“It’s like Groundhog Day with these teams; they all just want to play defense. Costa Rica is a lot better at it than Belize and Cuba are.” ~ Landon Donovan.
What Donovan is talking about (starting at about the two minute mark) isn’t unusual. It’s a problem that bedevils many Goliaths when they face Davids. Heck, the US even used the strategy to garner a famous win in the 2009 Confederations Cup semi-final against next year’s World Cup winners, Spain. I’m talking, of course, about how inferior teams play a purely defensive style against vastly superior teams.
There are many names for this kind of performance: parking the bus, staying compact, defending in numbers to name a few. Whatever you call it, this strategy can effectively neutralize even the most talented opponents on the right day.
Naturally, that is why minnows play this style. A team that suffers from a talent deficiency can only hope that organization and hard work will make up for their lack of talent. Most of the time, it doesn’t, but on occasion it does.
This is all well and good. Weaker teams should optimize their chances to win. As Herm Edwards said, “You play to win the game.”
The problem is not with any one CONCACAF team playing this style. Rather, the problem is that seemingly every team that faces either the USA or Mexico utilze this strategy.
While, it is unfair to expect the Belizes or Martiniques of the world to try and give the USA or Mexico a game, it is frustrating that even the next best teams in the region do the same thing. When Costa Rica has a must-win game (to win the group instead of the USA) and still refuses to do anything but park the bus, something is horribly, horribly wrong.
Honduras and Costa Rica are clearly the third and fourth most talented teams in the region (pick your order), but they rarely will try to play toe-to-toe with the two regional giants. Occasionally, at home, there will be an attempt to play with an attacking edge, but even on those days, a heavy reliance on counter-attacking football can be found. On the road, those “second-tier” teams might as well not even get off the bus. I would postulate that this is the main reason why Mexico has drawn five of their six Hexagonal World Cup Qualifiers.
Seeing this style of play consistently in CONCACF is well and good for World Cup qualification. When opponents are seeking merely a draw against you, they will rarely finish above you in the standings. Even Mexico with five draws in six games are only in third place and have yet to play Los Ticos of Costa Rica at home.
The problem comes when Mexico and the USA play teams outside of CONCACAF. Whether it’s the shellacking that Mexico took at the Confederations Cup or the embarrassing 4-2 loss in a friendly to a full-strength Belgian squad in May, these types of results occur all too often for the Goliaths of CONCACAF.
If the goal is to win a World Cup (and with the size and talent in the USA and Mexico, I don’t think that is an unreasonable goal), something must change. Allow me to give an example.
In 2006, Australia switched regions, moving from Oceania to Asia. The main reason cited for this switch was to play against a higher level of competition (and reduced travel times, but mostly better competition). It is a well-known maxim that you only get better by playing against better competition.
The results in the test case of Australia are yet to be finalized. It will take time to determine if this move had positive, negative, or no effect. Still, Australia has not missed out on qualifying for either the 2010 or 2014 World Cups. They have matched up well against the other big boys in the region (Japan and South Korea). In my opinion, this move has been at worst neutral thus far for the Aussies, and if Australia can make a run deep into one of the next few World Cups or develop a few super stars, the move to the Asian confederation will have been a smashing success.
You can probably guess where I am going at this point. The USA and Mexico should switch confederations. Playing in horrible stadiums against opponents too weak to do anything but defend in numbers cannot possibly prepare either country for success at the highest levels. I would propose that the USA and Mexico jointly request entry into the South American confederation. Soccer in CONMEBOL is played at the highest level outside of Europe’s elite and is much more competitive than UEFA because of the lack of minnows within the confederation.
Yes, there are problems with this plan. Even though both countries would bring strong teams, there is no guarantee that CONMEBOL would even want both teams. Even if CONMEBOL did want both teams, the rise in costs for Mexico and the USA must be considered. Additionally, as bad as the current travel situation is for CONCACAF teams currently, having European-based players travel all the way to Argentina would only exacerbate the problem.
Despite these problems, the benefits of playing improved competition outweigh those costs. The USA hired Jurgen Klinsmann to raise the quality of the national team. He can only do that so much in a region that can’t and won’t let him reach the levels of soccer that he wants. CONMEBOL will provide a much better proving ground for quality teams like the USA and Mexico. Without this change, the USA and Mexican teams’ Groundhog Day will only continue on in perpetuity.
Who Cares? 