Patriotic duty for an American underground sportswriter certainly includes seeing the United States national soccer team live in action. I had, in several decades of writing about ephemeral

competitions, losing battles and under-attended contests, failed to witness our boys on the pitch. I had seen Scotland play Colombia in a World Cup warm-up at Giants Stadium that included a

rousing Tartan Army tailgate party. I had seen England entertain Switzerland at Wembley in November of 1995 (Steve Stone man of the match!) and I enjoyed a five-goal Denmark vs Nigeria clash

at Stade de France during the 1998 World Cup. But mine eyes had somehow not seen the glory of a Clint Dempsey or Landon Donovan or a Tab Ramos or Tony Meola wearing the red, white and blue

Tron_-style dysfunctional video scoreboard in the new stadium in Orlando, I thought back to the 2006 World Cup and shirt ironing. Thirteen years ago, the Round of 16 put England against

Ecuador in Stuttgart. I was watching the game in a Notting Hill pub called the Cock and Bottle. It was jammed for the kickoff, with patrons spilling outside onto Artesian Road under the

disapproving shadow of neighbouring St. Mary of the Angels Church. It was a tense match until David Beckham bent in a brilliant free kick in the 60th minute. It would be a 1-0 England win

but the Three Lions “fail to impress” as the next day’s headlines chortled. England was, of course, knocked out of the tournament by Portugal in the following quarter-final round. Oh yes,

the shirt ironing. I noticed from my perch near the door of the Cock and Bottle a bloke in an upstairs window across Needham Road. He was conspicuously ignoring the game and was furiously

ironing dress shirts on an ironing board he had propped right next to the open window. He ironed and ironed through the entire first half, and after several pints I was considering

interrupting his pressing non-soccer matters with a shout or two. But I wisely held my tongue and the man’s ironing eased to a halt with 10 minutes to go in the match. The pub remained

energised well after Beckham befuddled the lurching hands of Ecuadorian keeper Cristian Rafael Medrano Mora, who now plays for a club called South China AA in the Hong Kong first division.

Beckham, meanwhile, is very much in evidence right now in the US, having just been honoured with a statue outside the ground of the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer (MLS). He also

insists on trying yet another MLS expansion team in the disinterested Miami market. Dancing on the MLS grave of the failed Miami Fusion are the art deco flamingoes from the badge of his

Inter Miami. The fledgling franchise eyes a 2020 debut, but Beckham is starting to resemble Jerry Lewis the Bellboy at the Fountainbleu Hotel, fumbling with multiple ringing phones and

attempting to set up chairs in a vast soccer ballroom, somewhere among the swamps of South Florida. Orlando prefers sinkholes to swamps. The US friendly, a 1-0 victory over the

aforementioned Ecuador, was held in yet another soccer-only stadium recently constructed on American soil. Inner city Orlando’s combination of Amway and Disney money and flat horizon gives

it a certain Mars colony look to it. Construction cranes and orange pylons are everywhere, as a city famous for its amusement park-oriented suburbs now strives to ‘rediscover’ its downtown.

Orlando’s pro-soccer footprint is lodged north of the Miami failure and due east of the Tampa Bay market, which also had an MLS team go bust in 2002 (who can forget Carlos Valderrama wearing

the space age Tampa Bay Mutiny kit?). In fact, the famous Glazers of Palm Beach were courted to buy the failing Mutiny franchise but passed on the deal, instead opting to buy a little club

called Manchester United in 2005. And we all know how that ended up. Los Angeles-style freeway traffic chokes Orlando at all hours now, thanks to construction sites and the rush to the

strip-mall laden suburbs. The ‘downtown’ stadium built for the MLS expansion team, Orlando City SC, is in an odd area surrounded by overgrown vacant lots, about-to-be gentrified housing and,

of course, the Amway Arena. The neighborhood just west of downtown is called Parramore, and poverty numbers are still quite high there according to the Census, even in the shadow of the

Amway wealth of the DeVos family. When I arrived,  the Amway Arena was hosting local minor league ice hockey, the same night as the US soccer friendly. So the midweek evening congestion was

made up of an oddball mix of spectators marching through the cordoned off, construction-choked sidewalks of a disposable city on an early spring night in Central Florida. I noticed great

effort in the artisan popcorn shops and wood-oven pizza places, beaming light among the cryptic shadows of abandoned car radiator joints and dilapidated warehouse spaces nearby. Gaining

entry to the soccer match required the endurance of Byzantine security edicts regarding clear bags and a list of every manner of human accessories forbidden within the facility. Once the

digital-only ticket was scanned there was a second round of clearance — a disjointed process of acquiring a keg-party-style coloured wristband for admittance into the ‘supporter’s end’ of

the ground. Stadium staff were more clueless than first time fans, resulting in awkward redirecting of small groups and supporters who once thought the rusted metal turnstiles at West Ham

