The Shot Heard Round the World - Interesting article on the start of our modern era

The pool was so small then that the guys all knew each other forwards and backwards. We hadn't yet come completely out of the era in which the USMNT behaved like a club team (which the USWNT did for much longer). Even at that 95 Copa America, we had a player still under contract with the USSF (Mike Burns). If a club team wanted to acquire him, they had to pay the USSF a fee. When Galatasaray acquired Friedel in 95, they paid the USSF $1.1 million. Quite a racket.

 

Off topic, but it boggles my mind that anyone pins that result on Bradley when Cameron mistakes were directly responsible for both Portugal goals.

 

I believe that one advantage they had was that some of them played together year-round as the USMNT, since we didn't have a domestic league. So they had outstanding familiarity with each other.

(TBH, I don't know how much of the roster that applied to.)

 

It's just insane to consider how he behaves now, w/his podcast, and what not, and how he behaved then, just night and day, but maybe he was always a ----. It's kind of funny to see him and Wynalda go at it, I really think with the passage of time, or maybe always, those guys, oil and water. Both have the same issue but I think Wynalda has the benefit of being coherent as a person, he's all over the place and messy and sometimes nuts, but he always comes off as authentically him, Lalas seems like a complete duplicitous fake, very un-90's of him.

 

2-1 and literally anything he could choose to do, other than what he actually did, insures victory, and then, consider earlier in the match, he had an open net in front of him, right in front of the goal, goalie out of the net entirely on the play, and kicked it directly into the only Portugal player in position to block the shot. Dude had two separate easy as pie for him (compared to say, the monstrously difficult beautiful finish he had against Slovenia four years earlier, or against Uruguay 3 years before that, or against Mexico at Azteca in '17) opportunities to clinch that victory and fumbled both away like some Jerry Lewis bit from the fifties. It was absolutely nuts, and I say that as a guy who came to respect the living hell out of his game and change my view of him as a player, but that game was an abject disaster for him, a nightmare.

 

I'd agree with that, they basically played for years that way until '94 when a bunch of them got to go to Europe (only a couple were in Europe before that cup).

 

So you're comparing Bradleys blocked shot, a bang bang play that 99 times out of 100 would be a goal exactly where it he put it, and his turnover just short of midfield, to Camerons shanked clearance that went directly to Nani for his goal, and on the same Bradley turnover play Cameron let his man blow by him for the heaader? Alright.

 

It looks like nearly everybody on the '94 roster was under contract with USSF at some point, with the exception maybe of Earnie Stewart, Roy Wegerle, Cle Kooiman, and Jurgen Sommer. The '95 roster had a few more players who don't appear to have ever signed with USSF, but a good majority of the roster still had done so in the previous cycle.

As far as I can tell, the two years leading up to the World Cup were the years when we played the most games with numerous players under contract with USSF. The '94 WC and '95 CA players I'm seeing who were signed with USSF at some point in that period were: Tony Meola, Fernando Clavijo, Hugo Perez, Cobi Jones, Mike Burns, Mike Lapper, Paul Caligiuri, Marcelo Balboa, Frank Klopas, Mike Sorber, Joe-Max Moore, Brad Friedel, Thomas Dooley, Alexi Lalas, and Claudio Reyna. A few of the bigger names had left for Europe much earlier in the cycle (e.g., Harkes, Ramos, and Wynalda). Conversely, Dooley's kind of the odd one who left a successful European career to sign with USSF for a year leading up to the World Cup.

 

No, you are, I don't see a comparison. I never brought up Cameron, I was and am focused on Bradley because he had two moments late to clinch it quite easily and fumbled both away. High leverage moments late that would have transformed the game to the good. Alright.

 

Berhalter was on that team.

 

I put a goodly share of the blame on Beaz (who I'm a big fan of). Beaz always ducked out of defending crosses. When CR was driving up the side, Beaz went full duck and cover on his cross. No attempt to challenge it.

 

Ya, they had that foundation. Plus, those guys stayed healthy, so they didn't miss opportunities to play together. Plus, the pool was shallow, if they were available, they played.

It'd be interesting to see a graph of which usmnt players played the most games together. I bet a bunch of combinations of those guys are way high on the list. Like, pulling a number out of the air - maybe Cobi and Waldo had played 50 NT matches together at that point. That's a lot better than what the current 11's can put together.

 

I always liked Gregg as a player.

 

After Torsten Frings, and maybe Oliver Khan, Berhalter was kind of the pivotal player in the game. He got matched up with Ballack. It seemed like Dallas blew his whistle any time we breathed on a German, so Germany had a bunch of set pieces. On every one, Gregg was matched up with Ballack and he did yeoman's work, wrestling with him. Finally, the wrestling got to be too much for ol' Hugh and Gregg got yellowed. Gregg couldn't defend Ballack as aggressively, and, bang, Ballack scores a set piece header.

Then, it's Gregg's shot that Frings blocked, right?

 

I'm still not convinced there was actually a foul that led to that free kick. Grrrrrrrr... Dallas!

 

Yep. I'd add that Mathis served up an auto equalizer of a pass that Sanneh somehow just missed putting in at the near post. Mathis man....

But yeah, Berhalter's entire reputation is probably different if we have a different ref that game, just as long as it wasn't Coulibaly.

 

Nor I, but good lord, it's just agony to watch the "near plays" that game. Donovan's 2 chances, I think Eddie Lewis had one in the box, then later Reyna's midfield volley is just wide, then Frings obviously handles the ball on the line, then Sanneh's header flashes wide. Good God man.

It was a weird feeling, one of those rare ones, kinda like the lost to Brazil in the Confed Cup Final, and the Belgium defeat in '14, where you kinda felt like: Wow, that was a helluvaperformance, I can't be mad now.

I get how the Belgium game doesn't seem to fit there, but the fact that they could endure a hailstorm of Belgium attacks and come within a Waldo finish of winning, or a slightly less weighted pass and touch on a trick play set piece late from forcing penalties is just nuts.

 

Coulibaly was the referee that disallowed Edu's winner against Slovenia for no reason. The referee that denied us a penalty in that game was Scotsman Hugh Dallas.

 

I know, I was joking. As in, "any ref would be better, well, except for Coulibaly".

 

That second goal was killer. Cobi Jones explodes to the touchline, hits a fantastic ball on the ground and Alexi Lalas finishes the play with an immaculate flick to beat the defender and keeper.

 

Yeah, they were pretty much a club team.

That’s apples and oranges vs what we see today.

But back then they had a different mentality as well. They were all on a mission to show that they belonged.

 

Oh me too. Frings (that asshole) ran up Eddie Lewis’s back and Dallas nails Eddie. Dallas …. What an azz

 

It just wasn't our day. Germany managed just one shot on target all game. It went in.

 

That OJ cameo became somewhat more ominous 4 summers later.

 

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