Real American Heroes? Forging A National Team Identity

You know we had to go with this.

Preston Zimmerman opened a can of worms. Pandora's box. He let the cat out of the bag. Choose your overused cliche, but American soccer took a look at the elephant in the room yesterday.

The former U-20 National Team member set Twitter abuzz yesterday (and doubled his follower count) with comments about U.S. Men's National Team coach Jurgen Klinsmann's squad selection so far. Zimmerman, who plays in Germany's Third Division for SV Darmstadt 98, was outspoken in the belief that Klinsmann is choosing German-American talent (and those with tenuous connections to the U.S.) over better "real American" talent from U.S. colleges and Major League Soccer.

Zimmerman: Controversial tweets.
(Photo mined from "The Shin Guardian")

While many American soccer fans uttered a collective "who?" when the name Zimmerman and his comments broke on a slow soccer news day, we've been following the 23-year old Washington native's journey in a series of articles and interviews done over at our friends, The Shin Guardian. There Zimmerman documents five years of difficulty in trying to land a club in Europe. A much less satisfying version of "The Jay DeMerit Story".

With that as context, Zimmerman chose yesterday to take to social media to let out his frustrations about the evolving make-up of the National Team and the lack of quality results in Klinsmann's early reign. Both of these discussion are nothing new among American soccer fans (particularly the latter one), but perhaps it took a higher-profile individual (even if that person is a former USYNTer and journeyman in Europe) to punch these topics (particularly the former one) out of a Big Soccer discussion board and onto the "front page".

The full timeline of his remarks is included below:

The United States of America was founded, built upon the backs of, and flourished because of the contributions of millions of immigrants that set foot on these shore since the first colonies of the 1600s. Whether early Anglo settlers looking for religious freedom to African slaves (even if not by choice) to other Europeans looking for economic opportunity and to escape political repression of tyrants to our latest immigration wave; people have sought out the United States as place for the "American Dream".

The same could be said of our soccer history. While the arc of American soccer history is long (just as long as baseball here) it does not have the same depth as some of our other sports. With the exception of St. Louis in the early 1900s our soccer history is shaped by the contributions of mostly-immigrant sides of Bethlehem Steel, the Fall River Marksmen, and countless other "company teams" that, at-times thrived and at-other-times, struggled to keep soccer alive in the U.S.

Gaetjens: Real American hero?

The United States National Team recruited foreigners with skeptical citizenship connections to their adopted homeland to play on. Our history's most celebrated hero, Joe Gaetjens was the son of a Haitian mother and a Belgian father. He was allowed to play for the U.S. in that fateful World Cup of 1950 because he expressed his intentions of becoming naturalized after the tournament. That would never happen. (Gaetjens disappeared in Haiti in the 1960s under dictator Papa Doc). Two other non-citizens would feature for the U.S. side in the "Miracle on Grass"; Joseph Maca, who was born in Belgium and Ed McIlvenny, a Scotsman.

The list of immigrant connections to U.S. soccer continues. The "Shot Heard Round the World" taken by Paul Caligiuri in 1989 comes from an American of Italian parents. Thomas Dooley, born in Germany and took U.S. citizenship in 1992 to become a member of the 1994 World Cup team and captain of the 1998 squad in France. Carlos Bocanegra and (dare-we-say) Jonathan Bornstein both have a parent of Mexican decent while Benny Feilhaber (called into the January camp) was born in Brazil.

We could go on.

What Klinsmann is doing is nothing new to American soccer and the National Team. From the early days of soccer immigrants have combined with natural-born Americans to forge our soccer-ing identity. It hasn't led to most attractive of results and certainly not a clear "style" like "Total Football" or "Joga Bonito", but in that chaos is what makes it uniquely American.

A struggle to accept diversity and integrate it into an American fabric.

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So what is a "real American" or a "fake American"? Sarah Palin tried to define that during the 2008 Presidential election and now Zimmerman has brought that discussion to U.S. soccer.

On the face, as a National Team, we should never accept anyone that isn't willing to give everything to the American cause. That goes for any player natural-born or otherwise. But as an increasingly diverse nation and one with a massive global reach through history (thus so many children of American GIs now eligible for the U.S.) we must accept that our team will reflect the confusion, chaos and struggles that are a reflection of our national debate over what is and isn't "American".

Klinsmann has a diverse vision for the USMNT.

The discussion is good, but the end result must be that we, as National Team fans, should want the best eleven players on their field to compete. These players will come from California, Texas, New York, Mexico, Germany, and countless other countries around the globe. If those are culled from American universities or MLS or wherever we must field our strongest possible side. If the domestic game is being overlooked, as Zimmermann alleges, then Klinsmann's and his staff must have their reasons. We want to see the domestic game as strong as possible, but also acknowledge that we might (or probably) not be there yet.

Not because the United States Soccer Federation becomes a mercenary group snagging people in some sort of A-Team exercise, but seeking committed individuals to participate in the National side.

Some of these players will have less of a connection to the U.S., perhaps even speaking little English, but if the commitment to the idea of American soccer is clear then who are we to question that?

Klinsmann said it himself in an interview with Sporting News' Brian Straus:

“It’s a different part of American culture. It’s the global picture that America represents,” Klinsmann told Sporting News before a match in Paris. “Those are kids who came through military families or for whatever reasons, working reasons of their parents, then they grow up with a different educational system, which gives them in soccer terms an edge ahead of American kids growing up in the U.S.”

“But those kids (Fabian Johnson, Timothy Chandler, etc), they have a very special connection to the U.S. no matter where they’re born," the coach said. "The opportunity to represent the U.S. on the soccer field is another big emotional piece of their connection to their country. Now you live in this dual-citizenship world that is normal. It’s globalization. It’s just the way it is. If you’re Mexican-American or you’re coming from the Caribbean, South America or Europe, everyone has a special connection to the United States. That shows you the path of the U.S. Not only that it’s a country of immigrants into the U.S., but it’s also an export country. It goes both ways.

This new era for American soccer is confronting our identity issues head on. Klinsmann, when named National Team Coach earlier this year, said a hallmark of his reign would include scouring Mexico and Europe for players overlooked during the Bob Bradley-era (although Bradley did give Chandler, Gomez, Torres, their first caps). Ironically, this has been at the expense of the outstanding Hercules Gomez. Some people will be left on the outside looking in. That is up to the coach and for us Monday morning quarterbacks ("Post-International-Friendly-Couch-Captains" doesn't have the same ring to it) to debate.

Zimmerman has every right to asks these questions. The results for Klinsmann have, thus far, been disappointing, but the connection between results and recruitment is thin. We need more time to see how the Klinsmann Experiment (Grant Wahl... a new book?) will play out.

(Related note: All 20 players called into the January camp are U.S.-born).

We as an American soccer community has every right to debate them as well. As we move forward as fans of our evolving National Team these issues will continue to confront us. We must accept that there are no easy answers to this issues; as a National Team or a nation.

But our National Team will reflect our national identity of a conglomeration of races, ethnicities, religions, and increased globalization. As long as each player can show a love for country, commitment to the cause, and contribute to the team we must accept them as "real Americans" just as we have for millions of others for hundreds of years in this nation


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