Add lewd sexual conduct and illicit affairs to the long list of reasons why the United States has never quite been able to get it together in the World Cup. It has long been believed that the 1998 World Cup team -- which lost all three of its matches in group play, including to Iran (seriously), and finished dead last -- suffered from some off-field distractions as well. And over the last several days, it has been confirmed that John Harkes, one of the heroes of the historic 1994 host team, was dropped from the team by coach Steve Sampson because he was having an affair with the wife of teammate Eric Wynalda.
Sampson was quoted in an Associated Press piece on the affair and its effect on the team:
"The private issues for me were the most serious issues. I think I could have lived with everything else and kept John on the team if it had not been for the private issues. It's one thing to have an affair outside the team. It's another to have one inside. ... There are just certain lines that one cannot cross [my emphasis]."
Yeah, that's one of putting it. It's bad enough wondering when, or if, the US will ever to catch up to the rest of the world in soccer. But having the captain of the team -- the one who is supposed to exercise leadership -- sleeping with a teammate's wife is a disgrace to the country and its soccer fans, few as there are.
A sad revelation from this story is that having a national soccer program that makes more headlines for this type of shenanigans than it does with its play certainly won't help convince FIFA that the US is worthy of hosting a second world cup. Or, given FIFA's traditional affinity for shady behavior, perhaps it might help?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment