Guatemala 0-1 United States: You're shit and you know you are

After the final whistle tonight, the ESPN guy who was not John Harkes - seriously, for the life of me I absolutely cannot remember his name - said, "the United States wins a street fight in Guatemala."

No fucking kidding.

I have watched rough-and-tumble soccer games before. In the deepest, blackest parts of my past there have been days when I actually sat down and watched 90 minutes of Bolton versus Blackburn, and in the Big Sam/Mark Hughes days that matchup was like the end of Rocky IV, bloody and overlong. But the game tonight, lord, I can't remember anything more consistently mean-spirited that didn't involve Pepe Reina.

Going into tonight the commentators (you know, Harkes and That Other Clearly Very Memorable Guy) made much of the fact that the US has never won a World Cup qualifier in Guatemala. The ESPN brass apparently decided that this was to be the meme of the night, and as per ESPN policy it was repeated approximately 914,000 times during the game (c.f. "Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player in the world" during Euro). Also as per ESPN policy, there wasn't even the slightest attempt to explain or even discuss this Interesting Factoid; it was simply repeated every 114 seconds throughout the match.

This is particularly disappointing to me because the first time I heard it I thought it begged the question, "HOW THE FUCK HAVE WE NEVER WON IN GUATEMALA?" The Estadio Nacional Mateo Flores is not the Azteca or Fortress Wembley or that joint in Bolivia that is so high up it's actually in the Van Allen Belt. Christ, The Estadio Nacional Mateo Flores isn't even the UGH field up on Bristol Pike, because if it was I wouldn't have had this text-message conversation during the game:

Me: And the game isn't in HD. That's great.
Tim: Do they have HD in Guatemala?
Me: They don't have the fucking electric light in Guatemala.

I cannot remember the last time I watched a sporting event on television where I actually couldn't see what was going on down on the field. But, when it comes to soccer, piss-poor presentation on ESPN is like piss-poor officiating in a major tournament: you come to expect it, and meet it with sighing resignation when it arrives, just as you always knew it would.

Anyway, yes, I was wondering how it is possible the US has never won a qualifier in Guatemala. I have nothing against Guatemala - my aunt and cousins are Guatemalan, seriously, and they'll shun me if they read this - other than the fact that it is not here and while I enjoy traveling I acutely hate being other places. In terms of football, though, Guatemala is total dreck.

They're a second-rate side at best, and in a second-rate federation like CONCACAF that's quite an accomplishment. They are the Norteamericano equivalent of, I dunno, Belarus or the Temple football team, one of those squads that have nice support and maybe one or two semi-decent guys that the big boys have to play and steamroll on their way to the important games. Guatemala has never made the World Cup finals. They've only made it out of the first round of the Gold Cup twice. Hell, they've only made the OLYMPIC finals three times, and Central and South American footballers love to remind you that the Olympics predate and are thus in some psychotic way just as prestigious as the World Cup.

Guatemala is not, suffice it to say, a soccer powerhouse.

Then again, neither is the US. What we ARE, however, is a more-than-moderately-skilled side, and the drastic uptick in the skill of the USMNT over the last 20 years combined with the historical dreariness of the Blue and White makes the fact that we've never beaten them on their home turf - not in a meaningful game, at any rate - a distinct curiosity.

After watching tonight's game I think I may have a possible explanation: the Guatemalans play soccer the way most people play hockey.

Very little of it seemed actively malicious aside from Carlos Ruiz' kick to Tim Howard's head; Gustavo Cabrera's elbow to Eddie Lewis' face seemed more reckless - dangerous, but reckless - than premeditated. But the Guatemalan style overall puts a lie to the concept of "the beautiful game." I'm not saying the US are exactly putting on a technical masterclass when they step on the pitch, but the Guatemalans play a tough, body to body, foot always on the gas, if he gets too close we're gonna lay a motherfucker out game that is better suited to the NHL than international football.

Didn't anybody tell these guys the international game is supposed to be more laid back, a little slower-paced, more space to move around? I suppose not. It's also possible someone gave them a pamphlet to read with this information in it but it was after sunset when they did, so no one was able to see it to read what was within. It's sort of... not an unwritten rule per se, but an acknowledged reality in club football that the way for a team of clearly lesser skill to beat a more-skilled one is to make the game tough and physical and hope to out-muscle their opponent. You hardly ever see that sort of thing in internationals because no one wants to risk getting hurt in internationals. This is another memo the Guatemalans apparently didn't receive.

In fairness to them, though, it worked for a solid hour or so; the US team looked positively wretched for much of the contest until Carlos Bocanegra - or as my friend Justin calls him, "The Black Mouth of Fulham," which sounds like an Edgar Allan Poe story - put us ahead for good. We were getting run ragged all over the pitch; Brian Ching, specifically, looked like the GODDAMN TURTLE he is until well after we were already winning, and as we have also come to expect Landon Donovan woefully underperformed as it was neither a friendly nor a game against Mexico (aka the only times Landycakes bothers to man up for the USMNT). It took Boca's late goal to shock the boys into realizing that YES, if you actually run around and DO stuff you have a pretty good shot at winning. What. A. Concept.

In the post-game afterglow, Bob Bradley and the press both have been talking about how important it is to win qualifiers on the road. I suppose this is true to an extent, but let's be honest: the only way the US isn't going to qualify is if their plane goes down somewhere in the Andes and half of them die of frostbite and the rest are forced to eat Oguchi Onyewu to survive - he WOULD have the most meat to go around - the question of exactly what they're doing in South America to begin with notwithstanding. So, yes, we beat a terrible side on their home field, yay for the Red White and Blue, the US qualifying campaign continues to plow through a bunch of third-world countries, for ever and ever, to the ends of the earth, blah blah blah amen. It takes a bunch of our guys getting the living shit kicked out of them to make these games interesting, and that isn't good for anybody (least of all our guys who are getting the shit kicked out of them).

I have to admit it's tough to get excited about a series of soccer reenactments of Operation Just Cause, even more so when we're still, what, a year from really good matches? Oh well, at least European World Cup qualifying starts in a couple weeks. England vs. Kazakhstan, baby! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!