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U.S. team came out flat and paid for it

It turns out there was a purpose after all to Saturday's third-place game of the CONCACAF Gold Cup at PPL Park.

Panama's Anibal Godoy (left) goes after the soccer ball with teammate Alfredo Stephens against (center) United States' Fabian Johnson.
Panama's Anibal Godoy (left) goes after the soccer ball with teammate Alfredo Stephens against (center) United States' Fabian Johnson.Read more(Yong Kim/Staff Photographer)

It turns out there was a purpose after all to Saturday's third-place game of the CONCACAF Gold Cup at PPL Park.

The United States men's national soccer team simply can't brush aside a rare Gold Cup semifinal loss, since it was followed by an even rarer event.

This is what Saturday's loss to Panama means: For only the second time in 13 Gold Cup appearances, the United States has failed to finish in the top three of its region's tournament. Organizers put up a podium on the field to award third-place medals and it was Panama that took the stage, after 120 minutes of 1-1 soccer, followed by Panama's coming through in a penalty-kick shootout.

A team so disheartened by the events of three days earlier that it had seriously talked about boycotting this game instead prevailed. (It was a pretty good day for Panama, since it was a Panamanian catcher for the Phillies who caught the fourth no-hitter of his career out in Chicago.)

Afterward, it was Panama's coach, Hernan Dario Gomez, who talked about his team's needing to convert more of its many chances, while U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann said, "We allowed too many defensive chances, no doubt about it.''

It was all right that Klinsmann talked after the loss about how hard it was for both teams to be out there. Klinsmann was right and his candor should be appreciated. "A game that Panama and us didn't really want to play'' was the way Klinsmann put it.

Yet it was Panama that summoned the energy to make the whole thing look like a soccer game in the first half. Only after Clint Dempsey and DeAndre Yedlin were summoned off the American bench in the 60th minute did the United States show some spark. Not coincidently, that pair got together for a tying goal in the 70th minute, and each provided more chances.

At his news conference, while Panama's contingent celebrated in the next room, Klinsmann seemed to suggest that all the controversies of this Gold Cup had impacted Team USA. Really? Panama might raise an eyebrow at that one. Costa Rica, too.

Only 12,598 people showed up at PPL. Maybe that was actually a sign that we are a mature soccer nation now. If the team didn't want to be there, why should the fans?

There will be many thousands more at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday night, when Mexico and Jamaica face off for the Gold Cup title.

"We want more,'' Winfried Schafer, Jamaica's coach, said at an earlier press session at the Linc. "We want the cup. Nobody deserves it more.''

His Reggae Boyz might be this Gold Cup's last hope for a result it can be proud of, one not directly decided by referee's decisions. Saturday morning, CONCACAF sent out an e-mail saying its leadership had met with referee Mark Geiger and he basically "accepted" that he had made a hash of the end of Panama's semifinal with Mexico.

The statement continued: "We at CONCACAF regret these circumstances but accept that such human errors are part of the game.''

Team USA must also accept its human failings. U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati, in a hallway under the PPL stands, made it clear afterward that he wasn't going to overreact to this tournament.

"The goal was obviously to win the Gold Cup,'' Gulati said. "... It's a big disappointment. We'll move on.''

You must accept losses along the way, the federation chief said.

"We're not going to win every game, so that means every team in the world has a lot of setbacks by that definition,'' said Gulati, who made it clear that Klinsmann gets judged by more than this Gold Cup.

"We don't go in and renew a contract because we beat Germany and Holland away from home,'' Gulati said of spring friendlies. "We're not going to make a change here.''

That's fine. Nobody expected Klinsmann to walk a plank into the Delaware River. The problem, however, with putting equal emphasis on friendlies, even against world powers, is that it's so hard to tell what the opponent, even at full strength, is trying to accomplish in a game. Where's the fight in a friendly? That's what tournaments are for.

Maybe the true nature of things was shown when Klinsmann related a conversation he had just had after the game with veteran DaMarcus Beasley, who talked of retiring from national team play after this tournament. An injury had kept one of the classiest acts in American soccer off the field for most of the tournament. Beasley got out there for the extra time and actually pulled off a nutmeg down by his own end line. A great little moment that the crowd enjoyed.

Still, that was a blip during this tournament, this low point of recent American soccer that Beasley barely participated in. The last penalty kick stopped by Panama's keeper was taken by Beasley.

"I don't know if you can walk out like that,'' Klinsmann told him afterward.

@jensenoffcampus