Kyle Goon: Embarrassing loss to Belgium proves U.S. men’s soccer has stagnated

I’m not sure which was worse — the American soccer debacle that took place on Monday night, or all the rationalizing and hot air that filled up the Fox broadcast afterward.

As Fox Sports analyst Stu Holden solemnly promised “the future of American soccer is bright,” I had a mind to hurl my remote directly at my TV screen. Aside from another bendy free kick from Malik Tillman, very little I had seen in the previous 90 minutes made me look forward to watching this team try to qualify for and eventually play in the 2030 World Cup.

“The future is bright” is a tired line I’ve heard all my life about men’s soccer in the United States. The general theme is ascendency: The game is growing at home. Players are gaining more experience overseas. The big breakout is just around the corner.

To borrow a phrase from our superior soccer-playing British cousins: What a load of bollocks.

Belgium did the U.S. a favor by showing the naked truth in a resounding 4-1 result. Even their squad — whose biggest names are well past their primes — can still kick our butts if they want.

Fox had optimistically sold the USA-Belgium game as a “rematch” from the 2014 round of 16. The Belgians improved on their 2-1 win in that knockout game — and it was a “rematch” in the sense that 33-year-old Belgian star Romelo Lukaku scored the final goal in this one, too.

It is time to discard empty promises and consider the scoreboard. Even if you enjoyed the 4-1 smackdown on Paraguay or the gutsy 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina in this recent run, we can acknowledge that the idea that the program is “on the rise” is utterly unfounded.

We coddle U.S. men’s soccer as much as any competitive team that represents this country. If the women can compete for the World Cup consistently, why can’t the men?

In a nation of nearly 350 million people, Americans have every right to expect that the bright future should have arrived now. Every four years, we hear mealy-mouthed declarations of how this team has inspired future generations. Such moral victories are pointless, as we’ve seen stacked over years of evidence.

I don’t mean to reflect a generic sense of American entitlement here — rather, this is a call for the USMNT to raise the standard as they’ve promised over and over, yet failed to do.

Like many American fans, I felt ambivalent about how FIFA lifted striker Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension the day before the match. It was clearly a correction of an overly harsh call, but the shadowy appeal process reeks of classic FIFA corruption. In the end, we should be grateful that the team’s best scorer was on the pitch against Belgium, because it gives the USMNT one less excuse to fall back on.

The USMNT has become resourceful in scrounging up players with birthright or dual citizenship who have developed in high-quality overseas programs. They have hired foreign coaches who supposedly could unlock the tactics of the international game. None of these approaches has yielded a better finish.

Belgium has fielded an elite squad from a country with a population of fewer than 12 million. American youth soccer alone enrolls around 6 million participants, a much more sizable talent pool. Yet you will still hear excuses about how the best American athletes gravitate toward other sports — which somehow hasn’t eroded the quality of U.S. women’s soccer at all.

There are developmental reasons American men’s soccer doesn’t have the same quality as the powerhouses of Europe or South America or even some African nations, but it’s hard to imagine that we couldn’t address them if we wanted to. Making the game as accessible to as many athletes as possible is a good starting place.

Travel and club programs have shifted the world’s most adaptable and economically accessible game into a sport of privilege in this country. In the USMNT, it’s hard to miss that several of the players — Gio Reyna, Sebastian Berhalter, Tim Weah and even Baltimore-born Alex Freeman to a degree — benefit from who their parents are.

Even if there is a potential American Pelé juggling a stuffed sock in one of the impoverished neighborhoods in America, it’s reasonable to question if U.S. soccer is built to uncover such a talent. (And by the way, research from the Aspen Institute cited examples of how ICE raids have discouraged children from playing sports, one of myriad unfortunate consequences from increasingly draconian U.S. immigration policies.)

In this year’s tournament, Argentina’s Lionel Messi, France’s Kylian Mbappé, England’s Harry Kane and Norway’s Erling Haaland have lifted their countries on their backs. But the U.S. men are still looking for their own dynamic star.

Christian Pulisic has been sold as that destiny-changing player at times over the last 10 years, but his near no-show performance in his home country signals that his window is closing. One bona fide star may not be enough to completely elevate U.S. men’s soccer, but it’d still be nice to have one someday.

It was fitting that of all of the voices that Fox lined up to summarize the latest U.S. campaign, two-time World Cup winner and two-time gold medalist Carli Lloyd’s scathing assessment felt closest to the truth.

“I felt like they lost the game before they even stepped out onto the pitch,” the USWNT veteran said. “Just from the beginning — chasing, tentative, scared, just not confident on the ball. And you wanted some of those big-time players to step up in big moments.”

Take it from a woman who has won something meaningful for the U.S. on the world soccer stage: It takes more than this weak effort to actually compete with the best teams.

For nearly 25 years, American men’s soccer has promised a great big leap is coming. It’s time to stop pretending.

Monday night’s embarrassment against Belgium was just the latest data point. They’ve been stuck in place all along.