Eight World Cups

by George Vecsey

  Three players who helped the Americans qualify did not make it to South Africa. Hejduk’s aging body wore out; Charlie Davies, a mobile forward who worked so well with Altidore, was injured in an auto accident that killed a young woman in the fall of 2009, and he would never be the same player; and Conor Casey, a husky striker who scored two goals in the clincher in Honduras, did not make the squad for 2010. It is a fact of life of the World Cup: help the team qualify, then watch it on television.

  Soccer had grown so much that ESPN staged an extravaganza in May 2010, at the network’s campus in Bristol, Connecticut, to introduce Bradley’s squad on live television. I was happy to see DaMarcus Beasley, a force on the 2002 and 2006 teams, the guy I look for in the mixed zone. He had wandered from Europe to Mexico and now he survived the final cut. Feeling almost paternal, I told him I was happy for him.

  It was important for a reporter to be around the American team through qualifying. After the players saw you at practices or games, they figured maybe you were not a total idiot or a total stranger. I had kept up with the American players over the years, and I had tried to keep up with some of the South African officials. Let us know when you come over, they said.

  About six months out, I discovered I was not being assigned to cover the first stage. The editors were sending good people—the Times always does—but just not me, not at first. I had been looking forward to getting around South Africa before the games, to write journalistic postcards, giving readers the feel of a place, as I did in my first seven World Cups.

  Knowing I needed to keep sharp for when I arrived, I decided to write every day from New York, watching matches with fans in various ethnic settings.

  For the opener, I went to the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan, where South Africans cheered a 1–1 draw with Mexico.

  On Saturday, I sat in my den and watched the United States gain a 1–1 draw on a gaffe by the English keeper—a point from nowhere.

  On Sunday, my teenage grandson George and I played a tripleheader, starting with breakfast in a sports bar on Manhattan’s Second Avenue, joining a group of Slovenians for a 1–0 victory over Algeria. Then we drove across the river to a Ghanaian restaurant in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, where fans danced to celebrate a 1–0 victory over Serbia. Then we drove to an Australian pub in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn to watch Germany romp over Australia, 4–0. George assured a cluster of cool German architects behind us that they would win the whole tournament.

  On Monday, I went to the old Italian oasis in Corona, Queens, to Leo’s Latticini, known to everyone as Mama’s. There I met a favorite son of the neighborhood, Omar Minaya, then the general manager of the New York Mets, who had played baseball in Italy and loves the culture. We watched as the Azzurri bounced back for their usual opening draw.

  By midweek, I was thoroughly annoyed with the vuvuzelas, the long plastic trumpets blaring incessantly through the television speakers. The networks were trying to strain out the noise, which sounded like racing cars going round and round in your brain, but there was no banning the horns in the stadiums. South Africans were defending vuvuzelas as an ancient tradition—and indeed they were. Plastic horns, based on an older wooden version, had been on sale in that nation since at least the 1990s. My wife could not stand being in the same room with the whine of the vuvuzelas; she handed me a pair of soft ear plugs, which would cut the noise in half when I reached the open-air press sections of the South African stadiums.

  On Friday I watched at home as the United States fell behind, 2–0, to Slovenia but then came back for a 2–2 draw. A third goal in the eighty-fifth minute, on a gorgeous curling kick by Landon Donovan that was converted by Maurice Edu, was waved off by the referee. On television, with its multiple replays, there was no obvious foul or offside. As usual, FIFA did not back up controversial calls with an explanation.

  On Sunday, while waiting for my flight to South Africa, I watched New Zealand take an early gift goal from Italy, but then Daniele De Rossi spun to earth after a minor shirt pull, and Italy converted for a 1–1 draw. Two matches. Two points. Italy was cutting it close. Tutto normale.

  * * *

  After a long flight, it was late autumn in Johannesburg. A young volunteer drove me to the suburb of Melrose, a glitzy mall with hotel, shops, restaurants, and apartments, behind barricades.

