A Shocker: U.S. Beats Brazil for First Time
Their names were Billy Gonsalves and Bert Patenaude, and the reason they are mentioned here will become clear before long.
For now, however, simply remember their names.
Why? Because the United States on Tuesday night scored one of the great upsets in soccer history, defeating Brazil--as in world champion Brazil--on a superb second-half goal by Preki.
The 1-0 result stunned the Los Angeles Coliseum crowd of 12,298 almost as much as it did the Brazilians. It was the first time the United States had ever beaten Brazil.
Preki’s goal was the first the U.S. has scored against the South Americans in 68 years.
The loss was only Brazil’s second since it won the World Cup by beating Italy a few miles away at the Rose Bowl in 1994.
The newspapers in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are likely to be scathing today in their criticism of the fallen champions. Instead, they should praise the two players who made the American victory possible.
The first was goalkeeper Kasey Keller, who was outstanding in the nets, making a total of 10 saves, many of them bordering on the incredible.
The second was Preki, who followed his game-winning goal against Costa Rica in Oakland on Saturday with an infinitely more memorable strike Tuesday.
At the final whistle, shortly before 10 p.m., the U.S. bench sprinted onto the field to engulf the players. The fans, who had been chanting “USA, USA” for much of the latter part of the game, stayed in their seats while Keller and Preki did on-field television interviews, then applauded the two as they ran down the Coliseum tunnel.
Up in the press box, radio reporters shouted the bad news down the phone lines in Portuguese to an astonished audience in Brazil.
It was the greatest American soccer triumph since the upset of Colombia in the 1994 World Cup. In many ways, it was even more important than that.
The entire soccer world will awake this morning to the news that the world champions have been beaten. Never mind that the victory put the U.S. into the final of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. More significant is the credibility it gives to all U.S. Soccer has been doing for the past decade to build the sport in the United States.
The U.S. had lost eight consecutive games to Brazil since their first encounter in 1930. The Brazilians had recently denied the U.S. in four consecutive tournaments. The results:
--Brazil 2, USA 0, in U.S. Cup ’93 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Conn.
--Brazil 1, USA 0, in the World Cup second round at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto on July 4, 1994.
--Brazil 1, USA 0, in the Copa America semifinal at Maldonado, Uruguay, in 1995.
--Brazil 1, USA 0, in the semifinal of the 1996 Gold Cup at this same stadium.
And now this.
The Americans will have to come back to earth by Sunday, when they will play the winner of Thursday night’s semifinal between Mexico and Jamaica.
Preki’s goal, in the 65th minute, came a mere five minutes after he had been sent into the game as a replacement for Roy Wegerle.
Eric Wynalda took the ball down the left flank and passed inside to Preki. The 34-year-old forward turned defender Junior inside out with a nifty move, then unleashed a shot from 22 yards that screamed into the net just inside the left post.
Brazilian goalkeeper Claudio Taffarel, himself a World Cup winner in 1994, launched himself through the air but was too late to stop the shot.
Preki was engulfed by teammates on the sideline, after which the U.S. settled down to keep the Brazilians at bay for the final 25 minutes.
They raised the level of their game several notches and, as each minute ticked by, it appeared they could pull off the impossible.
Against all odds, they did.
Oddly, the first 15 minutes of the game were desultory at best. The only incidents of note were two fine saves by Keller, who arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday night from England.
In the 10th minute, he dived to his left to smother a fierce shot by Edmundo. Two minutes later, Romario had two opportunities from close range. Alexi Lalas blocked the first, Romario got the rebound and Keller threw himself to his right to turn the Brazilian striker’s shot around the post.
It was Keller’s excellent play that had the crowd on its feet again in the 24th minute, when a fine pass by Zinho put Lalas and Romario into a footrace that 1994’s world player of the year won with ease.
Again, Keller proved unbeatable. He dived to clutch Romario’s shot out of the air at the near post. Seven minutes later, he again denied the Brazilian from close range.
At the other end of the field, the closest the U.S. came to scoring in the first half was when Eddie Pope redirected a Joe-Max Moore corner kick well wide of the net with a glancing header.
Before the half ended, there was time for one more display of heroics by Keller. This time, he stopped a point-blank header from Romario, a save so astonishing that it casued the 1994 World Cup winner to pause and congratulate the goalkeeper.
The second half featured three more superb saves by Keller, but it was Preki’s goal that ignited the night.
The last time the U.S. had scored against Brazil was on Aug. 17, 1930 in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil scored the first of its eight victories over the U.S. by a single goal, 4-3.
The American team had stopped off in Rio on its way back from the first World Cup, in Uruguay, where it had reached the semifinals. It has not done that well in the World Cup since and neither has it scored against Brazil since that August afternoon.
Billy Gonsalves and Bert Patenaude--remember them?--were the goal scorers for the U.S. Gonsalves netted the only goal he would score for the national team, and Patenaude knocked in two.
Their record stood for 68 years. No one else in more than six decades could do what they had done.
Until Preki did it Tuesday night.
Astonishing.
Gold Cup
Thursday’s
Semifinal:
* Jamaica vs. Mexico, Coliseum, 7 p.m.
Sunday’s
Final:
* U.S. vs Thursday’s winner, Coliseum, 5 p.m.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
CONCACAF Gold Cup
*--*
Team W L T GF GA Pts Group One xJamaica 2 0 1 5 2 7 xBrazil 1 0 2 5 1 5 Guatemala 0 1 2 3 4 2 El Salvador 0 2 1 0 6 1 Group Two xMexico 2 0 0 6 2 6 Trinidad 1 1 0 5 5 3 Honduras 0 1 1 1 5 0 Group Three xUnited States 2 0 0 5 1 6 Costa Rica 1 1 0 8 4 3 Cuba 0 2 0 2 10 0
*--*
x-advanced to semifinals
Feb. 1: Trinidad and Tobago 3, Honduras 1; United States 3, Cuba 0; El Salvador 0, Guatemala 0
Feb. 3: Brazil 0, Jamaica 0
Feb. 4: Costa Rica 7, Cuba 2; Mexico 4, Trinidad and Tobago 2
Feb. 5: Brazil 1, Guatemala 1
Feb. 6: El Salvador vs. Jamaica, ppd.
Feb. 7: United States 2, Costa Rica 1; Mexico 2, Honduras 0
Sunday: Jamaica 3, Guatemala 2; Brazil 4, El Salvador 0
Monday: Jamaica 2, El Salvador 0
Tuesday: United States 1, Brazil 0.
Thursday: Mexico vs. Jamaica, 7 p.m. (Los Angeles Coliseum).
Sunday: Third-place game, 3 p.m. and final, 5 p.m. (Los Angeles Coliseum).
* All times Pacific.
