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U.S. team looking to earn respect
Posted: Sunday June 14, 1998 05:00 PM
PARIS (CNN/SI) -- "All I want is a little respect," sang Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul. And as the USA headed into its opening game against three-time world champ Germany, that lyric might well have been their theme tune.
My chat with American squad members at the Parc des Princes stadium, where their World Cup kicks off, revealed player awareness that Germany's respect for the newly-improved status of the U.S. is little more than lip service.
"What they say and what they think are two different things," Alexi Lalas told me. "They'll say they respect us, and that they're excited about playing us, but in reality I think they believe they should beat us handily."
U.S coach Steve Sampson was similarly skeptical: "The public face of the Germans is different from the private version, when it comes to American soccer."
Do the Americans deserve German respect? That, of course, is the question.
Well, as a nation playing in its third straight World Cup finals, the U.S team is certainly more than a one-hit wonder. Granted, as the hosts in '94, they made it without having to qualify, and certainly the CONCACAF region, from which they emerged on the other two occasions, is not the strongest in the world.
However, the leaps and bounds with which American soccer has advanced in the last decade is surely worthy of some acknowledgement.
Let's not forget that since the last World Cup finals, the United States has beaten two former World Cup winners; Argentina in the '95 Copa America; and the reigning World Champions, Brazil, in a friendly.
Add to that some impressive performances against established soccer nations such as Austria, which they beat 3-0 away in their buildup to France '98, and the short American pedigree begins to look none too shabby.
Yet the Europeans still believe the myth that Americans are simply toying with the game of football, that soccer, as only the Americans insist on calling it, is a fad with no foundation in the United States, and that the U.S soccer team belongs with the footballing minnows of this World Cup, such as Jamaica, Japan, and South Africa.
As a result, it's more than just points that America is chasing at this World Cup. It's also their right to the credibility their efforts deserve. Or as Aretha puts it, some R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
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