  I had thought of renting something for my wife and myself, and a friend in Johannesburg had given me the e-mail address of somebody who might be renting a house in a nice neighborhood. When my e-mail went unanswered, I asked my friend what had happened, and he said, Oh, she was backing out of her driveway and was carjacked and shot dead. Not this World Cup, I told my wife.

  Instead, the Times booked a room for me in the hotel where the U.S. federation was ensconced. The hotel was in a mall that felt like the Buckhead section of Atlanta or some other cold, nouveau, yuppied-up enclave—economic apartheid, not racial apartheid. I called it the Walled-Off Astoria.

  Because the United States needed a victory to get through to the second round, the paper asked me to write from the Algeria match. Two days after arriving, I took the media bus to the old rugby stadium in nearby Pretoria and, fighting off jet lag, I tried to keep an eye on the ball.

  As the scoreless match raced into injury time, Tim Howard made his save and clearing pass. Then came Donovan’s run and pass, Altidore’s cut and kick, Dempsey’s cannonball roll through the goal area, and Donovan’s arrival to push the ball into the goal.

  The Americans killed off the last three minutes, and the Algerian players trudged off the field without accomplishing their purpose, a lethal draw.

  In the mixed zone under the stands, we could hear shouting from the adjacent locker room, where former president Bill Clinton was congratulating the U.S. team. Ultimately Donovan came out, seemingly embarrassed to be the center of attention. He had come through a rough year, separating from his wife, Bianca Kajlich, an actress, and often referring to their ongoing closeness, his private and public lives overlapping. “Those experiences can harden you and can help you grow if you learn from them,” Donovan said. “I spent a lot of time and work to get something out of those experiences. I think it all kind of came together tonight.”

  By the time we got back to the Walled-Off Astoria, we learned that in the knockout round the Yanks would be playing Ghana, the same team that had beaten them in 2006.

  The next day, the U.S. reporters were invited to meet President Clinton behind high walls and barbed wire at a safe home in the posh suburb of Sandton. Clinton told us he was doing a favor for his good friend later that day, giving a talk at the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory. The former president was even more hoarse than usual, sipping tea and honey after cheering the day before. He told us how he had been sitting with Sepp Blatter and Issa Hayatou of Cameroon, the top-ranking African member of FIFA, and he knew that dignitaries from Algeria and the Middle East were nearby. They all understood the code.

  “I was very diplomatic,” Clinton said. “Till they scored.”

  As the honorary chairman of the U.S. bid committee for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, Clinton, ever the politician, pushed the bid by stressing the varied backgrounds of the U.S. players and the diversity of the country. “We got you a home team,” he said with his let’s-make-a-deal fervor, referring to fans from around the world. “We’ll suit you up.”

  Asked if he was a big fan, Clinton gave us a short history of the sport, saying he had been reading Franklin Foer’s fine book, How Soccer Explains the World. He hung around to schmooze after breakfast, and, in a casual conversation, I found myself calling him “Man.” When we took a group photo, my female colleagues clustered near him. I thought it must be nice to be Bill Clinton.

  Three days later the writers joined a charter bus caravan out to Rustenberg, with its casinos and golf, the Las Vegas of South Africa. When we arrived at the stadium, I noticed Ghanaians, some now living in the United States or Europe, waving their own flag or specially made banners blen
ding the Ghanaian and American flags. Upscale World Cup crowds are not the brawling mobs traditionally seen in Europe and elsewhere. Americans chanted the ubiquitous “U-S-A” while Ghanaians smiled and applauded, on an adventure together, just about the nicest crowd I have ever seen at the World Cup.

  The United States was in trouble almost immediately—in fact, before the match. I voiced disapproval when Bob Bradley’s lineup was distributed, showing Ricardo Clark, shaky in previous outings, starting at midfield. In the fifth minute, the ball got loose near Clark in the American end, and Kevin-Prince Boateng swooped in and shot past Howard. The United States often fell behind—even more lethal in the knockout round. Clark was so jittery that he picked up a yellow card, and Bradley had to replace him with Edu in the thirty-first minute.

