The King of All Ameri-wanks: USA Wins the 2002 FIFA World Cup

"Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down."

-refrain of the 1643 English ballad "The World Turned Upside Down"

...

US WIN AMERICA-AND-REST-OF-WORLD CUP MEET
Late last evening, Brian McBride and Landon Donovan tallied a soccerpoint apiece as the USofA soccer stars won their second-phase meet against Not America in the Summer Soccer Kickaround. They recorded a big two-to-zero score as opposing XI Not America failed to make the sort of offensive plays that troubled the Italians (a kind of American found in Mafia movies) in their previous match-up. It's the first soc-casion the US have made an elimination-round advancement in the Kickaround, sponsored by Mastercard.

Bruce Arena, the head coach of the US soccer side, took five from making major tactical calls to talk up his right-sided running back, Claudio Reyna of the Sunderland Blackcats. "Claudio played a position he's not used to and we came through big," said Arena. "I'm proud of my guys and it is a great day for US soccer. Mexico are a great team who were just a few minutes away from qualifying from the group with three wins, so this was an impressive victory."

Not America captain Rafael Marquez, who was sent to the sin-bin for a arsekick-headbutt super-combo on 88 thus giving a time-remainder powerplay to US, blamed his side's defeat on a totally bogus psychological mindset. "We tried to change a little after their first goal, so did they and we were caught cold which made us despair a little and took away some of our drive to equalize and made us careless at the back." The soccer-mad Not Americans are stunned by this addition to their loss stats, but we gotta move on; the States square off against a suspiciously un-American team called Germany on Friday. USA! USA! USA!

-from the Guardian on June 17, 2002

...

Germany defeated Paraguay 1-0 in the Round of 16, while the United States surprised heavily favored Mexico 2-0.

Germany and the United States have played once at a World Cup previously - in 1998, Germany won 1-0 in a Group F matchup.

Germany won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974 and 1990 and finished runner-up in 1966, 1982 and 1986. Brazil is the only country that has won more FIFA World Cups.

USA finished 3rd place at the 1930, but otherwise this is the best World Cup performance in their history.

-excerpts from a handout given to various press members at Munsu Cup Stadium on June 21, 2002.
 
Loss to U.S. stuns soccer-mad Mexicans

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Rarely had a U.S. soccer game so riveted an entire nation. The problem is that the nation caught up in the passion was Mexico -- and that it lost 2-0 in a World Cup game televised from South Korea as most American sports fans slept.

Millions of Mexicans -- including President Vicente Fox -- stayed up through the heart of the night to have their hearts broken, their dreams of advancing to the World Cup quarterfinals smashed.

"It hurts us here," said Jose Luis Luviano, 21, punching his chest. Tears melted the Mexican flags painted on his cheeks. "There has to be an end to this disgrace where (Americans) treat us like rats and idiots."

...

If U.S. newspapers often treated the buildup to the game as secondary to golf, the event dominated even the news pages in Mexico -- often in apocalyptic terms.
"This is war!" announced a front-page headline in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.

...

All stood and sang as the Mexican anthem was played. Many screamed obscenities at the "Star Spangled Banner" -- signs of resentment at a wealthier, more powerful northern neighbor that Mexicans often feel treats them with disrespect.

For decades, Mexicans took pride in dominating the United States in soccer, at least. But U.S. teams have steadily improved and now have beaten Mexico in five of their last six meetings. Mexicans continue to scoff at the state of soccer knowledge among U.S. sports fans, whose nonchalance toward the game makes defeats even more bitter.

"The United States is a country of basketball, not of soccer," said Lucia Arango, a 20-year-old street vendor. "Destiny has played a dirty trick on us."

-excerpts from a CNNSI article on June 17, 2002.

(Note: this piece always amused me due to the hilarious quotes. I would imagine it wasn't hard for the Sports Illustrated journalists to get comments like this after such a heartbreaking defeat)
 
Sorry but even the ASB as so powerfull...unless is a signo of the incoming apocalypse and dog and cats are living together
 
Now if I wanted to turn this into an ASB then I would have a gust of wind blow Ronaldinho's cross wide of goal and then have England defeat Brazil in their quarterfinal. With England against the USA in the Final.

But I'm not sure whether Brazil should be eliminated by England, especially since the POD isn't until after Brazil-England.
 

mats

Banned
well, in football anything is possible. but the USA winning? that needs a pod very far back. because, frankly, nobody in the USA is really that intrested. i suggest that you ask this thread to be relocated to ASB.
 
well, in football anything is possible. but the USA winning? that needs a pod very far back. because, frankly, nobody in the USA is really that intrested. i suggest that you ask this thread to be relocated to ASB.

If you think this is ASB then you don't actually know anything about the 2002 World Cup. It's unlikely, but not ASB.

I suggest reading up about this World Cup on Wikipedia or something.
 
Yeah, OTL, the American team won against Portugal and Mexico, only to get knocked out in a match against Germany.

Yeah the quarterfinals are all the same, and there is a very, very notorious incident in the Germany/USA match that I'm using as my POD.

