The Rivalry is Dead
I'm excited about the US National Soccer Team. Today I watched them come back from a goal down at halftime and play 45 minutes of the most determined and attacking football I have seen them play in years. It wasn't so long ago I claimed Bob Bradley was the wrong man for the head coaching job. I was wrong. Bradley knows these players well. He knows them better than his predecessor, Bruce Arena, knew his squad and he knows them better than any high profile foreign signing would have at this point. They didn't overwhelm the competition in route to hoisting the Gold Cup trophy on Sunday. But the team was consistent and they did not lose a match.
Playing on "home soil" at Solider Field in Chicago the US was still the away team. The capacity crowd was very much in favor of Mexico. This much was evident from the eruption when Andres Guardado scored the opening goal and from the dead silence that fell upon the stadium when Benny Feilhaber put a world class laser beam in the upper left hand corner of the net for the match winner. After the final whistle was blown, Mexico had to walk off the pitch relieved that they didn't lose by 3 goals. That is how dominant the US second half performance was.
Landon Donovon and DaMarcus Beasley were phenomenal in outside midfield roles and the entire US defense was inspirational. Captain Carlos Bocanegra put in a Cannevaro like performance and Oguchi Onyewu had his best match of the competition. Jonathan Spector was equally brilliant until a scary head injury, but replacement Frank Simek was up to the task of holding off the attack. Tim Howard was world class in goal. Especially during the closing minutes when he pushed Adolfo Bautista's shot over the crossbar. It was a championship winning save.
CONCACAF will never get the respect of the European Championship or Copa America. I'm sure many people will rate the African Nations' Cup a more prestigious trophy as well. But tell me how it is that Mexico is still deemed a "world power" playing in the same region as the US, but have clearly been the lesser side during the past decade? Tell me why the US gets mocked routinely by the rest of the soccer playing world, when we're clearly the class of the region and Mexico is now scrambling to pull the national program up by the scruff of the neck? No one looks past the US any longer.
As far as I'm concerned the rivalry between the US and Mexico was slayed on Sunday, June 24, 2007 in Chicago. Mexico is nowhere near the US. You can throw the fact that the US was bounced from the World Cup before the knockout round in '06 in my face and I will say they were the only team to take a point off of world champion Italy. In fact, I would say they had the Italians crying on the pitch because they could not handle the physical aspect of the game. The Italians were flopping, diving, and pleading to the referee for mercy.
Bob Bradley will take a very inexperienced side to Venezuela this week for the Copa America. They will open against Argentina. Look at the Argentine squad and it is evident they have come to win this competition. The US may very well get blown out in the group stage matches and return home to prepare for preparation for World Cup 2010 qualifiying and for the 2009 Conferations Cup. But that doesn't change the fact that this is a young team, with its core playing club football in Europe and with an extremely bright future.
MLS has only been around for 12 years. They've been playing the sport for over a hundred years around the world and yet the US is not that far off. Sure, watch a top flight match in the EPL, La Liga or Serie A and it makes MLS look like a bunch of toddlers at times. However, the heart of the US National Team is just a shade below the quality the rest of the world is fielding. American players will still be plucked by European clubs on a regular basis, they will get first team action and this will only help strengthen the national program.
Does the rest of the world really expect the US to be a doormat forever in this sport? Our fans might not be as passionate, our league might not draw the same crowds and our club names might be embarrassingly bad. But the US is closing in on the rest of the world. And they're doing it fast.
The likes of Honduras, Guatemala and Canada have pulled Mexico back to the rest of the CONCACAF pack. The US is the only power in the the region. They have better players. A better professional league and a brighter future. The Gold Cup is just a formality now. The World Cup won't be far behind.
Playing on "home soil" at Solider Field in Chicago the US was still the away team. The capacity crowd was very much in favor of Mexico. This much was evident from the eruption when Andres Guardado scored the opening goal and from the dead silence that fell upon the stadium when Benny Feilhaber put a world class laser beam in the upper left hand corner of the net for the match winner. After the final whistle was blown, Mexico had to walk off the pitch relieved that they didn't lose by 3 goals. That is how dominant the US second half performance was.
Landon Donovon and DaMarcus Beasley were phenomenal in outside midfield roles and the entire US defense was inspirational. Captain Carlos Bocanegra put in a Cannevaro like performance and Oguchi Onyewu had his best match of the competition. Jonathan Spector was equally brilliant until a scary head injury, but replacement Frank Simek was up to the task of holding off the attack. Tim Howard was world class in goal. Especially during the closing minutes when he pushed Adolfo Bautista's shot over the crossbar. It was a championship winning save.
