I Wish I Was A Geordie - The Blog of Newcastle United in the US

The World Meets Krul, And He Looks American

As a fan of Newcastle United and American sport I was amused and bemused yesterday by NUFC keeper Tim Krul's shootout-stopping heroics to keep Holland in the World Cup, and the subsequent tut-tutting in the world media and tweet-o-sphere over his in-your-face gamesmanship. Trash-talking of higher octane is a centerpiece of pro sport in the US, and soccer is hardly more genteel in other ways, for example, the presence of guys who bite other guys. American sport has only one firm unwritten rule about trash-talking: Back it up. And did Krul ever.

In a sport where faking life-threatening injury at the slightest touch (or none at all) is basic strategy, it's difficult for an American fan to take otherwise respected news outlets like The Guardian seriously when they state Krul's antics toed the line of cheating. For my taste I'd like to see more bravado and less cowardice in soccer. If the contact-heavy NFL, NBA or NHL tolerated the kind of Academy Award dramatics and post-hoc whining commonplace in soccer, our games would be 10 hours long and the field of play would look like Gettysburg. If you want to pick one thing that's hampering the rise of soccer in America, pick that, as the New York Times recently did.

What Krul did Saturday was the opposite of diving. Thrown into a ridiculous situation with overtones of gamesmanship in and of itself, instead of formulating a host of reasonable excuses for failure in his head, he looked it in the eye and said out loud, bring it on. It was especially endearing coming from a player whose boyish mien and figure don't exactly strike fear in the heart, at least on TV. Let's face it - if Krul raised his fists in a bar, he'd be as likely to get a pat on the head as a punch, right? But when he raised his voice on the field yesterday, he got respect from me, and I suspect down deep from many others, even the outwardly offended.

Over the past few days US soccer fans have been discussing a call from ESPN's bombastic-but-brainy Keith Olbermann to make American soccer more American. Olbermann didn't talk about the tolerance of gamesmanship in soccer, though he did brush the topic in cautioning the US to steer as far clear as possible from FIFA: "These human corruption machines make the IOC look like Doctors Without Borders." Olbermann wins few points for sensitivity, but make no mistake: Plenty of Americans who don't care for soccer were cheering his act. The part of the sport I find hardest to defend to those countrymen is the ground-writhing gamesmanship more offensive to the American spirit than Krul's over-acting in the other direction.

That's why, even though I was cheering for Costa Rica to win and uphold the CONCACAF cause, I'm glad for the success of Tim Krul's debut on soccer's biggest stage, and even gladder so much of America was watching, especially the newer and more casual fans raised on our native sports. They saw something they recognized in the Dutchman, and identified with, and maybe even loved. 

Finally, Cause For Optimism

One signing can't undo two years of transfer mismanagement.

But I find myself cautiously optimistic about Newcastle United's short-term direction in the wake of this week's deal for Ajax attacker Siem de Jong.

After the last two seasons, it's simply refreshing to see Newcastle sign a human being on July 1, let alone making its third signing of the summer. But there's more to my giddiness over the de Jong deal than pure desperation.

This move doesn't feel like a mere asset accumulation. Newcastle routinely targets players who are nearing the end of their contracts — de Jong was entering his final year with Ajax — because it slashes the price tag. And yet the cost being reported by The Journal's Mark Douglas is £7.5 million. That's not crazy money, but it's a significant investment for a player who could have joined for free in a year. That tells me Newcastle specifically wanted de Jong; he wasn't just "attacking player X" in a discount-bin search.

De Jong also doesn't look like the typical Newcastle signing of the past couple of years. Ever since the club began dispatching chief scout Graham Carr to travel the French countryside, Newcastle's transfer movement has been heavy on dribblers and runners. (Those aren't particularly technical terms, but c'mon, you know what I mean. The roster is full of guys who want to dribble through traffic and players who will run all day but aren't so great on the ball.)

De Jong doesn't fall into either of those categories. I won't claim to be an Eredivisie expert; the only Ajax game I've seen over the past couple of seasons was an early-season 2012 match in which a certain pint-sized Newcastle target was anchoring the base of the midfield. But I've spent the last 24 hours ODing on de Jong highlights on YouTube (Dennis Wise approves of my methods), and I'm not seeing 40-yard runs down the flanks or stepovers and feints to beat defenders one-on-one. De Jong looks like a Dutch Kevin Nolan, gobbling up goals in the box with crafty finishes. That Nolan comparison, by the way, is absolutely intended as a compliment. De Jong doesn't share the sorely-missed former captain's physique. (Facially, de Jong looks like the lovechild of musician/Newcastle fan Sting and comedian Joel McHale to me; Bob sees more of "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak). He also appears to have the sort of long-range shot that was missing from Nolan's repertoire.

Suggestions that de Jong will add intelligence to Newcastle's play seem spot on. It takes a certain vision to see, then make the late run into the box that leads to a goal. So-called "garbage goals" aren't plain luck — they're the result of being in the right positions time after time. You'd also figure de Jong, Ajax's captain the past two seasons and a player with seven years of professional experience on his resume, might add some leadership to a locker room that has clearly lacked it over the past two seasons.

So there you have it. I like me some Siem de Jong. But, as Phil noted on an intra-blog email chain, "it's nice to have a No. 10, but there still isn't a No. 9." Newcastle still has work to do this summer. De Jong looks more like a support striker than a classic No. 10 — as BeNeFoot, an English-language website that covers Belgian and Dutch soccer, writes, de Jong is "most comfortable next to a creative midfielder" ala Christian Eriksen. If that sort of player is on Newcastle's roster, I haven't seem him. (And please, for the love of all that is good in this world, don't claim Hatem Ben Arfa is the one to fill that role.) Papiss Cisse, working his way back from a broken kneecap, is the only legitimate striker at Alan Pardew's disposal. Newcastle needs a full-on goal-scoring, center-back-occupying No. 9. Or two.

But I'm more hopeful Newcastle might take decisive action to fill those needs than I was a week ago.