The importance of Tab Ramos

At last, the USA has a coach with vision. For the first time in my experience of U.S. national team coaches — an experience that reaches back over 45 years — I am looking at a coach, Tab Ramos, whohas the vision to take in the full extent of the rather tangled American soccer scene, and who has the courage to respond to what he sees.
 
When Ramos set about building theUSA’s team for the current under-20 World Cup, he applied criteria that he had learned as a player — as a particularly skillful, ball-playing midfielder. Nothing esoteric or complicated — hesimply looked for players who were comfortable with the ball. But Ramos’s definition of “comfortable” is no doubt more stringent than most people’s — he tightens it up with aknowing grin and adds, “I mean players who are not afraid of the ball,” then adds, in a mildly menacing tone, “I’ve played with guys who are afraid of the ball…”
 
So Ramos ended up with a heavily Hispanic team. That will surprise — and, no doubt, annoy — only the reactionary, anti-Hispanic brigade that has been holding back thefree development of the American game for decades.
 
Ramos is adamant — he did not go looking for Hispanic players. He wanted skill on the ball, and he found it mostconsistently among the Hispanic players.