A long road gets longer

The United States Mens National soccer team is not a bad one. Nor are they particularly good. They are adequate, at times exceptionally so and their successes over the last 10 years is attributable more to grit, tenacity and “American can-do” than world-class skill or panache. They are your neighbor’s ruggedly good-looking husband who can wow you at the neighborhood potluck but couldn’t wash dishes at Restaurant Guy Savoy.

So while it is not surprising Colombia scored against them in the opening match of the Copa America, it is disheartening that it happened within the first eight minutes. Colombia’s Cristian Zapata ditched American defender Geoff Cameron like an ugly blind date and scored off a corner pass that could have been defended by any high school All-Star program. Thirty five minutes later Colombia scored again, this time with James Rodriguez converting a penalty kick.

The stadium trembled with the voices of Colombian fans whose voices melded into a sonic jack hammer for one minute, then two. Three. U.S. supporters on the other hand, with their fingers intertwined in front of their confused faces, seemed  more puzzled than sad. We came all the way here to watch this?

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Los Angeles has a reputation for having nasty traffic. It is deserved. But the secret to getting from Point A to Point Z there is taking surface streets. When leaving San Diego there are inexplicable snarls in North County that don’t give drivers that option. What’s more, enraged motorists are not afforded the satisfaction of seeing the cause of the delays—no accidents or disabled vehicles providing explanations or payoff—and they are left wondering what caused all the fuss. The same happens in parts of Orange County. There are long, winding stretches of bumper-to-bumper traffic then suddenly and inexplicably speeds are back to 65 miles per hour. LA does not have a monopoly on gridlock, it just has a better publicist.

The GPS estimates that a trip from San Diego to Santa Clara will take between seven and eight hours are optimistic projections. They do not  factor in the missed turnouts and doubling back because semi-trucks, BMWs, and inattention conspire against your merging to the appropriate lane. The projected times give you the sense that a trip north can be made in reasonable time. But the folly is revealed when parked at a Jack-in-the-Box on the downside of the Grapevine as the sun melts into the horizon. After five hours of driving there are five hours left. GPS said you would arrive in Santa Clara by 8 p.m. The road puts your estimated time of arrival at 11 p.m. It is a long day.

What have you done?

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The streets leading to Levi’s Stadium are empty at 11:15 p.m. All the reasonable rooms for less than $200 are long booked. You think to yourself that people of higher esteem and with worse luck have slept in their car. There’s no reason that for one night you cannot join them. In a secluded parking lot your last thoughts are those of hoping you are not awakened by a perturbed cop—or an ambitious thief.

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At 5, before the sun rises, a strained neck and the sound of a bus stirs you from a shallow sleep. There is work at the office that needs to be done, demanding the hunt for a wifi signal. A right turn onto Great America Parkway sets you on your way toward downtown San Jose before the locals wake up.

But Copa America in Santa Clara has run into some bad luck. The once-in-a-lifetime soccer tournament has run into competition for attention because the San Jose Sharks are competing in the Stanley Cup finals. Lionel Messi, Alexis Sanchez, James Rodriguez and Clint Dempsey are in town representing their respective countries but  there are more people wearing Sharks jerseys than Argentina or USA kits. In shop windows signs remind passersby “This is Sharks territory.” Aside from the occasional tourist wearing a banana yellow kit and wandering down the street there is no evidence a major international soccer tournament is about to be underway. This is futbol in America.

But then you arrive at the stadium.

Colombia fans are the first ones there, four hours before the 6:30 p.m. kickoff. They are dressed in yellow wigs, yellow jerseys and yellow sunglasses. They stand on street corners in 90-degree heat. “CO-LOM-BIA! CO-LOM-BIA!” A group of four becomes a group of six, then 10 and then 20. They blow horns and dance cumbias in the parking lot while USA fans flow in from the outskirts, their red, white and blue painted faces smiling, beads of sweat trickling down their foreheads and cheeks.
“Wooooooo! ‘Murica!”

The festival of the Americas has its own distinct flavors.

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On the field Colombia outperforms the United States in every way possible.The team’s passes are crisp and with purpose. The transition from offense to defense to offense again is seamless and the scoreline should be higher. Even the fouls are professional and focussed. Team USA is out of its depth and the game cannot end soon for the players, the fans or the reporter who must drive 10 hours back to San Diego to make it in time for a wedding. There is a temptation to linger for the post game press conference but listening to U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann can be frustratingly unproductive. It can be like listening to a campaigning politician evade a direct answer. Better to leave now and be in San Diego by 6 a.m. then make a long night unbearably longer.

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The drive home is a long one, longer than the one to Santa Clara when there was more traffic and obstacles. Then there was only the trudging through the 500-mile drive on a crowded highway to contend with. But now, though there are fewer cars on the road, there is an aching fatigue that claws at your eyes and drags them shut time and again.  When you arrive home in the morning at 9:30 you have no idea how you got there.