The decision was decisive, after all.
With seconds left in added time of the last-16 match between the United States and Belgium, Jermaine Jones headed the ball in the direction of both Clint Dempsey and Chris Wondolowski who, for an astonishing second, were unmarked. It was a pregnant moment in a contest deadlocked at 0-0 thanks to the defiant resistance of Tim Howard, the American goalkeeper.
The ball landed nearer Wondolowski and Dempsey veered off, which left the San Jose Earthquakes forward at the edge of the box with Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois advancing.
Wondolowski is one of a dying breed of big and brawny forwards who once ruled the British Isles – the US has known the type, too. These are men neither fast nor skilled but hard to push off the ball and often deadly in the air.
They are far less comfortable with the ball at their feet and Wondolowski’s chance to lift his country into the quarter-finals was about to come off his boot, not his head.
His right foot met the ball just after it bounced, but his shot was skied high and right. A golden chance, wasted.
In the dugout, US coach Jurgen Klinsmann buried his face in his hands. In Los Angeles, Landon Donovan had a similar reaction, except he left a crack through which he peeked at America's last best chance.
Thus did Klinsmann’s capricious squad decision come back to haunt him. Donovan is not his favourite person, for reasons not quite clear, but the 32-year-old forward is the greatest scorer in US history, and anyone who has watched him play is likely to believe he would have buried the chance Wondolowski sent into the stands.
Klinsmann controversially left Donovan at home, and instead took the lumbering Wondolowski and the untested Aron Johannsson to Brazil as back-up forwards. Each failed prominently as a replacement for the injured Jozy Altidore.
Donovan was not in peak condition, six weeks ago, when the decision was made, but the LA Galaxy striker, in a wheelchair, would have converted that chance against Belgium. Scoring is what he does -- 57 goals in a US shirt.
Back home, the takeaway from the 2014 World Cup seems to be: “Jurgen Klinsmann, canny coach of a rising side.”
That notion highlights the lack of football savvy among American fans, many of whom pay attention only when the World Cup rolls around.
Not having Donovan in Brazil for 20-minute cameos, at the least, was the most dreadful gaffe by the German coach, but not the only one.
He brought five German-Americans to Brazil, then showed no faith in three of them. John Brooks played the second half of the Ghana game, scored the winning goal, and was not seen again. Julian Green did not get on the pitch until the final 15 minutes of the final game, and scored. Timmy Chandler did not appear at all. Could Green and Brooks actually play? They scored. Then why did we not see more of them?
Klinsmann also devised a scheme in which one player, Michael Bradley, was tasked with carrying the ball out of the defensive half. Opponents swarmed him, he often lost possession and was heavily criticised, but his detractors never came to grips with the key question: who was it who gave Bradley this impossible task?
Thanks to one victory, over Ghana, and Howard’s 16 saves, the most in a World Cup match since 1966, Klinsmann is considered a success, even though the US went out at the same stage, by the same score, also in extra time, four years ago.
Three years of Klinsmann and the US gained not an inch. Yet something about his “soccer-dad” demeanour has bewitched Americans even as he exiled the country’s greatest player and imported foreigners to fill the side. How much more progress can US football stand?
poberjuerge@thenational.ae
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