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Alejandro Bedoya: “We let our country, teammates and fans down”

 

CHESTER, PA—The reality of the U.S. Men’s National Team failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup is still settling in across the many facets of American soccer.

A distraught Alejandro Bedoya is still making sense of it all and, for him, one of the parts that hurts the most comes on a personal level.

“I came home yesterday and saw my son. My wife came to the airport with my two kids and my son ran up to me and for me, family, that just took my mind off of everything for a little bit,” Bedoya said. “I had dreams of taking my son to the World Cup. He would’ve been three and a half years old by then and just to experience that with him, there was a lot of sadness, a lot of emotions after the game on Tuesday night, and that for me was kind of the most disheartening thing.”

“I always dreamed of having my son experience that with me and my family, and I let him down, I feel like,” Bedoya said. “Even though I didn’t partake in the game, as a team, it hits all of us really hard.”

Bedoya admitted what so many others have said in the last 48 hours as well in terms of letting down a country by failing to show up on Tuesday night in Couva, Trinidad and Tobago.

“We let our country down, we let our teammates down, we let our fans down, we let our families down and ourselves down,” Bedoya said. “It’s an utter disappointment. The first half was pretty embarrassing.”

Although he was on the bench and didn’t play in the game that decided the Americans’ fate, Bedoya still carried the same frustration everyone in the squad had by the time the results were settled throughout CONCACAF.

“It freaking sucks. For me to be on the bench and not take part of this game in a do-or-die situation, it really sucked,” Bedoya said. “There was a lot of emotions: Anger, disappointment, disgust. I was pissed I wasn’t part of it, obviously, with my competitiveness and being a passionate guy. Me sitting there watching the first half unfold, the way we stepped out on the field and the way we were going about things, I’m sure everyone watching, in a situation like that, it’s not what was expected.”

In the 48 hours since the deflating defeat at Ato Boldon Stadium, plenty of talking heads have presented different solutions as to what needs to happen next. From Bedoya’s perspective, the discourse is a good start to taking the sensible steps toward the future.

“There’s been a lot of noise obviously and a lot of hot takes out there, as there should be,” Bedoya said. “I think more pressure is what we need and it’s going to bring out the best of us in the future, not just for the players but for everyone involved in U.S. soccer from the grassroots level on down to the communities, the local coaches, local teams, developmental academies – everybody’s got to take a good hard, look in the mirror.”

Pennsylvania native Christian Pulisic is certainly going to be a part of that future, but the core of the next generation will have to be built in the coming years. In Bedoya’s eyes, they have a great leader in the 19-year-old, but the entire group has to develop in order for them to be a successful squad and challenge for a World Cup berth in 2022.

“Sure, there’s promise. There’s always some promise. I’ve always been hearing about the talent in the youth, but then you look a few years back and we haven’t qualified for two straight Olympics. So where’s that talent coming through,” Bedoya asked.

“So there’s a lot of youth coming up. Hopefully they mature to become the professionals that we all hope them to become to be. Pulisic is a beast, a monster,” Bedoya said. “It was so disheartening to see him so emotional after the game and I just told him, if anybody deserves to keep their head up and rise up, it’s him. If it wasn’t for him, who knows where we’d be right now? So hopefully guys like him can make it through because the past few years, a lot of those youth teams haven’t come through for us either.”

Comments

  1. The downturn in USMNT fortunes coincides with National team players in their prime coming home to play in MLS on huge contracts. Bedoya had to fight for his place in Europe everyday, same with Dempsey, Altidore and Bradley. They went from competing with national team players from England, Gemany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Portugal to competing against National team players from T&T, Jamaica, El Salvador, Guatemala. If anything MLS is weakening USMNT and strengthening fledgling teams other Concacaf teams.

    MLS needs to go back to what it did best, give young Americans a chance to be discovered, nurtured and to prosper, then cash in by selling them to European teams.

    Reply
    • I agree a bit with the MLS players coming home part. I believe MLS has definitely gotten better as a whole, but it’s also helped improve some of the other CONCACAF nations, but the hunger and fight from past USMNT teams wasn’t there with this group

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  2. We have been backed by incredible world class goalie play for 20 years. In 2014, that screamer is deflected by Howard. Now that Howard/Guzan are merely average, the holes in our defense become apparent. This starts with a midfield that thinks their primary job is to score goals and getting back on defense is somebody else’s problem.

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  3. Best quote I’ve heard in a while from Bedoya: “If it wasn’t for him, who knows where we’d be right now?” And isn’t that a scary thought. We have our best player ever in Pulisic, and yet the rest of our team was so bad, we STILL didn’t qualify.

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    • It’s scary and promising all at the same time. At the very least, it gives US Fans hope for the future and hopefully some of the other young stars will provide the same impact as Pulisic.

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    • It won’t happen all of a sudden. I think it’ll gradually happen. I think the best way to get some of the younger players integrated is to keep some experience around. I also wouldn’t be shocked if there are farewell games set up in 2018 for the likes of Howard, Dempsey and others.

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  4. They don’t care. These players are scared and we need to let them know it when they play this weekend. Until Sunil and Bruce resign and Bradley gives up being the captain we should boycott anything to do with the USMT. When they come out with the new jersey don’t buy it, don’t buy any tickets to their meaningless games. Theses guys (Federation, coaches, and players) take us fans as chumps. BOYCOTT until we see change. Got to hit them we’re it hurts them the most their wallet..

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    • I don’t know about that, but when players who didn’t put in the effort are introduced at the start of the game, they should get boos.

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  5. It still baffles me that Arena didn’t set the team up to be defensive and hit T&T on the counter given we only needed a draw, were playing on a soggy field (which tires the legs) with no atmosphere, and on short rest.

    Honestly I think Arena made all of his tactical decisions with the goal to avoid criticism and just assumed it would work out.

    There were exactly 3 players that gave consistent effort during that fist half. Everyone else had body language more akin to a 7 year old that needs a cup of juice.

    Reply
    • Clover, I thought the same thing about the Honduras game. Costa Rica showed how to play on the road–absorb pressure and hit on the counter attack. I have said for a long time that you try and keep the game close, hopefully 0-0 and then about the 70th minute go on the attack and go for the win. And that is when you bring on speed players when the defenders are tired.

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  6. I’m glad to see at least a couple of the players really cared. Obviously, though, not enough of them cared or we wouldn’t have fallen behind 2-0. In thinking about what Bedoya said here, it made me think that Arena made a strategic mistake by basically handing places on the team to the same old guys. Again, I know some people will object to bringing up Klinsmann, but Bedoya put his finger on it when he said more pressure is what we need. Too many players out there in 3 out of the last 4 games played as if things were guaranteed. And while many objected to the way Klinsmann handled his players, insisting that no one was safe, moving them around, insisting they should go to Europe, etc. history has shown that there was a method and value to his “madness.” BTW, that has been a criticism of the English players to explain why they so often underperform in the World Cup. They are paid huge sums of money, rarely play outside the EPL, travel small distances for their games, and live in a bit of a cocoon. I’m reminded of a story I heard Wynalda once tell. He was playing his first year in the Bundesliga and missed a sitter that made a difference in the outcome. After the game in the locker room he tried to make a joke of it and a teammate threw a boot at him that required stitches to his face. You play in MLS, you rarely see that type of intensity or accountability.

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  7. these are my players, man. sure as athletes i’m pissed and incredibly disappointed. but as humans, i feel for them cuz i can only how they feel if i feel this sick to my stomach.

    Reply

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