Now that he’s got the job through France ’98, U.S. national team coach Steve Sampson has a new set of short-term priorities. Steve Sampson — the man who kept winning until U.S. Soccer had no choice but to give him the job of coaching the U.S. national team — has a new agenda.
No, he’s not going to throw out the big wins against Nigeria and Mexico at U.S. Cup ’95 or the historic 3-0 win over Argentina that made the United States the toast of the ’95 Copa America and triggered a new wave of media interest in the team back home.
But Sampson says wins and losses will not be as important during the course of the next year as adding depth to his team. On the horizon beckons a brutal 1998 World Cup qualifying tournament in the CONCACAF region — 18 games, eight in the fall of 1996 and 10 during 1997.
Sampson says his job is to find “players 14-22” — and he’s not talking about adding director of the sagging U.S. youth development program to his job description.
“I have no obligation to bring in everyone,” Sampson said. “But I do have a responsibility to look at any players who have the potential to help, even at the risk of losing a game.”
The United States split its two games at the Parmalat Cup — beating Benfica of Portugal 2-1 Aug. 6 for third place after falling to eventual champion Parma by the same score two nights earlier — but the real scoreline was the number of players Sampson feels he has added to his depth chart: Goalie Juergen Sommer (who solidified the No. 3 spot in goal), defenders Jeff Agoos and Steve Pittman (both left-sided players) and striker Roy Lassiter (hero of the win over Benfica).
MLS XI gives Parma a game
While Bora Milutinovic, his predecessor, had three-and-a-half years to experiment, Sampson has one year before France ’98 qualifying begins for the U.S. And while Bora got to tinker with his lineup against the likes of Moldova and Estonia in places like Davidson, N.C., and Fullerton, Calif., Sampson opened up against UEFA Cup champion and Italian runner-up Parma in New York.
Coming right on the heels of the Copa America, the Parmalat Cup was the much-awaited MLS summer showcase before its launch next spring — both dates drew crowds of more than 30,000 — and Sampson says he only agreed to play in the Parmalat Cup if he got a core of foreign-based players — Marcelo Balboa and Alexi Lalas in the middle of the defense both days and Mike Sorber in midfield for the first game — around which he could conduct his experiments.
With all his European-based players except Lalas preparing for the new season, the rest of the starting lineup against Parma Aug. 4 resembled an MLS XI. Besides Sommer, whose future at English First Division club Luton Town is uncertain, all the other players are either currently under contract to MLS (Agoos, Mike Burns and Mike Lapper) or are likely to join the MLS fold shortly (Lassiter, Cobi Jones, Roy Wegerle, Frank Klopas).
Circumstances dictated that Sampson abandon the attacking look he employed in the later stages of the Copa America for a 5-3-2 that placed heavy emphasis on Lassiter and Jones breaking through down the wings. With the conservative Sorber the only player in the center of the midfield, the U.S. had to rely almost exclusively on counterattacks.
Parma coach Nevio Scala, who is building toward the start of the new Serie A season on Aug. 27, started only one of his five foreign stars against the Americans (Portuguese sweeper Fernando Couto). Swede Tomas Brolin and Argentine Nestor Sensini came on after halftime, but neither Hristo Stoichkov nor Faustino Asprilla played. Stoichkov was rested after suffering a contusion in a friendly match against Belgian champion Anderlecht, and Asprilla, who’s being shopped around to other European clubs with a price tag of more than $10 million on his head, was, according to Scala, “on vacation.”
Both teams looked like they’d been on vacation in the first half. Few chances were created, and the only goal, appropriately enough, came on an own goal in the 35th minute when Lalas, attempting to clear a harmless cross to the top of the box, headed the ball over Sommer.
In the second half, Parma wilted in the summer heat (91 degrees for the evening kickoff), allowing the Americans to dominate for long stretches.
Wegerle was given all the time in the world to operate on the edge of the box, and he would miss two golden opportunities, one when he overran the ball with goalie Luca Bucci beaten. Time and again, Agoos found Jones with long, crossfield passes behind the Parma defense, so the U.S. equalizer in the 55th minute was richly deserved.
Jones drove a corner kick past Klopas — who whiffed his shot — to Lapper, who blasted the ball with his left foot into the far corner of the goal.
Urged on by the Giants Stadium crowd — a first for the U.S. team that has had to play second fiddle to foreign teams drawing upon huge ethnic support —
Sampson’s makeshift team continued to press, but much of the life went out of the U.S. attack when Jones went down with a bad ankle sprain.
The U.S. paid for its enthusiasm when the Italians struck the winning goal in the 74th minute on a quick break. Brolin found a hole on the left side of the U.S. defense, where he slotted the ball to striker Alessandro Melli, whose shot was blocked by Sommer. Brolin beat the napping U.S. defense to the rebound, and he had no trouble knocking it past Sommer.
Lassiter calms down
Scorelines are often deceiving. The 2-1 loss to Parma did not reflect how well the U.S. played, particularly in the second half. Nor did the 2-1 win over Benfica indicate how much the Portuguese were in charge.
