I'm a big soccer fan. During the past few weeks I learned a lot from the sport I love. The U.S. soccer team has never been known as a power house. The U.S. is often the butt end of jokes in the great soccer countries of the world. It is considered a serious insult to lose to the U.S. team. Recently the U.S. played in the Confederations Cup, which takes the top national soccer teams from all the world's soccer federations and puts them in a tournament.
I was eternally optimistic about the U.S. doing well. Never did I expect things to go the way they did. During the first two games the U.S. played poorly. Italy and Brazil both took us apart. This then led to our last game in the qualifying round of the tournament, against Egypt which is a good team.
Up to this point it looked as though we should have just gone home. In order to advance, the U.S. needed to beat Egypt by three goals and Brazil needed to beat Italy by three goals. The Italians are well-known for their strong defensive play and Egypt is considered by many to be the best team in Africa. Bookies in the U.K. went so far as to take the U.S. off the books.
Because they played so poorly in the first two games, I expected little from the U.S. I was dejected and disappointed with them. I knew they were better than they had displayed and that was what upset me. Then the power of motivation and belief kicked in. The U.S. came out flying and beat Egypt 3 to 0. Brazil then did us a massive favor by winning 3 to 0 over Italy. This result advanced the U.S. to the second round against Spain, the number one team in the world.
Spain was also unbeaten in 13 games, a massive feat in international soccer. Again the U.S. had the odds stacked against them, but again they came out flying and won 2 to 0. People are still calling this game a fluke. As an avid soccer fan I'm telling you right now that this was no fluke. The U.S. came out to play and rightly won the game. On to the final . . . Brazil vs. USA.
The U.S. got a second chance against the world soccer giants. We came out with tremendous energy. By halftime, we were up two goals to none. I was going ballistic. It was looking like a fairy tale. However, not all fairy tales end well for all involved. Brazil came out strong in the second half. They desperately wanted a victory and scored three goals to win. A few of the Brazilian players were nearly in tears with the win, showing how much they desired winning.
What did I learn? BELIEVE! 1) Believe! The U.S. looked as though they were done going into the game against Egypt. They came out motivated and focused on doing the best they could . . . and won. 2) Believe! Brazil had fire in the second half against the US. They believed they could do it and did it. 3) Believe! The U.S. lost belief in the final game. In my opinion the US needed to come out after halftime like it was zero to zero. They had been beating teams by attacking and by playing strong team defense. In the second half against Brazil they played to defend the lead and so stopped attacking. To me that says the belief was gone. They were playing scared. In the end of the day the U.S. has much to take away from this tournament. They showed they can beat the top teams in the world. But do they believe the can beat the top teams in the world? Somewhere in the second half they lost the belief that they could beat anyone and so were only playing to hang on rather than to win. I play to win. How about you?
