Underdog status? Check. Big bad European rivals? Check. Motivational speech from US manager. Erm…
Does anyone want to trade places with USA coach Jurgen Klinsmann right now? The US get their World Cup campaign underway tonight against Ghana and it seems that the German has been taking a leaf out of Roy Hodgson’s book by downplaying his teams chances of success in Brazil.
Most sane football fans wouldn’t be backing the US to get out of a group that also contains Germany, Portugal and Ghana, but Klinsmann’s honest and fair assessment of his side’s prospects hasn’t been well received by some of the “Soccerball” loving fans in America. Hasn’t the man seen any sports movies? America always wins! This usually happens after a heavy opening defeat, finding an unlikely hero and training hard as seen by a cheesy montage soundtracked by some obscure 80s synth tune.
You might expect the harshest critics of the downbeat German to be some of the US’ ex-players like Alexi Lalas, Tony Meola or Cobi Jones (those lads had some great hair), but it was comedian and JOE hero Stephen Colbert who had a hilarious pop at the ex-Spurs and Bayern Munich striker. We think that the US players should listen to this video and not their manager’s pre-match team talk…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmG1TGtWyKI
To be fair, Colbert has a point. Are we the only ones who expect a Hollywood ending for the US where they win the World Cup via a dramatic 12 yard death strike in overtime past the goaltender? Just us? All together now… USA , USA!
YouTube video via Matteo Juan.
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