Sampson made only two changes in the starting lineup: Chris Henderson started in place of the injured Jones on the right wing and young Jovan Kirovski moved up front, pushing Klopas into midfield, for Sorber, who had to return to his Mexican club, Pumas.
This time it was the U.S. that got the early break when Luis Gustavo was called for a handball in the penalty area on Balboa’s stab at an errant clearance following a U.S. free kick. Klopas — who hit the final penalty kick in the quarterfinals of the Copa America against Mexico — was designated to take the penalty kick and he beat Belgian veteran Michel Preud’homme to his left.
The U.S. would have only five more shots in the game, as Benfica, which had lost to Boca Juniors on penalty kicks two nights earlier, tried to save face before the thousands of Portuguese supporters who had been bussed in for the game from as far away as Massachusetts.
Despite all its pressure, Benfica’s only goal was again the fault of the U.S. backline, which was caught arguing upfield with U.S. referee Brian Hall over a foul on Lalas in the Benfica box. Luis Gustavo fed Ilian Iliev on the left side with only Burns to beat. The Bulgarian import moved to Burns’ outside and slotted the ball past Sommer to the far post.
So many of the moves Sampson has made since he has been in charge have turned out for the best, but none as unlikely as the two second-half changes that would come into play on the winning goal against Benfica.
Sampson admits he’s in a rush to find players before World Cup qualifying. Besides four friendlies this year (Sweden Aug. 16 in Norrkoeping and then tentatively Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia and South Africa at home) and two next spring (both Sweden and Belgium owe the U.S. return games), the U.S. only has the CONCACAF Gold Cup in January and the U.S. Cup in June before qualifying begins.
Three days before the tournament began, Sampson tracked down Pittman through Soccer America at Scottish Premier Division club Partick Thistle and invited him in for a look. Sampson had never seen the American-born Pittman, who has spent much of his life in Scotland, play, so he moved Agoos to midfield for extra cover on the left side when he inserted Pittman in the game at left back. At the same time, Lassiter, who had struggled on the left side against Benfica, was moved to the point of the attack.
As luck would have it, all three players combined for winning goal: Pittman released Agoos down the left wing, and the former Virginia star ran to the end line, where he struck a wicked inswinger that Lassiter headed inside the far post.
The son of a former Washington Redskins running back, Lassiter played in the shadows of Dario Brose and Henry Gutierrez at North Carolina State. Like Pittman, he got one cap for the U.S. before disappearing from the American scene after breaking his ankle at a national team training camp in early 1992.
The 5-8 speed merchant had ventured to Costa Rica, where in his third season he blossomed into a star. With 17 goals in 43 games for First Division runner-up Alajuela this past season, Lassiter earned himself a recall from Sampson.
“I figured that if I don’t do it now,” Lassiter said, “I may never get the chance to do it again. I was nervous and putting pressure on myself, but Steve said, ‘Smile, relax, have a good time,’ and that’s when I played much better. Steve and Clive [Charles] have been working with me and made me feel more comfortable.”
Sampson went into the tournament hoping to find another flank player in Lassiter, but he may have found another striker instead. Almost all the best U.S. chances came with Lassiter going straight at the Benfica defense.
While Sampson was giving both Lassiter and Pittman a second chance, Agoos and Sommer faced a make-or-break weekend.
Agoos has been in and out of the team since 1988, around long enough to earn 47 caps but never good enough defensively to keep a first-team spot.
“This is the best tournament he has ever played,” said Sampson. “Jeff Agoos knows he has to come forward if he is to play on this team.”
Sommer had not played a competitive match since the last-second goal he conceded against Uruguay that cost the U.S. a win in Milutinovic’s final game in March. He lost his starting job at Luton in the spring, and he spent the Copa America as the No. 3 man behind Brad Friedel and Kasey Keller.
Sommer underlined his claim for at least the No. 3 spot with a last-second save on Paulo Antonio, who had only Sommer to beat when Lalas’ backpass fell to the Benfica sub’s feet.
“We were a bit unlucky not to win the whole Parmalat Cup,” said Sommer. “Benfica put a lot of pressure on us, and we got a little tired, so we had to ride the storm.”
Hristo rests his case
The Parmalat Cup, above all, was an MLS event. It’s a given that all the U.S. players will end up playing in the new league, but what about some of the stars from the three visiting clubs?
MLS chairman Alan Rothenberg said before the opening game that MLS had no use for a high-priced player like the Bulgarian Stoichkov, who he said wouldn’t sell tickets.
Stoichkov, nonetheless, demonstrated once again he’s right at home at Giants Stadium. He scored in each of Bulgaria’s three games in the Meadowlands at the World Cup — most notably, his goal on a free kick engineered Bulgaria’s stunning comeback against Germany in the quarterfinals — and he had a hand in all three Parma goals in its 3-1 win over Boca Juniors.
He scored in the 34th and 44th minutes — the second on a penalty — and fed Brolin for the insurance goal that came less than two minutes after Cameroonian Alphonse Tchami had cut the deficit early in the second half.
Stoichkov disputed Rothenberg’s claim that he wouldn’t be a draw here.
“I have a very big following in the United States,” he said. “In every city I have played here, the fans have treated me well.”
by Soccer America Managing Editor Paul Kennedy