Considering what happened the last time the United States led with its chin trying to land a global sporting event, some people might be dismayed to see it sticking it out there again.
Hold on. There are still some very good reasons why a nation’s reach should exceed it’s grasp on occasion—even if, in this case, we’re talking about feet.
Americans love winners, no matter the game, and unlike the coffee klatch that laughed off Chicago’s bid and awarded the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio a year ago, this one isn’t a done deal. The U.S. bid committee hoping to bring the 2022 World Cup to these shores actually has a chance.
For one thing, the bunglers who were running the U.S. Olympic Committee then won’t be anywhere near Zurich, Switzerland, come Thursday, when soccer’s governing body—known by its acronym, FIFA—announces the host nations for both the 2018 and 2022 cups. And for another, the committee has restocked the top of its lineup, replacing suddenly not-so-popular Barack Obama with Bill Clinton, everybody’s favorite ex-president, and Oprah with actor Morgan Freeman.
(Brilliant bit of casting, that last one, the English might say—if they weren’t so busy sorting out headaches of their own trying to lock up the 2018 cup. After all, FIFA executives were so smitten by Nelson Mandela nearly a decade ago that they shed all their misgivings and awarded South Africa this past summer’s World Cup; given Freeman’s striking resemblance—he played Mandela in the movie “Invictus”—some of those same voters just might think Mandela is throwing his weight behind the U.S. bid this time around. But we digress.)
More than a few handicappers have made the United States the favorite, ahead of Qatar, Australia, South Korea and Japan. That’s because the stadiums, hotels and infrastructure are already in place if the tournament kicked off tomorrow, and the only time the United States played host, in 1994, the games were best-attended ever.
Besides, Qatar is too hot in the summer, Australia is in a tough time zone for too many fans and while South Korea and Japan co-hosted the cup in 2002— and each could pull it off separately in 2022—there’s already a groundswell building to make sure Asia’s next slot goes to China, likely in 2026.
Because FIFA’s politics are so Byzantine, and a few of its voting members still just crooked enough, it’s impossible for anyone but blood relatives to make an accurate assessment. So for the sake of argument, let’s assume the United States can win and move on to the only other important question:
Do we really want to win the bid?
Clinton’s answer, in an editorial for Sports Illustrated that’s well worth the read, was a resounding “yes.” You’d expect as much, since he’s also leading the charm offensive as honorary chairman of the bid committee.
But he’s got some good reasons, among them a commitment to stage the “greenest” cup ever, a goal that could spur U.S. efforts to master the emerging technologies likely to provide energy and jobs in the future. Granted, it’s not as ennobling a mission as going to the moon, but it’s a start.
For Major League Soccer, which got its foothold as a result of the 1994 cup, it’s a chance to leverage interest in the sport and the national team into better sponsorship and TV deals as well as better players. For the dozen cities whose stadiums make the final cut, it’s a stimulus program.
Strictly from a sports standpoint, it means drawing a line in the sand for American soccer.
Almost everything about the game here has grown dramatically these last two decades. There are four million registered youth players and a fan base that is more diverse, much more sophisticated and now 90 million strong. Deep-pocketed sponsors like Nike and Adidas have poured millions into player development at every level.
Yet progress on the field has only come in fits and starts. The United States always had world-class goalkeepers, because the skill-set is familiar. And because the most promising players now routinely go overseas to hone their craft, there’s finally a pool of qualified defenders and midfielders for U.S. coach Bob Bradley to draw from.
But after all this investment of time and money, and with all due respect to Landon Donovan, the United States still hasn’t come up with even one game-changer. And in a game where goals are as precious as diamonds, there’s little chance of ever winning it all without one.
A soccer writer years ago summed up the appeal of the world’s most-watched tournament this way: “There is no greater drama in sports than watching a soccer team try to validate its national character in the World Cup.”
For a nation of 300 million still clinging to the founding myth of rugged individualism, that shouldn’t be too tall of an order. Especially with a dozen years to get ready.
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org
