Days of romance

14 hour days filled with soccer. The US launch their Copa America tomorrow night.

I’m not the first to point it out. But as I sit on my couch doing work (alas, I work on weekends) while watching the Euros, coffee (number two) still in hand, the hum of European supporters buzzing in the background, a cascade of tournament football before me, I am reminded once more that days like this are among the greatest joys on earth.

What better way to spend one’s Saturday, then parked before a marathon of the world’s best sporting hopes? Georgia earned their first point in a major tournament this morning. Later, Belgium looked into the eyes of failure and said, with a gripping win over Romania, not yet. 

As ever, a patchwork of desire pulsates from supporters in stadium, ambition evident on the fields below them. Dashed dreams and persistent possibility evolve before our eyes. Of course, intricacies of the outside world seep into the summer’s proceedings, for those interested to look. Yet best of all, romance, that sweet serendipitous spark of alluring unknown, has returned to us in the chaos of these early games. 

By way of my east coast American perch, it’s the European Championship from morning to afternoon. It’s Copa América into the evening after that. One uproarious crowd serenades me into the next one, like a baton in a delightful race. The Czechs and Georgians begin the day, then hand over duty to the Turkish and Portuguese. One by one they pass on the baton— the Romanians, the Belgians, Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, Mexicans and Jamaicans— until eventually I’ll realize it’s near midnight. After a brief sleep, it begins again with the rising sun.

When the clock strikes 6 PM tomorrow, the US Men’s National Team joins the baton race. They’ll set off on the Copa América in Texas. And what type of romance might they write? A number of possibilities sit before us, regardless of the coach.

If it hadn’t registered a few weeks ago, the pressure of expectation this summer (not two years from now) has certainly settled. The “wake up call” against Colombia hit hard in a 5-1 collapse. Some confidence was regained in a 1-1 draw with Brazil, rightly phrased to the press as a “little step”. 

But the actual affair begins tomorrow. An experienced team, often touted as America’s most promising, sets off upon the world’s oldest football tournament. The giants of South America are here. The time to prove something is now— not two years from now, not at the World Cup, but tomorrow, in the next few weeks. 

Between the wisely measured responses of a team that’s cohesive in its repetitive phrases (next game in front of us, stick to the plan, intensity, hold each other to account), it seems they believe they can make a deep run. 

Matt Turner, asked if the team has set a goal for what they want to achieve, with the pressure certainly on them: “We're competing for a trophy. So the way to feel successful is obviously to win that trophy and hold it at the end. So for us in the locker room, that's a pretty common feeling. That'll be our aim… that's sort of our guiding North Star.” 

Turner continued, “But we know that it takes one game at a time, one performance at a time, and just pursuing that consistent excellence from each other, whether it be training, whether it be games, and feel like if we can do that, we can be proud of wherever we finish.”

Wherever they finish remains to be seen. But they’ll start the journey against Bolivia in Group C. At face value, La Verde are among the least formidable in Conmebol. At the very least, they’re the lowest ranked South American team by FIFA at 84 (grains of salt, etc.), and fall second to last in Conmebol's World Cup Qualifying. 

That the US faces them first in Arlington is ostensibly fortunate, though we’ve been known to struggle against lower-ranked opponents, and should of course take nothing for granted (as multiple players did note). Anything less than resounding victory will heighten pressure and ignite lingering questions. A potential dark horse in Panama and a formidable Bielsa-led Uruguay await just after, with sharper teeth.

Chris Richards, on how they see the game: 

“I think we, we very much want to make a statement. I think, especially after our two friendlies, I think the best way to start now, any tournament, is to make a big statement from the first game. So I think if we play together, if we play the way we know we should, if we bring some of the same energy we brought from the Brazil game, I think that we can definitely do some damage.”