  The United States steadied itself, Donovan converted a penalty kick in the sixty-second minute, and the game veered into the double fifteen-minute overtimes. Three minutes in, Asamoah Gyan scored on Howard. Now the United States had to score or go home.

  Desperation had worked three days earlier against Algeria. Howard, the dunker, moved forward to try to put his high-flying forehead on the ball. In a scene that seemed borrowed from pro basketball, Howard and Richard Kingson, in their gaudy keepers’ kits, flew into the air, but the United States could not put the ball past Kingson, and Ghana held on for the victory. The players embraced, and the Ghanaian and American fans trooped out together. Good luck was over.

  After a long haul in heavy traffic back to its camp in Johannesburg, the U.S. team was up early the next morning. Before everybody went home, Bob Bradley calmly explained that he thought Clark was the best man for that midfield spot. Parent to parent, I told Bradley, in private, that his son had been one of the very best players on the team. I think he knew it but would never say it. He let his pride show, for a few seconds.

  Sunil Gulati, the federation president, gave a group interview a day later. Without throwing tantrums or making provocative comments, Gulati let us know he was not happy. “It was all in front of us,” he said, adding that after Donovan converted the penalty, “I was sure we would win,” mostly because of fitness, but the anticipated finishing kick did not materialize. Gulati did not say anything about the status of his coach, but it was clear he was going to look around.

  Where was the United States going in this sport? Between World Cups, it had some success in qualifying and the Confederations Cup, even beating a weary Spain in 2009 in South Africa. The Yanks had been ranked seventh in the fall of 2005, but by September 2010, they would be ranked eighteenth—and that was charitable.

  * * *

  Forty-four years since the debatable Geoff Hurst goal, FIFA still did not have an adequate way to monitor the goal line. On the afternoon after the American loss, I was with a group of reporters in the hotel media room, watching Germany take a 2–0 lead over England. Then Matthew Upson scored for England in the thirty-seventh minute and two minutes later, Frank Lampard banged a shot off the bottom of the crossbar, with the ball obviously landing a full foot inside the line and ricocheting back to the German keeper. The only person who could not see it was a goal was Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay, who, unfortunately, was refereeing the match.

  The closest assistant official kept his flag down, enraging the England players. Was this some cosmic payback for the Hurst goal in the 1966 final? More likely, it was a case of human error, with the television camera documenting what the officials’ eyes could not process. Ultimately, Germany went on to win, 4–1, but who knows what would have happened if Lampard’s shot had brought England even at halftime? (Most English fans, long conditioned to be grimly realistic, concluded that their lads would have lost anyway.)

  Afterward, Sepp Blatter said he was sorry for that wretched call. He was also sorry for a missed offside that helped Argentina beat Mexico, 3–1. Blatter was often sorry. Perhaps he was even sorry for the unexplained call that had nullified a winning American goal against Slovenia.

  A few days later, Blatter had morphed into Sepp the Damage Controller, saying he would consider technology for goal-line calls in the next World Cup.

  * * *

  The old order—emphasis on the “old”—slinked out early. France, one finalist from 2006, was disgraced by bickering among its players and lost to South Africa; it blessedly went out after the first round. The overconfident defending champs from Italy were eliminated by Slovakia. And now England was gone after the round of 16.

  Argentina was still around, once again a sideshow because of its endless fascination with Maradona. The aging star was the reincarnation of the fabled Russian monk Rasputin, who in 1916 was poisoned with cyanide, shot three or four times, beaten and perhaps stabbed, then tied up and tossed into the icy Neva River. When his body was recovered, it was determined that Rasputin had drowned trying to claw his way to the surface through the ice. A tough man to put away.

  So was Diego Armando, who had worn out his welcome at several clubs, survived several suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs, gone through repeated rehabilitation for so-called recreational drugs, been treated for heart trouble in Cuba, become a folk hero for the most blatant handball goal in history, gone through domestic crises, including at least one illegitimate son. Plus, the Italian government accused him of owing $53 million in back taxes. (He disputed the charges, blaming the Italian system.)

