TAKING OUR GAME TO THE WORLD! 

Imagine if every off-season, the USL takes an all-star team on tour to Europe.  What if every year American professional players were able to go overseas to play against top quality opponents.  Would that not help improve the domestic game tremendously?! 

Maybe now that our Men’s National Team played the world powerhouse Italians without fear and was, at least in the first half, the better team, people will give our country a little respect when it comes to playing soccer.  Maybe people will look at our record of qualifying for the last four consecutive World Cups as evidence that we should no longer be the butt of all those soccer jokes!   Maybe now, people will realize that Americans, too, can play the Beautiful Game! 

        Well, I would love to think so.  Unfortunately, our 32^nd place finish in the ‘98 World Cup still looms over all our accomplishments like a dark cloud.  And even though we played well in that February 13^th friendly match, most people only saw the end result: a 1-0 loss to Italy.  There are still many cynics from even those countries that have never beaten the U.S., countries that barely even register on the world soccer radar, who mock American Soccer.  When it comes to the Beautiful Game, we are the world’s unofficial whipping boys.  But the cynics will always exist…at least for some years to come.  That is, at least until we prove ourselves on the World Stage.  After all, that is what this summer is all about.  This summer is our opportunity to show our stuff…to prove our progress.  We say this not to put pressure on our team, but because our biggest downfall has not been how other folk think of us, but how we think of ourselves.  Many Americans (even, and perhaps especially, the soccer players) don’t believe that we can play with the big boys.  We seem to have internalized those same negative beliefs about our own game as the foreign cynics.  And for the most part, when it comes to playing the world soccer heavyweights, (and even some of the not so heavyweights), our players have played with fear, or at least given our opponents way too much respect. 

Fortunately, we are in a new era of American Soccer; one characterized by a new crop of players who are too young to fear.  Their youthful overconfidence is just what we need, and has clearly, like a welcomed disease, spread throughout the entire team.  Against Italy, it was a joy to watch.  We even had the opportunity to be ahead 2-0 at halftime.  Time and time again, we have proven that we can hang with the big boys.  Despite the negativity of the cynics, both foreign and domestic, the American game has clearly improved.  We have the tools to make it to the second round of the World Cup.  We just need to believe that we can do it.  

Ever since the World Cup draw, people have been going on and on about Portugal.  They've been talking (out of fear mostly...or at least over-respect!) about the skills of FIFA World Player of the Year, Luis Figo and his talented bunch of Portuguese teammates.  Sure we know about the likes of Fernando Couto and Rui Costa.  We do not pretend that they are not good.  But we just handled, in admirable fashion, the likes of Christian Vieri, Francisco Totti and the others over is Sicily.  If we come at Portugal in this same way, with this same confidence, we will certainly catch them and the rest of the world off guard.  It is time we shed our inferiority complex and rightfully ascend the world soccer ladder.  Williams F.C. is feeling confident about our chances this summer....how about you?!