How Much Pressure Is on Team USA to Win the Cup?

How much pressure?

All the pressure in the world.

More pressure than can be measured by existing technology.

More pressure than Freddy Mercury and David Bowie memorialized in song, which they described, if memory serves as, 'under pressure - that burns a building down.'

This group of athletes, to their credit, created this intense pressure by winning through a set of unbelievable circumstances in the quarterfinals. Let me be clear - a women's athletics team got the attention of an entire nation, a nation which remains a male-centric sports culture even in the 21st century. But Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe and Hope Solo got our attention.

They profited as the German fans turned against first Fifa, then against Marta, then all of team Brazil. And then something else happened. It wasn't just anti-Fifa sentiment. It wasn't just disgust with Erika's shameless flopping. Rapinoe, Wambach and Solo, as well as Ali Krieger and Shannon Boxx, won those fans over. The Dresden fans were cheering for them, not just against Brazil, not merely against referee Jacqui Melksham.

It was a transcendent comeback. With it, they captivated America, too.

I hate to rain on everybody's parade here, but transcendent though this victory may be, it will be an impermanent moment if they do not go on to win the World Cup.

I started to make a list of the most dramatic finishes in sports -- Joe Carter's walk-off home run, the Colts-Giants 1958 NFL Championship game, Kirk Gibson's, "I don't believe what I just saw," home-run, the Immaculate Reception, Lorenzo Charles' unlikely bucket to win the 1983 NCAA championship, the Catch, the Miracle on Ice, etc., etc.

In so doing, I realized that each of the above moments either won a championship (Joe Carter, Lorenzo Charles, Alan Ameche), or happened on the way to a championship (the Catch, Miracle on Ice, Kirk Gibson).

We remember these moments, not in a vacuum, but in context.

The Niners' dynasty was built upon Dwight Clark's catch.

Charles' unbelievable dunk won the NCAA tourney for the huge underdog Wolfpack.

Even the Immaculate Reception, which didn't lead directly to a championship that year, marks the beginning of the Steelers' dynasty. If that team hadn't gone on to win Super Bowls, I don't think Franco Harris' grab and run would have a statue memorializing it at Greater Pitt airport.

The youngins may believe that the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team defeated the terrifying Red Army team to win the gold medal, but for those of us who watched, we can never forget that game was the semi-final. They then defeated Finland in the Gold Medal game. Without that gold medal victory, nobody remembers Mike Eruzione. Or twitchy Jim Craig. Only die-hard hockey fans would remember Herb Brooks. Without that gold medal, the "Do You Believe in Miracles?!" game drops down on the list of most dramatic sports moments. I'd actually posit that the gold medal alters Al Michaels' career arc, too.

If Team USA loses the semi-final match to Team France today, or, if they go on to lose in the final to either Team Sweden or Team Japan, all of that attention, all of that passion for soccer, and the interest in women's soccer in particular is gone. Wiped clean. Without two more victories, all that buzz is vaporized, lost to the mist.

I have a friend who says that soccer is the sport of the future. And it always will be. For most of my life, soccer apologists have told me that the sport is ready to turn a corner in the US of A. That this one particular game will do it. Or that tournament will be the tipping point. Or this player will drag it onto the front pages for good. Blah, blah, blah. Personally, I don't really care if it never gets bigger than it is right now. I'm not futbol activist.

But if anybody can start a wee love affair with soccer on American soil, I think it's this team, this women's team. They have such a moment at hand. I hope they're up to it.

[Photos:  Wambach header -- timesunion.com; Rapinoe hug -- faithandcompromise.tumblr.com; Solo save -- nydailynews.com]

Top 10 Sporting Events to Take Us Beyond the Rapture

Well it appears the Rapture is indeed upon us. Maybe you call it the end of the world? Semantics, my friends. Semantics. But it seems to me, that if God is calling all the chickens home to roost, she might be in the mood to grant some wishes? I don't know, but I think God understands balance -- hellfire and damnation should be balanced out with some thoughtful presents. Dig?

