US must address its Latino problem
Paul
GARDNER
GLOBAL VIEWa goalless draw with Japan, meaning
that victory against Holland would
almost certainly guarantee a place in
the second round. As the Dutch had
lost their first two games, such a goal
seemed achievable, but the US lost
4-0 with a lamentable performance
and were out of the tournament.
Meanwhile, Mexico were advancing
all the way to the Final, beating
Holland on the way. Their achievement- they narrowly lost 2-1 in the Final
to hosts Brazil – carried a lesson for
the USA because two of the Mexicans
could have chosen to play for the US.
However, it was Mexico who had
courted them and encouraged
them while USSF showed only
a half-hearted interest.
Was anyone at USSF following
Mexico’s run to the Final?
Soon after the World Cup, USSF lost
Tab Ramos, its one and only Latino
coach, who left to take charge of MLS
team Houston Dynamo.
Ramos, who was a legend in his
playing days for the USA national side,
had been with USSF for seven years.
He had coached the under-20s and
been assistant to head coach Jurgen
Klinsmann at the 2014 World Cup. But
he had also suffered a brutal rebuff, in
2015, when he was passed over for
the position of Olympic coach. The
position went instead to Klinsmann’s
colleague, Andreas Herzog, who failed
to even qualify the team for the
Games in 2016.
Ramos’ departure from the national
set-up mirrored that of another US
Latino playing legend Hugo Perez, who
The United States Soccer Federation
(USSF) has – and has had for decades- a serious problem in its utter refusal
to embrace the country’s Latino-
American soccer community.
Worse still, USSF is apparently
unaware of the problem.
That innocent ignorance, which has
lasted so long that it now looks more
like a systematic policy, can not last
much longer. After all, how can the
spurning of a huge swath of soccer
devotees be in any way helpful to
the game in the US?
USSF’s dismissive attitude to
Hispanics cannot be justified by any
argument. For a start, it is an insult,
to Hispanic pride. And from a soccer
standpoint it means generation after
generation of promising young Latino
players have been marginalised. This
has ensured that the Latino style of
play has been virtually banished from
USSF’s teaching and practice.
At the moment, USSF has not a
single Latino coach among its seven
various age-group men’s and boys’
teams, from under-14 to under- - and this despite the fact that some
40 per cent of the players involved are
Latino. In fact, only one of those teams
has a full-time coach – and his story
is extremely revealing.
In March 2019 a new coach was
required for the national under-17 side
that had qualified for their age-group
World Cup in Brazil. The position was
given, incredibly, to Raphael Wicky, a
former Switzerland international but
someone with virtually no experience
of American soccer. Were there really
no Latino-American candidates?
Then, in September, came further
evidence that Latino soccer is not
on USSF’s radar. A youth-soccer task
force was being set up and some 60
experts involved in youth soccer were
recruited. Some digging by Soccer
America’s Mike Woitalla revealed
that not one of them – not a single
one – was a Latin-American male.
Given the massive involvement of
Latino boys in the youth game this
looked suspiciously like discrimination.
But no, it was merely “an oversight”
according to a barely apologetic USSF
functionary, who gave assurances that
the oversight would be corrected.
At the under-17 finals, Wicky’s team
got wiped out 4-1 by Senegal in their
opening group game. They then played
defensively in their next game to grabWipe out...USA
(in white) were no
match for SenegalUnder-17 boss...
Raphael WickyGone...former under-
coach Tab RamosTHE WORLD THIS MONTH