Having beaten the dead horse back to life on the subject of competitive imbalance in the CONCACAF women’s Olympic qualifiers, I’ll simply state the scores from last night for anyone that has not yet heard.
Mexico 5 – Guatemala 0.
And this was the close game.
USA 14 – Dominican Republic 0
Ok, then.
The DR was a collection of girls that would not make a top high school team in Maine. Forcing them to play a collection of professionals is beyond pointless and there is nothing anyone can say to convince me that that game should ever happen at a final qualifying event.
However, the story of last night wasn’t that the USA ran up the score. Although the cries of “won’t you think of the goal differential” rang a little hollow the athletes were just doing what athletes do. You cannot ask a player to play at half speed. It is disrespectful to their competitors and puts them at greater risk for injury.
What you can ask of players and teams in a situation like last night is for them to go about their business in a dignified and respectful way. American coach Pia Sundhage did not. What talking points emerged from the game focused of the fact that the Swedish-born coach was high-fiving, fist pumping and, at one point, thrusting after each of the American goals.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]Call me old fashioned, but doing the whole shwing-shwing thing after goal 11 of a 14 goal romp lacks class.
Predictably most supporters of the US team reacted with the same level of blind partisanship that has made the level of political discourse south of the 49 so productive. Mild criticisms against one individual were interpreted as an attack on their way of life. The only possible reaction to such attacks is with hostility and defensiveness.
This is not a space that promotes the ugly Canadian trait of knee jerk anti-Americanism. The way some Canadians go over the top to cheer against a culture that is damn near the same as our own is embarrassing. However, last night Sundhage put the ugly in American.
The excuse she gave – she was sharing in the joy of her players – is baffling and illogical. What joy? Would they gain joy in scoring against a high school team? Would Sundhage high-five her assistants in a scrimmage against a community college side?
If you are the US, there should be no joy in scoring against the Dominican Republic because it isn’t an accomplishment. Act like you’re the No 1 team in the world doing what is expected of you, not like a classless rube that just won $500 on the penny slots in Vegas.