With less than three weeks before the first match in the final round of qualifying for World Cup 2006, the U.S. Soccer Federation and the players' union averted a disastrous chain of events by agreeing to settle their dispute about player compensation at a later date.
Had the two sides not made the weekend's temporary truce, U.S. men's soccer coach Bruce Arena would have been forced to go into a Feb. 9 match at Trinidad and Tobago with a team full of replacement players.
The prospect of taking anything less than this country's finest squad into the most intense matches in three years is unppealing no matter what. But consider these dire circumstances: the scabs would not even be second-tier also-rans, a group of the second best. No, those players feared the wrath of the stars; they would not sacrifice the goodwill of their potential teammates should they someday make the team on their own merit.
Instead, Arena had to reach down into the murkiest depths of the player pool and select a batch of no-names that likely couldn't compete in Major League Soccer, much less at the international level.
While many Americans can't even name top-flight players such as Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley, even devout U.S. soccer fans would have a hard time recognizing names like Jacob Coggins, Freddy Juarez and Preston Burpo. A team of no-names like that would have surely bombed out of the tournament, severely hindering the sport's progress gaining fans in the United States.
The 2002 World Cup brought soccer into the American consciousness for a short time as the team shot to the tournament's final eight, bowing out to eventual runner-up Germany on a controversial 1-0 win. The team's remarkable run, including an opening 3-2 upset against heavily favored Portugal and a 2-0 dismantling of archrival Mexico, brought men's soccer its most attention in this country since the United States hosted the men's tournament in 1994.
The sport has been gaining steadier footing here, a gradual, generational growth that will only accelerate as young fans become paying adults. But if the U.S. team does not qualify for Germany 2006, the sport will suffer a near insurmountable setback. The sport needs that boost every four years, a regular dose of foetbol fervor, to remind the public that it's out there and, in the process, gaining a few new fans.
Thanks to the stopgap measure of a temporary truce between the players and the federation, the chances of the team being eliminated are drastically reduced. Still, the two sides must settle this dispute as soon as possible. The current agreement only keeps the players in uniform through the end of qualification, meaning there is a slight possibility that we could be back in this predicament a year from now. If the people on either side of this dispute have any sense, it will be resolved by then, and we won't have to face the terrifying prospect of going to Germany with a team full of Preston Burpos.
-Chris DeVille, The Post's culture editor, means no disrespect to Preston Burpo. Send DeVille an e-mail at chris.deville@ohiou.edu.
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