on june 21, 1998, the united states men's national team took on iran in its second wc 98 group stage match. for months mainstream news reports had highlighted the upcoming game because of all its obvious political connotations. (thinking back to it now, i realize that i may have been a member of the last generation to experience true american marginalization of soccer- that the national team was mentioned on abc world news tonight seemed extraordinary at the time.) the game became a great example of the kind of weird and not-quite-personally-resonant humanitarian cosmopolitanism to which international soccer often contributes; that is, the event was depoliticized into a joyeaux noel-type premise that really heavy-handedly underlined soccer as a symbol of mankind's universal positive traits. but jens jeremies had made a mockery of supposedly soccer-induced virtue by cynically kicking claudio reyna all over the pitch in the us's first game against germany, and germany's victory ensured that winning the iran game would be pretty much imperative when it came to the us following up on their good performance in 1994.
foreign correspondents had descended on tehran (apparently), and at halftime, with the us losing, they reported on the bedlam that had greeted the iranian team's successful efforts. that the iranians were celebrating was bad enough for a ten-year-old who had spent the entire fourth grade wrapped up in the american cause for soccer legitimacy, but what was most piercing was that the abc correspondent actually seemed happy for the iranian celebrants. their ebullience had crept into the voices of these supposedly american journalists. today, i remember less about the game than the way i felt about the game. i remember that a then long-haired brian mcbride pulled a goal back. i remember ty keogh talking about how good khodad azizi was, as if he were an expert on the persian game rather than having simply noticed that he was one of iran's few players based abroad. i remember frankie hejduk falsely letting on that he was actually a good player, but that's about it. what i really remember is the poignancy of the end of america's wc campaign. the fatalism sweeping around me and being exacerbated by the apparent perception of the loss as 'a remarkable story' by other americans who should have been crying like i was. i then had to go to a barbecue at my grandpa's in honor of a visiting uncle from back east. i was sullen the entire time, and things were made worse when someone explained that 'his team lost.' my team? it was your fucking team, too! we're all americans- why do you hate soccer more than you love america, i wanted to know. thankfully, my dad, who probably didn't care a jot about soccer but was a first recon marine lieutenant during the hostage crisis, was adequately disgusted at having lost to the ayatollah et al. i was thoroughly disappointed in my countrymen.
four years later, after having rode the wave of euphoria that buoyed all american soccer fans during our run to the quarterfinals, i noticed that the comedown after losing to germany was a lot sharper than i had expected, given our expectations-exceeding performance in korea and japan. i stayed up after the end of the match to enjoy the deserved lauding the team was to get from the morning news shows. and they got something of the sort from the good morning america. fans who had watched the game in times square were interviewed, and one guy in the middle of the shot was sporting an oversized uncle sam hat and very tear-streaked red, white, and blue face-paint. the interview ended, and the show cut back to the hosts. then one of them uttered, "aw, poor guy! his team lost." i went to bed very mad, another four years of waiting in store.
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