{"id":38717,"date":"2015-10-06T15:48:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T19:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=38717"},"modified":"2015-10-06T15:48:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T19:48:51","slug":"ex-oceaneer-mausser-reflects-on-last-u-s-playoff-tilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=38717","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Oceaneer Mausser Reflects on Last U.S. Playoff Tilt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Oceaneers-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nearly four decades removed from their last playoff match, the U.S. will play its next winner-take-all affair against Mexico on Saturday for the right to represent CONCACAF at the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia.<\/p>\n

Recently, USSoccer.com caught up with former Rhode Island Oceaneers and Hartford Bicentennials goalkeeper Arnie Mausser<\/a>, who was a central figure in\u00a0the largely-forgotten Dec. 22, 1976 one-off playoff clash between the U.S. and Canada. The winner the match joined Mexico as North American Zone representatives to the following year\u2019s CONCACAF Championship (now the Hexagonal).<\/p>\n

The U.S. harbored\u00a0high hopes for the chance to qualify for the 1978 World Cup, but Canada was simply too mighty on that occasion, beating their southern neighbors 3-0 in front of\u00a032,869 at the Estadio Sylvio Cator in Haiti, which was selected\u00a0by CONCACAF as a neutral site for the single-match showdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing clicked for us that day,\u201d Mausser said. \u201cWe went into that game confident, but whatever happened, nothing went right for us. Balls banging off of people, falling just right for Canada \u2013 it was a nightmare \u2013 from my aspect I didn\u2019t have a good game. I\u2019d been playing well the whole series, but that game I just had a nightmare, and that didn\u2019t help things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mausser, who helped the Oceaneers claim the 1974 ASL title, entered the game as one of the squad’s rising stars. At 22, he’d already played three seasons as a pro, and was ready to make his name at the National Team level.<\/p>\n

But Mausser knew that playing Canada wasn’t going to be easy. They’d just taken a 0-0 draw from Mexico in Mexico City, and were brimming with confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best teams in the world go down to Mexico and lose, so when we saw they tied Canada, we couldn\u2019t believe it at the time,\u201d said Mausser.<\/p>\n

The U.S. spent three weeks in Port-au-Prince to prepare for the high-stakes affair a month before the match. They played three friendlies against the Haitian National Team, and all them ended in 0-0 draws. It should have been a good omen for the young U.S. goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

Or not. Once match day arrived, Mausser found himself staring down a foe that had no intentions of playing a low-scoring affair. Canada went up early when Brian Budd opened the scoring in the 21st minute, giving his side the advantage going into halftime.<\/p>\n

Undeterred, the U.S. pushed numbers forward in search of the equalizer. That search effectively ended in the 80th minute when Bob Lenarduzzi blasted a shot from distance and beat Mausser.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a save I\u2019d usually have no trouble making,\u201d Mausser said. \u201cI went down for it on my side and it just went under me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert Bolitho capped the scoring in the 87th minute to end any lingering hopes of a comeback. For the sixth straight occasion, the U.S. would not be going to the World Cup.<\/p>\n

The U.S. eventually ended its World Cup drought in 1990, and have qualified for every tournament since.<\/p>\n

Mausser, who went on to collect 35 caps before his National Team career ended in 1985, said he’ll be rooting for this crop of National Teamers once the opening whistle blows on Saturday – some 39 years after he and his 1976 U.S. teammates participated in the program’s last playoff tilt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to say, I\u2019m a bit envious of the players today,\u201d Mausser said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much more interest, and with that a lot more goes into the games. I think they\u2019re capable of doing it against Mexico. I would tell them to play confidently and remember who they\u2019re representing. Any team that does that is going to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly four decades removed from their last playoff match, the U.S. will play its next winner-take-all affair against Mexico on Saturday for the right to represent CONCACAF at the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia. Recently, USSoccer.com caught up with former Rhode Island Oceaneers and Hartford Bicentennials goalkeeper Arnie Mausser, who was a central figure in\u00a0the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22],"tags":[1353,260,322,1352,891,1354,858,892,1279],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Oceaneers-1.png?fit=600%2C416&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38717"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38726,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38717\/revisions\/38726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}