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A march down memory lane ---->---->
ON SOCCER; For Big Game at R.F.K., Jamaicans Had More Drive Than Yanks
By George Vecsey
Jamaica, the tiny nation, took over the soft grass field of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium the way its supporters had taken over the concrete strip of the Northeast corridor. They owned it, nicely and intelligently but with great resolve.
This is sport at its absolute highest, when national teams collide, making the baseball playoffs and hockey openers and Sunday American professional football games look like so many hired hands performing a job. This was for real, this was Jamaica, the hard-strapped Caribbean nation, earning a glorious 1-1 tie in the capital of the behemoth, a tie that put Jamaica that much closer to the 1998 World Cup in France, and put the Yanks that much closer to unexpected shame.
''It is always good to get your 3 points at home,'' said Hank Steinbrecher, the executive director of the United States Soccer Federation, coming close to sounding like fire and brimstone in his implication.
The six-team qualifying round was jiggered strenuously by world soccer officials to squeeze the land of Coca-Cola and Nike into the greatest sports tournament in the world. Three qualifiers from North and Central America is an overload anyway, and at the moment, Jamaica has 12 points, Mexico 11 with extra games in hand, the United States 10, El Salvador 9, Costa Rica 8 and Canada 5.
Months ago, United States Coach Steve Sampson indicated he did not think his team could gain even a tie in Mexico on Nov. 2. After that, there is Canada in Vancouver on Nov. 2, and El Salvador in Foxboro, Mass., on Nov. 16, and after that America could be watching only Junior Griffey and Larry Walker next summer.
Jamaica has spoken. The island sends its sons and daughters here and to England, but they retain their love of their homeland. They were reunited in the parking lots around R.F.K., with cars bearing the college stickers and soccer-mom logos of middle-class America. There were banners with Bob Marley's silhouette and France '98 T-shirts and reggae music from the car speakers and sizzling meats on the grill.
One vanload disgorged Humphrey Boothe of Brooklyn, Carl Creary of Miami, Renny Linton of Somerset County, N.J., Leonard Atteloney of Springfield Gardens, Queens, and Ryan Hussey of Glendale, Md., several generations of friends and relatives from back home.
''We think we are 50-50 here today,'' Cleary said. ''I guarantee we will sound like 60-40.''
He got it right. The sellout crowd of 51,528 at R.F.K. seemed evenly divided between green-and-yellow and red-and-white, but the intensity level favored Jamaica.
''It was a weird crowd,'' said Kasey Keller, the American goalkeeper who plays in England. ''It was a polite crowd, a crowd that seemed to root for both teams. It was weird.''
It was weird on the field, too. The United States came out in a 3-5-2 defense, but the Jamaican backs kept dribbling and darting with the same intensity as their brethren on the interstate, forcing the Yanks to set up a more defensive 4-4-2 strategy within 37 minutes.
''Technically, I don't think we were prepared for them to go forward,'' said Jeff Agoos, who was rushed in to stop the flow. ''We had to close them down.''
Instead, Agoos coughed up the ball under pressure in the 51st minute, setting up the tying goal by Deon Burton, after Eric Wynalda had scored on a penalty kick two minutes earlier.
Burton, a shaven-headed wraith who plays for Derby County in the English Premier League, and the descendant of Jamaican immigrants to England, has been legally added to the Jamaica squad this year, along with three other English players, greatly raising its ability.
The Jamaicans have brought in as their coach Rene Simoes, a Brazilian known as ''the Professor,'' who would not consider that he might have had a home-field advantage.
''It was an away game,'' he said with a smile. ''Every morning at home when I awake, my wife is beside me. But here, I am alone. We bring cooks but when I smell Jamaican food here, it is not the same.''
Simoes said the Jamaican tie sent a message to all small nations and humble people: ''This is spreading the message that there is hope. You know, every day I read this book, 'The Winner Within,' by Pat Riley. He said the dictionary is the only place where 'success' comes before 'work.' I am a great fan of this book.''
