AL RAYYAN, Qatar — In case you hadn’t heard, there is a big game for the United States men’s national team coming up Tuesday.
A big game indeed, the biggest American men’s soccer has had for at least eight years, the biggest it will have for another four. It’s a game of simplicity — where a win is golden and nothing else against Iran will do (2 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports App).
And yet, at Al Thumama Stadium, there will be a game within the game, one that will play a role of its own. It is a game specifically designed to throw an opponent off their game, which it why they call it what they do: gamesmanship.
Iran, the team Gregg Berhalter’s USA must beat to power their way out of Group B and into the round of 16, is a master of gamesmanship.
Carlos Queiroz’s squad is a high-quality team, good enough to be ranked 20th in the world, compared to the USMNT’s 16th, and it did an outstanding job of outplaying Wales 2-0 on Friday. It is also an experienced group filled with veteran players who are highly skilled in the mysterious arts of cajoling referees and gaining any available advantage.
“They worked the referee,” former USA coach Jurgen Klinsmann told the BBC, after Iran’s impressive victory, that rescued its campaign after a 6-2 loss to England in their opener. “They work the linesman and fourth-official, they are constantly in their ear. There were a lot of incidents we didn’t see. This is their (soccer) culture, they take you off your game.”
Let’s be real here, it is not “their” soccer culture. Yes, the Iranians play to the very limit of the rules, and sometimes step over, and they are far from being the only ones to do so. Numerous teams in the World Cup embrace such methods, especially when their backs are to the wall.
The American squad has captured the hearts of their audience back home, but it would be blinkered to fool ourselves into thinking there aren’t times when a mild bit of exaggeration, or time-wasting to protect a lead, or remonstrating with the ref, becomes part of the agenda, too.
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These are professional players with a fierce competitive streak. That’s how it is.
“Every single team in the World Cup, they all have a different kind of style and different ways of gamesmanship, and that’s the nature of this sport,” U.S. defender Tim Ream said. “That’s the nature our game.
“It’s not something that you can overly prepare for. It’s an understanding that’s it’s going to happen. We just have to keep our cool and not let it bother you.”
There is virtually no limit to the things teams can do to slow down the pace of a game, to disrupt its opponent, to try to gain an edge — by fair means or foul.
Iran’s bench was extremely vocal and animated in pressurizing the referee during its game with Wales, though that is by no means an unusual sight in this tournament.
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It is worth remembering Iran only needs a tie to advance. Anything that affects the rhythm of the match, or chews up some clock, will be like gold-dust to them.
This is not like the do-or-die situation the USA faced against Algeria in 2010, when the Algerians also needed a win and threw players forward in search of a goal, opening up just enough space for Landon Donovan’s famous breakaway.
The USA has faced difficult situations with regularity. The CONCACAF region is known as one of the trickiest in world soccer, where road games provide a particularly tough challenge.
“I don’t think you can do anything different than normal — you come up against gamesmanship and different styles in CONCACAF all the time,” Ream added.
As for Klinsmann’s comments, they were quickly — and angrily — noticed by Iran’s Portuguese head coach, Queiroz.
“No matter how much I can respect what you did inside the pitch, those remarks about Iran culture, Iran national team and my players are a disgrace to football,” Queiroz tweeted at Klinsmann.
Klinsmann responded by promising to reach out to Queiroz to try to smooth things over.
Ream is part of a stout defensive lineup that will need to use its own brand of intelligent physicality Tuesday, as falling behind would drastically increase the level of difficulty.
Most of the current USMNT players were either not born or not old enough to remember the last time the USA faced Iran at the World Cup, a 1998 clash that ended with a demoralizing 2-1 defeat in a tournament in which the Americans finished dead-last out of the 32 teams.
However, they all remember the 2010 and 2014 campaigns, when there was still work to be done in the final round of group action, and the USA found a way through.
Everything will be decided by who is better, tougher and more skillful on the night and the chance to become a hero awaits.
But how the Americans keep their composure, if faced with some of the tricky arts of soccer, can also have a seismic impact on whether the campaign ends in disappointment, or continues with all possibility remaining.
