John Harkes ... circa 1998

View full size photo »

Also file under: Some journalists knew, but couldn’t write the whole story of the notorious France flop at World Cup 1998 

Twelve years later, we’re still sorting through l'affaire John Harkes and how things got all twisted up and then unraveled so spectacularly on that 1998 World Cup team.

Frankly, it’s about time someone pulled the curtains back on this thing – unseemly as all the naughty details may be.

The quick background:  It has now been made public that Harkes, then U.S. captain, was having an affair with teammate Eric Wynalda’s wife, Amy.  Obviously, that's the kind of thing that destroys locker room accord, something England captain John Terry is becoming painfully aware in a sensational WAGS scandal that has tongues wagging.

Seriously, boys ... if you can't keep it in your pants any better than that, can you at least draw a line with your teammates' women folk?  Anyway, U.S. striker Roy Wegerle brought the Harkes-Wynalda matter to the attention of coach Steve Sampson, who discussed matters privately with both players and with his staff. He never made the details public, nor did the players, so it never came out.

In a highly controversial move, Sampson dropped Harkes from the team in April 1998, about two months before the World Cup 1998 opener.

I can’t add anything to the relationship between the players and the difficult personal entanglements it created, as I’ve never spoken to either of them about it. Wynalda mentioned it Monday on Fox Football Fone-In, the Fox Soccer Channel talks show he co-hosts, so it all came tumbling out from there.

But I can add some context and another layer to the episode from a journalistic perspective, as I was fairly close to the team in 1998 – back when newspapers had money to send reporters on trips and such. Imagine that. 

Ÿ – Several reporters were tacitly aware of the affair back in 1998.  (That is, people inside the team tell you things and you believe them, but you never really know about these matters unless you really know, ya know?)

Some of us were also aware of some other leadership foibles, such as the birthday bender that Harkes and several players were part of two nights before a friendly in Europe at about the same time. For a journalist, it’s a bit of a conundrum.  When Harkes was dropped from the team, it seemed clear to some of us, those paying closest attention, that the tawdry and unflattering aspects were all in play: the affair, the poor display of leadership in busting curfew and getting fall-down drunk with teammates and Harkes’ poor reaction to a potential new role on the field.

So a few of us may have attempted to soften the level of public criticism aimed at Sampson when the stunning news dropped in April of Harkes' exile.  Harkes was livid, of course, and he vented publicly, which was his right.  But he was being shielded conveniently from his own significant contributions to the mess.  Sampson could perhaps have made a different decision, and it was fair to question the choice he made.  What didn’t seem fair was that some people were ripping the manager mercilessly in print without acknowledging (or perhaps without being aware of) the full story.

Ÿ– I wrote last week about Olympic writers and general columnists at U.S. newspapers at the time, voices who were often important opinion makers in sports at the time.  Most of the clique of Olympic writers and general columnists were apoplectic, eager to roast Sampson for dropping the captain.  Again, it’s fair to disagree with the maneuver, but to do so without context is unfair at best and perhaps tilting toward irresponsible.

Whether the writers were aware of the affair and other leadership foibles, I never knew. But it was certainly distasteful, at the least, to see this group band together in such a biased pose.  One of two things was happening: they new about the issues but decided it was easier or perhaps more expedient to hammer away at the manager and ignore the nuance of the situation.  Or perhaps they really didn’t know about the issues – which brings me back to point I made last week, about how the journalism improves when writers closer to the team are adding balance and perspective.  Good writing certainly has place, and some of these folks are exceptional word smiths. But the overall tenor should always be tempered with the truth and complexities, which the journalists dropping in and out may not understand.

Ÿ– I was with Sampson in Florida before the U.S.-Netherlands friendly in February of 1998.  The newspaper had sent me there to spend a day with Sampson for a profile that we would run in the lead-up to World Cup ’98. He was happy to have me tag along. We were heading back to the team hotel after a light practice at the stadium, riding in the back of a town car and finishing up our interviews. Sampson put his hand on his chin, looked out the window and told me this was the easy part of his day. The really tough part, he told me, was about to happen.  He was about to go meet with Harkes and inform the U.S. captain and longtime midfielder that he would be playing right back the next day.

Sampson did not expect Harkes to take the news well. He didn’t.

Ÿ– One more small, personal note: As I got back to my room at the hotel, I thought about something. I have a helluva scoop. John Harkes is moving to right back! But I had nowhere to go with it.  If I had called my newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, and tried to explain the situation, they wouldn’t have thought it worthy of so much as two sentences in the briefing section. Such was the world then. So I told a couple of journo pals before the game the next day … but that was about it. The U.S. captain was being told he was no longer good enough to play in midfield, and he was expected to rebel … and I was the only one in the country outside the team who knew about it