Your faithful soccer buff could not resist asking the question: who is this Pat Riley? Is he a sports person, too? In R.F.K. Stadium on Friday night, the only sport in the world was soccer, and the happier nation was tiny Jamaica.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/05/s...han-yanks.html
ON SOCCER; For Big Game at R.F.K., Jamaicans Had More Drive Than Yanks
By George Vecsey
- Oct. 5, 1997
Jamaica, the tiny nation, took over the soft grass field of Robert F. Kennedy Stadium the way its supporters had taken over the concrete strip of the Northeast corridor. They owned it, nicely and intelligently but with great resolve.
This is sport at its absolute highest, when national teams collide, making the baseball playoffs and hockey openers and Sunday American professional football games look like so many hired hands performing a job. This was for real, this was Jamaica, the hard-strapped Caribbean nation, earning a glorious 1-1 tie in the capital of the behemoth, a tie that put Jamaica that much closer to the 1998 World Cup in France, and put the Yanks that much closer to unexpected shame.
''It is always good to get your 3 points at home,'' said Hank Steinbrecher, the executive director of the United States Soccer Federation, coming close to sounding like fire and brimstone in his implication.
The six-team qualifying round was jiggered strenuously by world soccer officials to squeeze the land of Coca-Cola and Nike into the greatest sports tournament in the world. Three qualifiers from North and Central America is an overload anyway, and at the moment, Jamaica has 12 points, Mexico 11 with extra games in hand, the United States 10, El Salvador 9, Costa Rica 8 and Canada 5.
Months ago, United States Coach Steve Sampson indicated he did not think his team could gain even a tie in Mexico on Nov. 2. After that, there is Canada in Vancouver on Nov. 2, and El Salvador in Foxboro, Mass., on Nov. 16, and after that America could be watching only Junior Griffey and Larry Walker next summer.
Jamaica has spoken. The island sends its sons and daughters here and to England, but they retain their love of their homeland. They were reunited in the parking lots around R.F.K., with cars bearing the college stickers and soccer-mom logos of middle-class America. There were banners with Bob Marley's silhouette and France '98 T-shirts and reggae music from the car speakers and sizzling meats on the grill.
One vanload disgorged Humphrey Boothe of Brooklyn, Carl Creary of Miami, Renny Linton of Somerset County, N.J., Leonard Atteloney of Springfield Gardens, Queens, and Ryan Hussey of Glendale, Md., several generations of friends and relatives from back home.
''We think we are 50-50 here today,'' Cleary said. ''I guarantee we will sound like 60-40.''
He got it right. The sellout crowd of 51,528 at R.F.K. seemed evenly divided between green-and-yellow and red-and-white, but the intensity level favored Jamaica.
''It was a weird crowd,'' said Kasey Keller, the American goalkeeper who plays in England. ''It was a polite crowd, a crowd that seemed to root for both teams. It was weird.''
It was weird on the field, too. The United States came out in a 3-5-2 defense, but the Jamaican backs kept dribbling and darting with the same intensity as their brethren on the interstate, forcing the Yanks to set up a more defensive 4-4-2 strategy within 37 minutes.
''Technically, I don't think we were prepared for them to go forward,'' said Jeff Agoos, who was rushed in to stop the flow. ''We had to close them down.''
Instead, Agoos coughed up the ball under pressure in the 51st minute, setting up the tying goal by Deon Burton, after Eric Wynalda had scored on a penalty kick two minutes earlier.
Burton, a shaven-headed wraith who plays for Derby County in the English Premier League, and the descendant of Jamaican immigrants to England, has been legally added to the Jamaica squad this year, along with three other English players, greatly raising its ability.
The Jamaicans have brought in as their coach Rene Simoes, a Brazilian known as ''the Professor,'' who would not consider that he might have had a home-field advantage.
''It was an away game,'' he said with a smile. ''Every morning at home when I awake, my wife is beside me. But here, I am alone. We bring cooks but when I smell Jamaican food here, it is not the same.''
Simoes said the Jamaican tie sent a message to all small nations and humble people: ''This is spreading the message that there is hope. You know, every day I read this book, 'The Winner Within,' by Pat Riley. He said the dictionary is the only place where 'success' comes before 'work.' I am a great fan of this book.''
Your faithful soccer buff could not resist asking the question: who is this Pat Riley? Is he a sports person, too? In R.F.K. Stadium on Friday night, the only sport in the world was soccer, and the happier nation was tiny Jamaica.
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/05/s...han-yanks.html
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