mentioning briefly, I don't currently see anyone nearly as effective for Milan as Paolo Maldini was. Status as a club legend aside, he was a top-notch defender to his last minute for them, and nobody that they've bought seems good enough to take his place in the back. To the certain dismay of most Americans, Oguchi Onyewu looks out of his depth at the moment, getting burned on the first goal by Diego Milito, and Thiago Silva hasn't yet proved his ability to adjust to the pace of Europe either. While Inter seems to have already found offensive flow with their replacements, Milan's plan to recover from their departures is riskier at both ends of the pitch.
Chelsea and Club America concluded the tripleheader at 7:00. It was the deciding match of the World Football Classic, though judging by Chelsea's lineup, Carlo Ancelotti wasn't informed. Their starting lineup was partially comprised of young players such as Michael Mancienne and Sam Hutchinson, combined with some experienced steel such as Michael Essien, most of whom needed the extra games after spells on the sidelines last year. Fortunately for us viewers, the absence of some key Chelsea stars actually made this a more entertaining, balanced matchup.
Still, even the backups demonstrated eventually why its the entire team's mentality that makes Chelsea a feared squad. Their defining characteristic is often their power, a blend of size and speed that just wears down opponents, and this characterstic was evident in their victory. Defensively, Chelsea's defenders knocked the Club America attackers down often, as if just to prove that nobody would get by them untouched. It's a tactic often criticized by those such as Barcelona, but one that is inarguably effective. Offensively, constant set pieces proved their superior strength in the first half, and both goals in the second half showed that they frequently shrug off defenders to continue flowing moves, despite confrontation. Chelsea's mentality is why they won this preseason tournament.
So ended the World Football Challenge, part of an exciting Sunday tripleheader. Interestingly enough, did you notice how much coverage each event has gotten over the last week? The Gold Cup crowns the champion of our region, awarding bragging rights in our fiercest rivalry as a soccer nation, and yet America paid much more attention to the European preseason. Even I almost forgot that the final was on Sunday, so sparse was the coverage! All of this indicates that most of us prefer to follow European soccer, even over our own national team. This certainly makes some sense, given that people typically watch the highest quality entertainment available.
However, all of that changes once money becomes a factor, and soccer isn't yet popular enough for most people to subscribe to Fox Soccer Channel. All of that media coverage of the WFC was because ESPN was broadcasting the games, and as a popularly subscribed channel, people watched. The Champions League on ESPN has received similar advertising in recent years, and as such received similarly improved ratings. But, now that it's moving to FSC, how many people are going to pay the extra money to watch? My bet: not many that haven't subscribed already, and people are naturally going to veer away from the sport as the quality offered declines. Yes, ESPN softened the blow by picking up La Liga, but people are much more likely to watch if two world-class teams are playing, rather than just one. If you're skeptical about that, consider how likely you are to tune in to Real Madrid v. Sporting Gijon for 90 minutes.
Sunday showed that there is plenty of great soccer on American TV, and that there are plenty of people willing to watch it. But as with most things, money often divides those two truths, and television money is threatening to drive a wedge into soccer's growing popularity in America.
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