What Did I Miss? 1990 Men’s World Cup, USA vs Czechoslovakia

Welcome back to “What Did I Miss?” where I watch old soccer games I’ve never seen but should have and blog about them. If you have a suggestion or would like to join in on a rewatch, let me know!

The 1990 World Cup is not the first one that was widely available on television, but it was the first televised World Cup the United State’s men’s national team competed in. 

After reaching the semi-finals of the first World Cup in 1930 in Uruguay and being eliminated in the Round of 16 four years later in Italy, they withdrew from the 1938 World Cup (the last before World War 2), before going out in the group stage in 1950 despite their one victory being the “Miracle on Grass” in which they defeated England 1-0.

But for the next 4 decades that was it as the American men failed to qualify for 9 consecutive World Cups.

Watching the team make its return at Italy 1990, it’s hard to believe the same team had, 60 years early, almost won the whole thing.

This is 6 years before the beginning of Major League Soccer, meaning there was no professional league in the US at that time. Again, given the (brief) success of the NASL a couple decades earlier and the league’s ability to attract the likes of Pele, Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbaur, it’s crazy to look back now and imagine that American soccer found itself where it did.

Only four players on the 1990 team played abroad and were thus true professionals:

• Paul Caligiuri and Brian Bliss played in Germany

• Chris Sullivan played in Hungary

• Peter Vermes played in the Netherlands

Several of the players on the roster of course went on to true pro career in MLS and elsewhere, but while the current state of the USMNT is often frustrating, American soccer in general has grown by incredible leaps and bounds in my lifetime. 

If you’ve watched this game (or any of this tournament for this team) you know it’s not exactly pretty. But this was my first true exposure, so here’s how it went….

(Minutes correspond to the video timeline, as there is no scorebug)

LINK: https://footballia.net/matches/united-states-czechoslovakia

Pregame

• Thank God for Canada and TSN

• Every player in this game for the US is 27 or younger, including a 21-year-old Eric Wynalda and 23-year-old Tab Ramos and John Harkes

  • The broadcast later mentions that they’re the youngest team in the tournament

• Wait, Lubos Kubic? As in Chicago Fire Lubos Kubic? Wearing the number 9? What the hell

13. Alright let’s check on the tactics….it’s somewhere between a super defensive 4-3-3 and a 5-3-2, with Vermes playing sort of as a false 9 but much more interested in being a midfielder than a striker (see diagram for closest approximation)

• In any case it’s extremely defensive and the attackers (if you can call them that) are staying narrow

• Caligiuri providing most of the width on the right getting forward from wing-back, while on the left Armstrong is mostly staying put with Wynalda tracking back

18. A mid-game beer ad? That’s incredibly American

20. The idea that we’re playing with non full-time pros as recently as 1990 is wild (and there were still a bunch in 1994, too!)

22. It’s really a shame that Meola never really got his chance in Europe after this

23. So after a promising opening 15 minutes or so, the US is really just stuck in their own box at this point

25. Watching Kubik here makes his ranging away from his center-back position for the Fire make more sense

26. GOAL for the Czechs….classic counter-attack, all that earlier good work for the US gets undone that fast. Tab Ramos caught just trying to do too much off that free kick leading to the break.

28. Veremes was all over the place for the first 15 minutes….and now he’s nowhere to be seen

34. It’s 2020 and 2 or 3 paragraphs in a newspaper about soccer still feels like a lot (with a couple notable exceptions)

36. Wynalda’s flow is right up there with Meola’s

38. LMAO thinking Trinidad & Tobago are two different countries is definitely worse than thinking the Chicago Fire can win the the World Cup (also, maybe 2017 was our punishment for this)

39. CLEAR THE DAMN BALL (that’s 100% a PK)

44. It’s not even half-time yet and we look out of gas

47. Death, taxes, British hatred of The Wave

HT: Good 15 minutes but then all Czechoslovakia; Tab Ramos getting taught a lesson so far

2nd Half

53: Well…..that was easy……..Harkes didn’t even jump!!!

54. Bad grammar on the PSA

55. RED CARD, Wynalda, what happened???? A young Wynalda getting sent off for an off-ball incident checks out

63. GOOOOOOOOALLLLLLLL !?!?!?!? How did that happen?

66. Can that be both a PK and a dive? No?

71. I guess the defense has at least bee OK the last 10 minutes or so?

71. HOW did that stay out

75. TAB! How the hell does he miss that

81. Aaaaand more bad corner marking, JUMP DAMNIT

82. At least the US are still going for it?

90. LAME

94. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

94. Well that’s stupid…..

So I can’t say this game has left me super excited to watch the next two, but at least I know those end up being closer. Huge learning experience for a team that had never seen anything like the stage they suddenly found themselves on.

I’m not sure, with the tactics they were playing, how they were really ever supposed to get in the match with so few players getting forward and the only real striker in the group, Wynalda, forced to track back and help defensively because the wing back behind him wasn’t allowed to come forward.

Credit I suppose to Ramos and Harkes for trying to make things happen in the middle, but they had no room and Ramos in particular kept trying tooo much (in his defense, at least he was trying).

On to the next one I suppose...