One moment the US is collectively sighing at a long range pipe dream of a shot, and the next an explosion of joy as a skipping ball kisses off Green’s gloves and tumbles apologetically into the back of the net. The course of a nation altered in a blur of err and horror on the part of England.
Unlucky England, gift to USA. As a nation built on hard work and a lot of luck and currently suffering the trifles of recessions, depressions, oil spills, and bankruptcies, we will take any luck we can get and any moment that brings us joy.
For England, this is unacceptable. The country that invented the game squeaking out a tie against their former colonies. How could they let that second-rate football country tie them? How could Green let that happen? (because there aren’t 10 other guys on the field with him. I didn’t see Rooney doing much to try to score a goal…and their goal, while nice, was a gift from lazy defending and poor back tracking)
And off come the verbal gloves…media villainizing Capello and Green, fanatics calling for a change of management, officials scratching their heads at the decision to put their nation’s hopes in the hands of an Italian.
But “hand of clod’? Really?
People, this is sport. Unpredictable, uncontrolled, undeniably beautiful because on any given day anything can happen, and the story of the underdog is so much more powerful.
It is hope, belief, faith that gives a team that little extra in games like this. It is a Nation still confused about whether you use your hands or your feet in “football” that hangs its dreams on a bunch of boys who grew up on soccer being a third rate sport.
Maybe it was this blind naivete of a Nation that has never laid down and quit at anything it has done that willed that ball into the net.
Or better yet, maybe, just maybe, instead of making Green the national donkey, Dempsey should be applauded for doing what all of us coaches preach day in and day out on the fields of play: “taking risks”.
He took the shot. We beseech our kids to take the shot..”the worst shot is the one not taken”…”you can’t score goals if you don’t shoot”…”no one ever remembers the shots you missed, but everyone remembers the shot you made”.
So I refuse to call Green a clod. I give respect to Dempsey, the cagey veteran who took the shot.
Posted via web from MJR FX
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