CONCACAF will never get the respect of the European Championship or Copa America. I'm sure many people will rate the African Nations' Cup a more prestigious trophy as well. But tell me how it is that Mexico is still deemed a "world power" playing in the same region as the US, but have clearly been the lesser side during the past decade? Tell me why the US gets mocked routinely by the rest of the soccer playing world, when we're clearly the class of the region and Mexico is now scrambling to pull the national program up by the scruff of the neck? No one looks past the US any longer.
As far as I'm concerned the rivalry between the US and Mexico was slayed on Sunday, June 24, 2007 in Chicago. Mexico is nowhere near the US. You can throw the fact that the US was bounced from the World Cup before the knockout round in '06 in my face and I will say they were the only team to take a point off of world champion Italy. In fact, I would say they had the Italians crying on the pitch because they could not handle the physical aspect of the game. The Italians were flopping, diving, and pleading to the referee for mercy.
Bob Bradley will take a very inexperienced side to Venezuela this week for the Copa America. They will open against Argentina. Look at the Argentine squad and it is evident they have come to win this competition. The US may very well get blown out in the group stage matches and return home to prepare for preparation for World Cup 2010 qualifiying and for the 2009 Conferations Cup. But that doesn't change the fact that this is a young team, with its core playing club football in Europe and with an extremely bright future.
MLS has only been around for 12 years. They've been playing the sport for over a hundred years around the world and yet the US is not that far off. Sure, watch a top flight match in the EPL, La Liga or Serie A and it makes MLS look like a bunch of toddlers at times. However, the heart of the US National Team is just a shade below the quality the rest of the world is fielding. American players will still be plucked by European clubs on a regular basis, they will get first team action and this will only help strengthen the national program.
Does the rest of the world really expect the US to be a doormat forever in this sport? Our fans might not be as passionate, our league might not draw the same crowds and our club names might be embarrassingly bad. But the US is closing in on the rest of the world. And they're doing it fast.
The likes of Honduras, Guatemala and Canada have pulled Mexico back to the rest of the CONCACAF pack. The US is the only power in the the region. They have better players. A better professional league and a brighter future. The Gold Cup is just a formality now. The World Cup won't be far behind.
posted by Anonymous at 8:17 PM
1 Comments:
Sorry, but, I can't disagree more! I am Mexican, born and bred in the real Mexico, a.k.a., Mexico City. But I'm a naturalized American citizen and have lived in seven different U.S. cities in my life. More importantly I played soccer semi-pro and am a true fan of the sport. I have watched Mexico play the U.S ever since I can remember, back when the score was always the other way around.
The U.S. has made enormous strides...enormous, particularly in regards to the MNST. I'm very impressed with what they've achieved in a relatively short period of time. I think that Bob Bradley is the right coach to keep advancing the cause of the MNST . But if you take the dictionary's definition of rivalry as meaning an act of competitiveness, than there will be no other game in the region that will ever come close. To most Mexicans, and I would think American fans of the sport, the rivalry between the U.S. and Mexico is not limited to soccer, or for that matter sports in general. It goes way deeper than that. It is Historical, Political, Geographical, Religious and Philosophical. A good place to start to read about this topic would be Alan Riding's brilliant but flawed book 'Distant Neighbors'. And if you want to get deeper into what Mexico and mexicans are all about, there's nothing like Juan Rulfo's masterpiece 'Pedro Paramo', the book that inspired colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez to write, 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' nonetheless.
Now going back to your comments, do you really think that because the Mexican National Team lost yesterday, that they are now on a par with Honduras, Canada and...gulp...Guatemala? or that the U.S. has better players than Mexico? I have read more than ten articles regarding yesterday's matchup, written by both, American and Mexican journalists, and not one of them seems to agree with you. With all due respect, I side with them.
I don't know if you're aware that the MNT fielded five foreign based players yesterday, four of them champions with their teams in Europe! Pardo and Osorio (Stuttgart), Salcido (PSV Eindhoven), and most impressive, Nery Castillo (Olympiakos), plus well, Rafa Marquez, whom Americans can belittle all they want, but as a great man once said, 'It makes no difference'.
