Growing up in New York City suburbs of Franklin Square, Long Island, in the 1950s, U.S. national coach Bruce Arena would visit the Brooklyn, N.Y., deli of his maternal grandfather, Salvatore Schenbre, with his family.
"I never heard the word soccer pronounced in our family household, however, my grandfather's delicatessen had a poster of the Italian national team," he said.
It took a while for Arena to understand what it was all about. But being the descendent of a family from Naples (paternal grandparents) and Sicily (maternal grandparents) and eventually playing and learning the beautiful game, it seemed only natural that Arena would want to take on one of the top and most respected teams in the world.
"Certainly with my grandparents' heritage being born in Italy, I always thought about playing Italy in the World Cup and that dream has come true," he said on Friday after he discovered at the draw the U.S. would play Italy at the World Cup. "Obviously, they are one of the top teams in the world. It will be very difficult."
So will the rest of Group E, which was considered to be one of the toughest, if not the toughest group of the World Cup.
The group certainly has familiar ring to it -- the Americans' Italia '90 group. Playing in their first World Cup in 40 years, the young Americans -- many of the players were just out of college -- were routed by the former Czechoslovakia, 5-1, and almost pulled off a major upset of the Italians before losing, 1-0, in Rome. They finished 0-3 with a 2-1 loss to Austria.
More experienced, more worldly and much wiser this time around, the U.S. team still faces a stiff challenge.
The Italians, top-seeded in the group, are ranked 12th in the world and are a tough nut to crack defensively with a strong backline and goalkeepers.
The Czech Republic, a newcomer on the international scene after the breakup of Czechoslovakia, is ranked second in the world.
Ghana, World Cup newbies, just might be the best African team in the tournament.
During the post-draw interviews, Arena smiled virtually all of the time in response to reporter's questions.
"I almost thought we were going to get the opening game or we were going to be the last team picked," he said. "You know, I have no problems with it. It is what it is."
The Americans will kick off their fifth consecutive WC appearance against the Czech Republic in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on June 12, meet Italy in Kaiserslautern, Germany, on June 17 and take on Ghana in Nuremberg, Germany, on June 22. The top two teams in the group will reach the second round.
"We have our hands full, but eagerly look forward to the competition," Arena said.
But when pressed to say how difficult the group was, Arena replied, "Well you guys will all write your stories on that, like you did in 2002. So I'll leave it up to the experts to decide that. We'll decide it on the field, how difficult that group is."
Arena reminded reporters that the U.S. had defeated favored Portugal, 3-2, in its World Cup opener three years ago.
"We opened up with one of the top teams in the world in 2002," he said.
Asked if he feared anyone on Italy, Arena replied, "Nobody strikes fear in our hearts. It's a different era. We're not naive. If you asked me about Brazil, maybe I would be a little nervous and can rattle off a few names.
"We've played against good players. We're obviously going to respect them. We're going to go with the experience of trying to win the game. If we're in awe of their players, we'll never win."
But Arena respected the Italians.
"They're deep with a lot of players," he said. "That's one of the advantages they have. They have a number of options in the midfield and up front.
"They're a very good team. The players play arguably in the best league in the world week in and week out. They have a bunch of players who are tested and are experienced."
Crafty midfielder Pavel Nedved came out of retirement to boost the Czechs to a pair of 1-0 playoff wins over Norway. In fact, Arena voted Nedved one of his top three players in the FIFA World Player of the Year a couple of years ago.
"He's a good player," Arena said with a laugh. "He's got a lot left."
Helped by a promising younger generation, veterans Jan Koller and Karel Poborsky still had legs for one of the surprise teams at Euro 2004.
"The Czech Republic -- they're good players," Arena said. "(Peter) Cech is one of the best goalkeepers in the world. Koller, if he's healthy, is a proven goalscorer. The Czech Republic has some outstanding players."
Arena admitted he didn't know much about Ghana, which had been the best African side never to quality -- until now.
"We'll find out," he said. "In this day and age, it's very easy to find out about opponents. We have access to games and the Internet. It's not a difficult problem."
The Ghanaians don't have the star-studded players -- Anthony Yeboah and Abedi Pele come to mind, of those years, but they boast Chelsea midfielder and French player of the year Michael Essien, the most expensive player in Africa soccer ($41.5 million transfer in August). The U.S. has never played Ghana in the World Cup.
Adu's Ghana connection:
As it turned out, Arena wasn't the only American with a connection to a Group E opponent.
The other U.S. connection was with Ghana, the birth place of 16-year-old midfielder Freddy Adu, who recently smoothed things over with D.C. United coach Peter Nowak, after speaking out that his lack of playing time impeded his chances of playing for the U.S. in this World Cup.
Ghana twice tried to coax Adu to join its national side. Adu has been called into U.S. training camp next month. If Adu changed his mind, Ghana team spokesman Ransford Abbey said his team would welcome him with open arms.
"Why not? Why not?" he said. "We love him. He's Ghanian. He's a talented player."
Michael Lewis writes about soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516@aol.com. Lewis will only answer e-mails and letters that have names or are signed. Views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