June 21
England vs. Brazil
Germany vs. United States

June 22
Spain vs. South Korea
Senegal vs. Turkey

I'm not ready to post my writeup for the match though, since I'm still undecided how I'm going to write the match after the POD. One of the problems is figuring out how to solve the likely defensive crisis for the semi-final that will be caused due to injuries and yellow card accumulation.
 
I saw the match between Germany and USA. It was the German goalie Kahn that saved them. He was the reason they advanced to the final that year. He was superhuman in every match except the final, were he showed he was a ordinary man.

So a USA-win in 2002 against Germany isnt all that ASB.

The other quaterfinal on that side was Spain vs South Corea. If the USA win dont butterfly away the South Corean penalty shootout win we get South Corea vs USA in one semifinal and Brazil vs Turkey in the other.

South Corea isnt all to hard to win against for the USA. Then we get a final between Brazil and a USA. Any normal year Brazil would win. The World Cup 2002 was anything BUT normal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIFA_World_Cup_knockout_stage

Brazil vs USA might have been an improvement to the final we got OTL that was utterly booring compared to the fotballparty that was the third place match. I mean, i missed the first 5 minutes of the game and missed 3 goals!
 
This is a very interesting timeline. If the referee had spotted the handball and given a penalty, the USA could well have gone on to win (though it is by no means a foregone conclusion - there would have been at least forty minutes of normal time, followed by at least 30 minutes of extra time in which the Germans could have gotten a winner, and then penalties - and as the English can tell you, the Germans always win on penalties), and then a little luck could have taken the Americans to the final. I'm not sure whether they would have been able to beat the Brazilians, seeing as the Brazilians were the form team of the World Cup - despite an appalling qualifying campaign, they'd really improved during the tournament, and Ronaldo was blistering, having scored a goal in every game except the England game. Rivaldo was at the top of his game, Ronaldinho was announcing himself as one of the world's best players...it would have taken large amounts of good fortune and hard work for the Americans to win. But stranger things have happened in football. I will be reading.
 
Speaking as a moderate Philly sports fan, this interests me. A US win would certainly increase interest in soccer. As it was I was so pleased when Philly got the Union for soccer. Maybe this happens earlier as a result? Honestly I don't get american football, and I'm faintly disgusted by it (I stopped following the Eagles when they got Micheal Vick), the 76ers are a disappointment, so for a team capable of winning anything I'm pretty much limited to the Flyers and the Phillies. There is hope though: soccer is big on a school level (in my area at least), and it's popularity is growing. Maybe in 20-30 years time the US will be competitive at the world cup :D
 
This is a very interesting timeline. If the referee had spotted the handball and given a penalty, the USA could well have gone on to win (though it is by no means a foregone conclusion - there would have been at least forty minutes of normal time, followed by at least 30 minutes of extra time in which the Germans could have gotten a winner, and then penalties - and as the English can tell you, the Germans always win on penalties),

Yep the POD will be the uncalled Torsten Frings handball in the 50th minute which stopped Gregg Berhalter's shot from going into the goal. (I'll save the picture, which is the smoking gun, for the actual post in the TL).

This time Hugh Dallas will see the handball, Frings will get a red card and USA will get a PK. Nothing else in the match after that is certain. Kahn is still beast and I'm not quite sure who would take the PK (probably Claudio Reyna).

One problem is that I gave away the result in the title, but anybody that figured out the POD and the US-centric perspective of this TL would have figured out the likely result anyways. So I went for the shock value in the thread title.

Speaking as a moderate Philly sports fan, this interests me. A US win would certainly increase interest in soccer. As it was I was so pleased when Philly got the Union for soccer. Maybe this happens earlier as a result?

From MLS's perspective, a 2002 POD is a good thing because they have eliminated most of the bad habits from the early years of the league (96-01) and have finally stumbled upon the formula for long-term survival.

MLS expanding into Philadelphia was a smart move and the soccer fans there have responded (I'm a DC United fan myself). Chances are that Philadelphia would get a club 3-4 years quicker in this timeline. However, I don't know how far beyond the World Cup I'm going to take this timeline.
 
How are the americans going to beat South Korea's rigged refereeing and a Brazil team that was leaps and bounds superior to any other team in the world at the time?

Specially the referees. With a US- South Korea semifinal, expect a Brazil-South Korea final.
 
How are the americans going to beat South Korea's rigged refereeing and a Brazil team that was leaps and bounds superior to any other team in the world at the time?

Specially the referees. With a US- South Korea semifinal, expect a Brazil-South Korea final.

1. The US did draw South Korea in the group stage 1-1, so it is possible. IMO, the Germany match was probably the US's best performance in the entire tournament, so the US will be in good form for the semi-final.

Plus, I think FIFA would make sure the refs don't rig anything in South Korea's favor, because the US in the World Cup Final is the type of instant moneymaker that FIFA wouldn't want to risk screwing up.

2. Yeah, the US is going to catch some breaks if they play Brazil in the final. But Brazil wasn't invulnerable. The Belgium match, the England match, both matches against Turkey and the final were all close.
 
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