The first three achieved their success in only their first year overseas! And I haven't even mentioned the greatest of them all, the jewel... Andres 'freakin' Guardado!!! If the the U.S. has better players please tell me who they are, and where are they playing! If I'm not mistaken, the U.S. has about double the amount of players in Europe mainly in the Premier League...and... what have they done? If I'm missing something please help me out!
As for the U.S. having a better league? Maybe that's a little premature, don't you think?. I mean tell that to Club Pachuca!
A brighter future? Well if you don't count FC Barcelona's wunderkind Giovanni dos Santos and future Arsenal player, currently palying in 2nd division Zaragoza of Spain, Carlos Vela, plus Pachuca's Juan Carlos Cacho, then who knows... maybe?
That's not to say the U.S. lacks very talented players. Not at all!
I for one think Landon Donovan is a world class forward. Also, I've always been impressed by Jonathan Spector's composure at such a young age, a player who reads the game as well as any young talent i've ever seen. Feilhaber...beautiful goal! Keller, Howard...great! And Bob Bradley? Excellent coach, and until now, a class act!
But Taylor Twellman? Onyewu? U.S. fans in general love Onyewu.
Now, I can also say the same for some in the MNT.
Hugo Sanchez? One of the best players in Real Madrid's long and and illustrious history, and their second best scorer ever. But a very mediocre MNT player and a horrible person. An egomanaic with no manners, and certainly not the coach for Mexico. Bring back either Atletico de Madrid's Javier Aguirre, (remember Japan/Korea '02, I do, I don't care!)), or Pachuca's Enrique Meza.
Cuauhtemoc? Extraordinary in his prime; when was that, the '98 WC in France?
Borghetti? a monster in his prime with Santos. The best scorer ever with Mexico's NT, and a very nice guy, but it's time to move on!
And I don't think anyone noticed that Mexico was playing with ten men for most of the game yesterday, because Alberto "Venado" Medina left all of his talent in his Chivas locker room, and appeared only as a Ghost!
As for Mexico getting more respect than the U.S.?
Well maybe it's because the high profile games it has played lately, have solidified it's reputation as a serious contender. Of the last twelve meetings against Brazil, Mexico's won eight, tied two, and lost two. Maybe it's because it won the Gold Cup once against them, and well the USMT hasn't!
And speaking of rivalries, Mexico not only has one against the U.S. but also against Argentina, whom it always challenges, sometimes beats and and often prompts into nail biting marathons. Just ask Diego Maradona about the 2006 World Cup.
You say soccer superpowers don't give the U.S respect, but only yesterday I read an article in the very prestigious argentinian newspaper El Clarin showing plenty of respect to the USMT, by mentioning that it had defeated Mexico in the Gold Cup final, and -this is non-other than the team that we'll face in our opening match!-
But, if you insist on an answer to this supposed lack of respect for U.S. soccer, it's there in front of your eyes.
Why did the U.S. send it's No.1 team to Copa de Oro and not Copa America? I, for one, will never understand. Is it because getting a ticket to Copa Confederaciones in South Africa a year before the 2010 World Cup is more important than making a mark on the soccer world right now? I can't know. I will say that the most impressive play I ever saw from Mexico, other than the Argentina game in the World Cup, was in the 2005 Confederaciones in Germany. If the U.S. can pull that kind of tournament, then, and only then, will it have been a wise move. But that tournament is still two years away an it's a huge IF!!! The rest of the world could care less about Copa de Oro, they have no idea what it is. Copa America is the oldest official tournament in FIFA's history! I mean seriously!
But..
...Anyway...I thought it was a final to remember. One that only solidifies the U.S., Mexico rivalry.
Look at it this way, Honduras and El Salvador have an intense rivalry in spite of the fact that El Salvador is now a much inferior team. And what can you say about England and Wales. Wales rarely ties a match with their more powerful "stepbrothers", but it is an intense, hard fought, and in that case, mostly bitter rivalry nonetheless. And some others like Chile
vs. Paraguay, Italy vs. Germany, and so on.
To me this rivalry, The U.S- Mexico, or Mexico-U.S. one, is just starting to get interesting. I see a very bright future for both teams. The road ahead is very interesting, and I sincerely hope that the best of the two someday, hopefully very soon wins...the World Cup!!!
P.S. To all the Shakespeares out there, please excuse my unskilled use of the English language, and any grammatical errors in which I might have incurred.
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