Top 5 Things You Shouldn't Hear as a US Supporter

Top 5 Dumbest Things I’ve heard come out of a USMNT supporter’s mouth while I’ve been here:

“Claudio Reyna actually wasn’t that good, he was pretty over-rated”

This is just an outrageous statement. Right now Reyna is simply the best US player ever to play the game. When Landon retires, he will probably have outdone Reyna, but right now it doesn’t get any better than Reyna. His performances in the 2002 World Cup were an absolute masterclass.

Was he too old in World Cup 2006? Yes, probably. His mistake against Ghana cost us dearly, but to use that to tarnish his legacy for the US is downright silly.

“We don’t need Gooch”

While we survived against Algeria without Gooch and he didn’t exactly perform well against England or Slovenia, he is the only shut-down defender we have. He wasn’t healthy during this tournament and thus the reason that he didn’t perform well, but to say we don’t need him is just wrong.

We could have desperately used him if he was healthy enough to play against Ghana and in-form. The Gooch of the 2009 Confed Cup was a world-class defender, and we lacked that quality in the World Cup.

“We should have started that Edgar Castillo kid today”

Edgar Castillo has been way over-hyped. The biggest quality he has is that he ditched Mexico to come to the US and then we capped him to make sure he couldn’t flip-flop again. It’s little more than us winning a small battle against Mexico for decent players.

Make no mistake about it, Castillo is little more than a role player at best. The only reason he’s even mentioned is that he plays the weakest position in the American system, left back. But I haven’t seen anything from Castillo that makes me think he has the quality to play in our side, never mind star.

“We should have picked Brian McBride”

Brian McBride is an American legend and will go down as one of our all time greats. But he’s retired from international duty and quite simply his time has come and gone. He’s not exactly lit up the MLS nor even the Olympics two years ago when he returned to the fold.

He’s a classy player and a role model for the younger generation, but I think it would be wrong to think that he could have made an impact at this World Cup, even though our forward pool, outside of Jozy, was pretty anaemic.

“It’s just Ghana” and “We are North America”

Heard from the fan I was unfortunately sitting next to for the USA-Ghana match. Way to sound like a really intelligent American, pal.

The context of these two quotes was this: “It’s just Ghana” was made in reference to the fact that we were losing 1-0 and 2-1 to Ghana and that we should obviously be beating them since we are so superior. “We are North America” came about after the South Africans starting chanting “We are Africa”. Being a stereotypical American, this was too much for him to comprehend and just couldn’t understand why a South African would be rooting for a Ghanaian team.

First off. Anyone want to tell me who has knocked out the USMNT in the past two World Cups? Right, that would be Ghana. Don’t for a second think that we can take for granted against Ghana or any other team of that stature. That type of arrogance is exactly why everybody loved seeing the English dumped out of the World Cup in ignominy, because their supporters seem to think it is their God-given right to lift the trophy.

Chanting “We are North America” just makes you sound ignorant and oblivious of what this World Cup in South Africa is all about. Disgraceful.

Bonus Round. Here’s a quote that I’m sure was talked about all over ESPN during the World Cup:
“Soccer is finally going to crack the US market since USA-Ghana was the highest watched soccer match ever”.

Quite frankly, I could care less whether the US supports the national team or not or whether the soccer finally breaks through in this country. It is the world’s greatest tournament and I don’t need to tell anyone why they should watch it – if they haven’t already, shame on them.

Unless you are Drew Carey, there are very few people who can quickly learn all that you need to know to be a legitimate fan of our sport. I’m not trying to be exclusive, but I like things the way they are, soccer is followed by those who love the beautiful game and don’t need to quantify that love to anybody. Simply we watch soccer because that is life.

I don’t need so-called ESPN experts that know nothing about soccer telling me about my sport, I don’t need random Americans coming to the World Cup that don’t know Michael Bradley from Bob Bradley and I don’t need to see on Facebook things similar to: “I’m glad the US crashed out since now I don’t have to pretend like I like soccer”.

Give me my Ives, Soccernet and Grant Wahl and I’m all set. Give me my soccer brothers, Sam’s Army and FSC and I’m happy.

Though, while I’m on the topic, if you had been here to witness the jubilant scenes in Pretoria after our victory against Algeria, you’d know that soccer has made it in America. Just don’t think that I’m losing any sleep over whether it has or not.