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]

Is It Wrong to Miss the Old Soviet Empire?

From True/Slant on February 13, 2010:

The Olympics Are Here and I’m Misty for the Old Soviet Bear.


I may be the only person outside the Leonid Brezhnev family to say this, but, damn, I miss the Soviet Union. Not usually, mind you. Not on some random March day when I’m puttering about the house thinking about the promise of spring. It’s the Olympics. They do this to me every time. And like seasonal affective disorder, it is much more pronounced during the Winter Olympics.

Imagine that, like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Josef Stalin is never born. The course of human history is much different and perhaps much to the better. The Soviet Union, instead of ruling with an Iron Fist, is a benign superpower: there is no backing of Mao, no Krushchev posturing and shoe-banging at the U.N., and no Cold War. Millions of people are free of suffering at the hands of cruel dictators, cultural revolutions and the Stasi. Two generations of American children do not grow up in fear of a nuclear holocaust.

All good things, except that, without the Iron Curtain looming, casting it’s long, ominous shadow around the globe, the Olympics lack a lot of punch and zing. They still matter, of course, from the perspective of watching amazing athletes compete and performers perform. But from a jingo-istic, “my country is better than your country,” kind of way, do they matter that much? As Americans, are we rooting for the U-S-A over the Russians? Over the Germans? Or are we just rooting for NBC to show us more sport and less personal backstory?

I remember when Vasiliy Alekeseyev would stride to a massively loaded barbell, all hairy, beastly and disheveled looking, in his Soviet red onesie. I actually felt sorry for the barbell. He was going to own it, rape it and, when he was through violating it, toss it away like an empty blintz wrapper. He was awesome and terrifying. He represented all the might of the sinister power lurking behind the walls of the Kremlin in my young mind.

I remember when the East German women’s swimmers were announced and the offensive line of the 1958 New York Giants would walk out. Good times.

But mostly, without the Iron Curtain falling over Russia and eastern Europe, the winter Olympics are just blah. There are no villains, just flamboyant figure skaters. Without the Soviets, there is no Miracle on Ice.

There’s no Boris Mikhailov leading the Red Army hockey team to gold medals in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics. There’s no Viktor Tikhonov behind the bench, looking every bit a KGB assassin as hockey coach. There’s no Vladislav Tretiak in net, his own Iron Curtain, impenetrable, imperturbable, and unbeatable, until the game with the U.S. when Tikhonov pulled him in the 2nd period.

Without the Soviets, where are we? Surely Sidney Crosby and Team Canada, Alex Ovechkin and the Russians, and Sweden and Henrik Lundqvist will provide incredible hockey and any of these three teams could easily bring home the gold. For the players of whichever team wins it all, each will remember this tournament for the rest of his life.

But there are no miracles in store, no Leviathans to fell. The stage shrunk the moment that wall came down.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

Because I love hockey, I’m curious to see if the Swedes with cagey Lundqvist in net and most of the roster of the Detroit Red Wings in front of him can win another gold.

I can hardly wait to see the first line of the Russians swooping down the ice – Ovie, Evgeni Malkin and Ilya Kovalchuk – the three skaters of the apocalypse bearing down on some helpless netminder. Somebody’s gonna lose their liquor license.

Sidney Crosby has the hopes of an entire nation pinned on him and I’m looking for him to spin his magic while the great Marty Brodeur stops time in net long enough to enter a different dimension and make another mind-boggling save.

But still I miss the larger than life, geo-political themes and antipathy. Without the Cold War looming over all the games like some glowering, spectral depiction of a propaganda-style Stalin, it’s just hockey. It’s simply sport.

This year, even in the unlikely event team USA manages to get to the medal stand, it will simply be that – unlikely. Not a “miracle” and certainly not a miracle with a capital “M.”

God, I miss the Cold War.