  Now he was the coach of the Argentina team. Seriously. On the advice of his daughters, he stopped wearing a clunky track suit on the sideline in favor of a business suit, but somehow he still looked as if he was wearing a track suit.

  In good form, upon arriving in South Africa, Maradona revived a feud with the South Korean coach, accusing him of employing taekwondo tactics on him in 1986; he warned the refs to protect his stars, Carlos Tévez and Lionel Messi; he advised Pelé to “go back to a museum”; and he juggled his lineup with the same quirky independence he had shown finding open space. “They said I had no idea and suddenly I’m winning four matches and people see me as someone else,” Maradona said. “I’m still the same person.”

  With all that talent, Argentina won four straight matches by a 10–2 combined margin. Then Argentina lost to Germany, 4–0, and Maradona was sacked by the same federation that had been enabling his behavior for more than three decades. As he left, he said he had been betrayed.

  * * *

  Because of my late start, I was way behind in getting a feel for South Africa, but I was trying. One free morning, a few of us went to the Apartheid Museum, where the admission line is arbitrarily divided in two, to give visitors the feel of the bad old days. Our young college-educated driver, white, watched films of police and horses rampaging through downtown Pretoria, raining blows on protestors, black. The young man shuddered, suggesting to me that the new generation barely knows how bad things were, back then.

  Going into the stadium in Pretoria, Grahame Jones of the Los Angeles Times—on his eighth straight World Cup, just like me—heard a female security officer talking in very brusque tones to black employees who were inspecting bags. Grahame, who was born in England but spent his childhood in Cape Town, quietly told the officer, “I don’t like the way you are speaking to those people.” In Afrikaans. She seemed quite shocked to have an American chastise her in her language.

  Jeffrey Marcus, who writes for the New York Times Web site, and I watched the Iberian derby between Spain and Portugal at a braai, a sausage restaurant. We consumed copious amounts of sausage—soft, spicy, sweet, chewy, thin, thick, with Castle Lager to wash it down—and the waitresses were pretty and solicitous; a couple of German guys at the next table thought it amusing that two Yanks knew a bit about their sport. Spain, which usually fell apart about this time, broke through for a 1–0 victory.

  To atone for not bringing my wife to South Africa, I promised Marianne I would not have any fun. I violated my solemn vow on a rest day between rounds. Three young writers and I took a day trip with Witek, a Polish-born guide, to the preserve in Pilanesburg, a co
uple of hours out in the countryside. Witek parked alongside the elephant walkway as a dignified and watchful family tramped slowly past us, keeping their right eyes directed at us, their trunks swinging. Witek also found a water hole, with the rib bones of an elephant that had just been picked clean; the lions were probably in that clump of bushes on the other side of the water hole, but we did not get any closer to investigate.

  On July 2, I watched the tube as the Netherlands eliminated Brazil in a quarterfinal match. Then I covered the Uruguay-Ghana match, when Luis Suárez of Uruguay blatantly swatted away a goal during extra time. As punishment for the handball, Suárez would have to miss the next match, but that seemed like a fair exchange after Asamoah Gyan, who had scored the winning goal against the United States, banged the penalty kick off the crossbar. Uruguay won in penalty kicks, and the Ghana players cried as they left the field.

  My first live glimpse of Spain came on July 3, in that grand old rugby palace of Ellis Park, the scene of South Africa’s rugby championship in 1995. (I had prepared for South Africa by seeing the Clint Eastwood movie Invictus, in which Morgan Freeman plays Mandela, building a nation by openly following the white man’s sport.) Once Spain was the bull; now it was the matador, wearing down Paraguay, its players trusting one another to be there for the next short, lovely pass.

  My new favorite player—Baggio and Zidane were gone—was Andrés Iniesta, from Barcelona, of course. At first, I was not impressed with Iniesta, baldish and moonfaced, unexceptional in physique or demeanor, but eventually I realized how purposeful he was, always in the right place.