Save me the “made progress” and “we’re young and building” talk. I’m angry and I’m tired. I’m angry because we let a very good opportunity to get to the quarters slip away. And I’m tired because this is not progress.
This was not the great Dutch teams of the past. Yes they are a very good team and have a strong World Cup history, but they were beatable. They have one world class player in Virgil van Dyke, and some pretty good other guys (please know I am speaking relatively about talent in relation to the world stage). Memphis is pretty good. I like him! Gakpo is a rising talent. I’d take him on my team for sure! Ake can do a job and de Jong has a lot of potential. But, they do not have elite level players all over the field like Dutch teams of the past. This is not Davids, Kluivert, Overmars, Seedorf, Stam, van der Sar, and van Nistelrooy. I love guys like Daley Blind, and I think he has been historically underrated, but I’m not sure he’s even making my top 10 all-time great Dutch midfielders list. And I am extremely biased towards him. It’s a hard pill to swallow that he outplayed, outworked, and outwitted every one of our midfielders and defenders.
This was a chance to actually change everyone’s perception of the USMNT and we blew it. We were not ready for success today (I mean look at the chances we didn’t finish!). As a result, there is no one looking at this team after this performance and thinking, “Oh wow the US is gonna be a team to contend with for the next four years.” Instead, everyone can look and assuredly think, “Same old US team ‘building for the future.’” We’re out in the round of 16, again. Since 1990 we’ve been at 8/9 world cup finals. We’ve advanced out of the group phase five times, made it to the quarters once, and lost in the round of 16 four. Today was not good enough. It was not progress.
One of my most painful soccer fan memories was watching Aguero score in stoppage time to snatch to the 2012 Premier League title away from Manchester United and for Manchester City on the final day of the season. It was a massive gut punch and a sign that the times were possibly changing. United had let a late season 8-point lead slip away to, of all teams, their historically underachieving local rival. They’d have to see and hear the celebrations all off-season up close and in person. Their “noisy neighbors” would live up to the billing.
Most managers would have said block it out. Forget it. We’ll come back stronger next season. But Sir Alex Ferguson said the opposite. He told his team to never forget how it felt. Let the pain stick. Let it motivate you. So you never want to feel that way ever again.
We know now the greatest manager in the world was planning for that season to be his last. He wanted to go out a winner. But he knew something else, that continued success and never ending progress is not guaranteed. So he went and signed the one player that could deliver immediately, Robin van Persie (ironically a great Dutch striker). And they won the title next season.
In the 2000’s no one thought City would become who they are now. No one really thought United would ever fall so far (though I am sure many hoped). But Sir Alex Ferguson knew something I wish the USMNT did right now. You can’t assume future progress. It is not guaranteed. Learn your lessons now. Even if they hurt. And especially if they hurt.