England-USA -- 1927 Yankees vs 2009 Mariners (3)
=== U.S. Basketball ===
In 1992, NBA players "competed" in the Olympics for the first time ever, and the laugh-fests were wire to wire.
Jordan, Magic, Bird & co. won games by scores like 116-48 all the way through. The U.S. won the quarterfinals by 38 points, the semis over Lithuania by 51 points (!) and then the second-toughest team in the world (Yugoslavia*) was stomped by 32, and it could have been more.
That's sort of what English soccer fans expect against the U.S., and I sensed this residual expectation in the chat threads I read...
But just eight years later, 2000, the NBA (Ray Allen, Vin Carter, the Glove, Kevin Garnett etc) had tremendous difficulty scratching out the gold medal. The won the semi by only 2 over Lithuania, and the final against France was just a 10-point margin.
The problem? Once the world dared to play against the U.S. and get blown out a few times, and integrated its own players into the NBA .... those countries were fielding solid NBA teams themselves.
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The U.S. is stacked with English Premier League players now. They're not superstars there, but they're good international players.
England has by far the better players -- far better than anybody save Brazil, Spain, and maybe the Netherlands. But the U.S. is a top-15'ish team, and nobody looks forward to playing them any more. They're a tough side in 2010. They will be from now on.
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=== Next Up ===
Reuben Fine was unofficial chess champion of the world from 1936-1938. He was also a practicing psychoanalyst who wrote fascinating books that intersected the two fields.
He pointed out that there is a completely different sports psychology in being the underdog vs. the upperdog. "As the underdog, a player is the son tackling the father," Fine wrote. It's easy to let it all hang out. It's a different sport when you become the man being shot at. Bobby Fischer retired permanently, the moment he became the upperdog.
There was no pressure on the U.S. whatsoever, other than to come into the locker room later with skinned-bloody knees from slide tackles. A draw was a win.
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The next two games, however, the U.S. is expected to win and to win as befits "a first-class international side." It will be very interesting to see how the U.S. game warps as it becomes the upperdog.
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Cheers,
Dr D