United were a challenge until they arrived in Orlando. Kudos to the stadium architect for including standing mini-terraces at one end of the otherwise generic football ground. The pitch

itself looked to be a pristine putting green, and with Orlando City off to a crappy start to the MLS season, it may well remain intact. Though my electronic ticket engineered by US Soccer

and Ticketmaster had specific locations on it, the supporter’s end is considered a general admission section in Orlando. Fine with me. It was time to step up and meet the American Outlaws,

the nationally-organised, yet somehow toothless, supporters’ group of the US national team. It is an awkward, Balkanized grouping of soccer fan boys (and girls) stretching across the land

and based at Euro-centric pubs in major cities. (Full disclosure: I have been a dues-paying member of the American Outlaws Hudson Valley chapter for at least 40 days). As I took my place for

this momentous personal soccer occasion, I found myself surrounded, not by wannabe soccer hooligans living up to the outlaw name, but instead by a sextet of hipster couples who seemed to be

on their 21st date. Regardless, we were all there to see and support coach Greg Berhalter’s Euro version of the US squad. We were there to see what I call AMP: (The trio of exciting 20

year-old power midfielders all playing highest-level club soccer in Germany.) The A is for Tyler Adams, the precocious and confident ball wizard from Wappingers Falls, NY who plays for

Bundesliga side Red Bull Leipzig; the M is for Weston McKennie who can drive the midfield like a German-engineered Audi Quatro and plays for Schalke 04 of the Bundesliga. And the P is, of

course, for Hershey, Pa.’s Christian Pulisic, tearing it up at Dortmund and signed to a sweet deal at Chelsea FC next season. US vs Ecuador suffered from a meandering, goalless first half.

The Outlaws supporter section was in medium-fine voice, centered around a lone drummer, a gentleman wearing a powdered white wig under a tri-cornered hat and a US jersey with ‘Washington’

and the number 1 on his back. He kept things rousing, even as the American squad toiled at the far end of the pitch for much of the first 45. The second half found Pulisic cutting boldly

through the weighty Ecuadorian backline trying to hit his young teammates with backheels and various jivey passes. But it was good old Fulham defender Tim Ream, wearing the captain’s armband

for the US for the first time, who set up Columbus Crew man Gyasi Zardes with the lone goal and therefore, winner of the match. Zardes, a native of Hawthorne, CA and of Ghanaian descent,

blasted a low ball off the ankle of Ecuadorian defender Robert Arboleda. In a perfect and fortuitous arc, the ball cleared the vertical leap of keeper Alexander Dominguez and dunked just

under the crossbar. The Outlaws had the best view of the rippling net cord and yet another clean sheet under coach Berhalter was in order. Bedlam ensued in the ‘safe standing’ terraces.

Beers were flowing, of course, and in the 83rd minute a rotund pitch-invader, wearing an Ecuador jersey, climbed out of his front row seat and lurched toward a few of the very busy defenders

of his squad for an ‘up close and personal’ greeting. Stewards were slow to respond and finally corralled the roaming fan with the help of an Ecuadorian midfielder. I was impressed at the

nonviolence displayed by the stadium authorities, at least in the public eye. I remember Yankee Stadium field invaders being eviscerated by blood-thirsty New York Police Department personnel

who landed knees first onto the neck and collarbone area of intruding rampagers to be followed with a cathartic, violent frog-marching off the field. The overzealous Ecuador fan dropped his

flip-phone on the way off. “I wonder if he was streaming it live?” asked a tech-toting supporter on the terrace directly behind me. This was shortly after McKennie was stretchered off the

pitch with a bad ankle injury going for a ball in the air. Getting the star player to the dressing room was a Three Stooges-like affair, involving the stretcher getting to the far end of the

touchline. McKennie was forced to hobble the sidelines for a painful amount of time, reminiscent of the quest for the evasive ‘wristbands’ needed for entry into the supporter’s section.

National friendlies still seem to wreak havoc with inexperienced stadium personnel. His horribly ungraceful exit drew respectful applause from the Outlaws as he passed beneath us on the way

out. Meanwhile, in Gelsenkirchen, I imagine a phone was ringing in the front office of venerable Bundesliga side Schalke 04, presently involved in a relegation battle. McKennie had been in

great form for Schalke over the past few weeks. “_Scheisse! Es ist sein Knochel!_” a concerned voice bellows. Early reports had McKennie out of action for at least a month after the injury

against Ecuador. He is a tough Texan, it should be noted, so he will probably return to the pitch sooner than expected. Headlines the next day (if you could find them) dubbed the US victory

over Ecuador as “costly” under photos of McKennie in ankle agony. I must admit I felt a small rush of pride when midfielder Michael Bradley was subbed on midway through the second half. I

thought back to his debut for the MLS New York/New Jersey MetroStars in July of 2005. He was 17, and his father Bob Bradley was the coach. It was a very quaint New Jersey tableau on a hot

summer night within the horrific confines of Giants Stadium. Many of us in the Empire Supporters section behind the goal scoffed at this athletic nepotism, but then again, our list of things

to scoff at regarding the sorry MetroStars was as long as a souvenir team scarf. But the scoffing would soon end regarding Michael Bradley, whose disciplined approach and mastery of sound

fundamentals sent him on to become an excellent midfield general for the US squad. The 31-year-old Princeton native sets a classy example for these youngsters who are supposed to save our

soccer soon. Almost 17,500 fans showed up in Orlando for the 1-0 win over Ecuador in a ground that holds 25,000. The noise was pleasant and steady in the supporter’s end, and I had finally

ticked the box that had remained so blank for so long. Ecuador seemed to fold in the end, and AMP looked pretty good for several dozen minutes. I’m afraid stoppage time is concluding for

this missive—I must rush to mail a ‘get well soon’ card to young Mr McKennie. We will need him back and healthy if the US national team wants to regain any type of respect on the

international stage.