So what I'm saying is, if the supreme being wants to give me a gift, he can permit me to witness, first hand, some of the great sporting moments in history. I'm almost ashamed to say that I've actually thought about this over the years, but if there were ten sports events I could attend in person, if money and the shackles of a little thing I like to call time and space were not objects, which is to say, if I could travel through time, what sports events would I want to see, live and in person? This list turns out to be kinda baseball heavy. Who knew?


1. 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords. If I could, there's nowhere I'd rather be than at Greenlee Field (RIP), in Pittsburgh's Hill District, watching Satchel Paige pitch to Josh Gibson, with Cool Papa Bell, Jimmy Crutchfield, and Judy Johnson in the field. This team might be the greatest ever to step on a baseball diamond, so this is a no brainer for me to slot in the No. 1 spot. (Also, Scott Stimkus of Outsider Baseball, tells me he'll have a book out in the fall devoted to the Crawfords. As the book gets closer to publication, I'll provide more details.)


2. 1980 Olympics. USA v. USSR. Yeah, I got to watch this on television, and sure, I'd miss the "Do you believe in miracles?!" call, but tell me you wouldn't give your left arm to have been there?


3. 1936 Olympics. Which some people refer to as Hitler's Olympics, but I like to think of as the Jesse Owens games. Not just for the sport, but for the significance of the games. Also, just to see Jesse run.


4. 1957 Wimbledon Tennis Championships. This was the year that Althea Gibson won her first Wimbledon championship. She won again the next year, in a more exciting match, but I'd want to be there for the first -- the first time an African-American won the world's greatest tennis tournament. I am of the firm belief that Gibson is very under-appreciated.


5. Joe Louis Wins Heavyweight Boxing Title. A couple of reasons, one of which is the chance to get to see James Braddock fight. Braddock was such a great, hard-working champ, that to his dying day, Louis always referred to Braddock as "champ." But mostly, to see Joe Louis, whose importance Langston Hughes described like this:

Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion, thousands of colored Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry because of Joe's one-man triumphs. No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions – or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried, too.

6. 1958 NFL Championship Game. Heck, had I been alive and in New York, this would have been possible -- the NFL Championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts held at Yankee Stadium wasn't even sold out. You believe that? To bear witness to John Unitas carrying his team, taking the game to the next level, becoming the great, Johnny U., while hitting Raymond Berry with clutch passes, then waving off the field goal unit to call a blast to the Horse to win the game? There's a reason they call it the Greatest Game Ever Played (tm).


7. 1956 World Series. Game 5. Don Larsen's Perfect Game. I'm far from a Yankees fan, but a perfect game? In the Series? Against the Brooklyn Dodgers? I'm in. So, you know, if you talk to your god, just put in a good word for me.



8. 1972 AFC Division Game. The Immaculate Reception. If you are young and you don't understand the source of the animus between the Oakland Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers, look no further than this game. This game, ironically, was another one that was not sold out. You believe that crap? Just about every Pittsburgher over the age of 55 or so will tell you that he was at the game, but if that were true, Three Rivers would have been sold out five times over. But to be one of the lucky few actually in attendance at a true turning point, an historic moment, perhaps, the most important moment in NFL history? Of course, I might feel differently were I born a Raiders fan.


9. Mario Scores Five Different Ways -- December 31, 1988. Pittsburgh Penguins 8, New Jersey Devils 6. The film quality of the goals in this clip is terrible, but my god, what would it have been like to actually be there, instead of at some lame-o New Year's Party. Hindsight is a bitch. A royal one.


10. 1960 World Series. Game 7. First off, I never had the chance to go to Forbes Field, a fact that has greatly aggrieved me over the years. Second, c'mon -- Greatest Home Run in the history of Major League Baseball? Stuff it, New Yorkers. Bobby Thompson's home run merely clinched the pennant. Maz's dinger was a walk off home run in Game 7 of the Series. It just doesn't get any better than that, people.