Sleeping giant meets his Czech mate

George Kimball America at LargeThe good news is that 2.14 million households were tuned in to watch the United States' opening-round World Cup match in Gelsenkirchen on Monday, making it the most-viewed telecast in ESPN2 history, and the highest-rated cable programming of 2006.

The bad news, from Bruce Arena's perspective, is that made for about 2,140,000 witnesses.

In the days before his team departed for Germany the US coach had taken to describing his team as "a sleeping giant", but the sleeping giant turned out to be 6ft 8in Czech striker Jan Koller, who just five minutes into the match turned a sloppy clearance from American goalkeeper Kasey Keller into a goal from which his team never looked back.

Koller. Keller. The score was already 2-0 in favour of the bad guys when we took our leave of Fitzer's on Lexington Avenue. We were on a crosstown bus a few minutes later when a man busily texting on his mobile excitedly relayed the information that "Keller" had been removed from the field on a stretcher and taken to a German hospital, thus producing a smattering of applause from several fellow passengers.

We already knew that he was a vowel off. It had actually been the Czech miscreant, Koller, who had been injured near the end of the first half, but the joyful response reminded us, nonetheless, of Colonel Dave Egan, the late Boston Record columnist who once, upon learning that Boston Braves manager Casey Stengel had been struck by a taxi and broken his leg, nominated the cab driver for sportsman of the year.

For the first time, every World Cup match is being shown on US television. ESPN, ESPN2, and its parent company, ABC, have divvied up the spoils.

The latter has drawn the lot of televising Saturday's match against Italy, and if things go the way we expect them to go in Kaiserslautern two days hence, it could well be the last time two million Americans tune in to a soccer match of any description for at least the next four years.

Americans are quick to play the blame game, but it's hard to know at whose feet Monday's embarrassment should be laid - Fifa's, for unrealistically raising expectations with its absurd rankings, which rated the US the fifth-best team in the world going into the tournament, or Arena's, for confidently predicting that the Americans would advance beyond their Group of Death pairing with Italy, the Czech Republic and Ghana.

The US manager's reaction in the aftermath of Monday's 3-0 humiliation was almost amusing.

"I take all the blame," he said initially. "You can blame it all on me."

Then, in the space of the next five minutes, Arena bared his teeth and ripped into his charges one by one.

Keller, forward Landon Donovan, and midfielder DaMarcus Beasley were singled out for particular praise by their coach.

Donovan, said Arena, "showed no aggressiveness tonight".

"We got nothing from Beasley," added the coach, who then reminded the post-match press conference of the US goalkeeper's role in the first Czech goal.

"For whatever reason, Kasey (Keller) puts it out upfield where we have nobody," moaned Arena.

Since the fact that soccer does not lend itself well to television has been an oft-voiced explanation for American sporting audiences' failure to embrace the sport, the corollary would suggest that bad soccer makes for even worse television.

That was particularly apparent on Monday's telecast, where Dave O'Brien, normally a baseball announcer, was paired with former US national team star Marcelo Balboa.

Unlike, say, Bruce Arena, Balboa seemed particularly reluctant to criticise his one-time team-mates.

When Tomas Rosicky turned an Oguchi Onyewu blunder into the second Czech goal, Balboa, in a voice-over of the replay, initially described Onyewu's first as a "good clear", then amended it to "average clear", and finally (one could only imagine a producer screaming into Marcelo's earpiece here) labelled it what it was - "a poor clear".

The opening-round loss leaves the US in what should be by any measure considered a daunting position.

Both the Czechs and the Italians now have three points in hand, and the Americans have dug themselves into a hole with a 0-3 aggregate goal differential.

Arena insisted the Americans had been "slightly damaged, we're not in a coma yet", but neither history nor God would appear to be on our side.

In the past two World Cups, only Turkey, in 2002, has managed to get out of its group after a first-match loss, and in Italy the US is facing a team it has never beaten.

The Italians, said Arena, are "one of the easiest teams in the world to scout and one of the hardest to play against".

Including Monday's loss, the US record in 11 matches against European sides in World Cup play since 1990 is one win, nine losses, and a draw.

Even should Arena manage to light a bonfire under his team, winning the final two group matches would seem improbable. (An only slightly more achievable scenario would have the US somehow manage a draw against Italy and then try to run up the score against Ghana).

"Yeah, but how are we gonna do that?" the soccer-wise occupant of a barstool in a Broadway saloon glumly contemplated the other night.

"Let's face it. We suck."