That's not true! Just a couple of nights ago in the NIT, Wichita State tried an offside trap on the last play of the game against Vanderbilt. If you liked those pictures above, though, here's where they came from: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2002/05/23/magazine/26fash.slideshow_1.html For more on the players' reactions to the photo shoot (about midway down): http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/grant_wahl/news/2002/05/27/wahl_insider/ (My worthless prediction: Mexico will have the better of the run of play, but the drawn scoreline won't reflect it. )
Playing in Stadio Azteca is a tough task for ANY team. I don't think Mexico has as good as a team as they did 4-5 years ago but they should be able to win this game in Mexico. A Draw would be a huge accomplishment for the U.S.
IF there is a draw, most will consider it a WIN for United States. I WILL. LeRoy, if "America" win, you can use my signature to write something about your team. If "Mexico" win, I will tell you what to write about my team on yours? Deal?
U.S always gets pumped up to go against Mexico. My prediction, U.S wins 1-0 with a great performance by Keller. Damarcus Beasley scores the winner late in the game.
Now that I think about it, since you see a tie as essentially a win for the US, does that count for our deal?
It should be a fun game, but it will awfully tough for the Americans to win. I am hoping for a draw. The most important thing I will be watching is the style of play from the US and the setup we end up using.
No. Clarification: If the United States National Men's Soccer Select scores more goals than the Mexican National Select in the March 27th game at Estadio Azteca, LEROY WINs. If the Mexican team scores more goals, SWOLY wins. If it is a tie, no one out of LEROY or SWOLY wins. dude, you almost got me. By the way, my MEXICAN players would NEVER EVER EVER do a photo shoot such as yours, mikeg and kimble14... they'd be SHOT.
EDIT: If MEXICAN players would do what the United States team did in 2002 (that photo shoot), they'd get SHOT themselves... how freakin' GAY is that... ORIGINAL March 24, 2005, 12:59AM ON SOCCER Mexico's elevation adds to U.S. challenge By GLENN DAVIS Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle They are the stadiums at the highest of elevations around the world. Names like El Campin in Bogota, Colombia; Hernando Siles in La Paz, Bolivia, and Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. They are by no means level playing fields for visiting teams. But they are reality in world soccer. For instance, the Hernando Siles Stadium in Bolivia has served as a neutralizer for Bolivia against South American superpowers like Brazil and Argentina over the years. On Sunday, the United States will have the challenge of dealing with a talented Mexican team at famed Azteca Stadium in Mexico City in World Cup qualifying — and the additional challenge of altitude (7,200 feet), smog, and a mass of humanity that will reach over 100,000, very few of whom will be supporting the U.S. "Its a different air," said former U.S. defender Fernando Clavijo. "You cant breathe completely how you want to." Despite having never won in Mexico (0-21-1), the U.S. did earn a memorable 0-0 draw in 1997 World Cup qualifying at Azteca Stadium, proving that points can be earned in a hostile environment. On that day, the United States had to play much of the way shorthanded after the ejection of Jeff Agoos, who was caught retaliating against Mexican midfielder Pavel Pardo. "The confidence was with us," said former U.S. international Chris Henderson, who was in Houston recently with the Colorado Rapids. "It was the first time I played in Mexico when the Mexican fans turned on their own team. When we passed the ball, the fans were cheering 'ole' for us. You don't see that in Mexico. Bora Milutinovic (former U.S. coach) was coaching Mexico and the team's confidence was down. "It was a game we held on, we were fighting." this is what I was mentioning above, dudes. Henderson believes ball possession will be a key in Sunday's game. "If we can steal some of the possession, we can take away some confidence and put the pressure on Mexico," he said. "The first 20 or 30 minutes is key, keeping Mexico off the board. The longer Mexico goes without scoring, the more the pressure increases on them." How will Henderson feel if the U. S. pulls off an historic win? "It would be great. Every time I watch the national team, I am so glad that I was a part of it," Henderson said. "I think the U.S., with all the results leading up, is perfect for a team to get a win not just a tie. I think this team is ready for the experience." -----------------------non-world cup news-------- Holden injured After recently signing for Sunderland FC, former Houston area youth player Stuart Holden was involved in an attack in Newcastle that left him with a fractured eye socket. "It's a terrible thing. He's out having a bite to eat and he's the victim of a totally unprovoked attack," said Sunderland manager Mick McCarthy. Holden is not expected to play again this season. The comedian as fan Actor, comedian and writer Drew Carey attended the 1-0 U.S. victory over Honduras in Albuquerque, N.M., last weekend. Carrey was interviewed on the HDNET broadcast and even sat in for a few minutes as a guest analyst. Due to an ear condition, Carrey drove to New Mexico and, per doctors orders, hopes to be in Mexico City for Sunday's U.S.-Mexico qualifier. Carrey, a loyal Galaxy fan, spent much of the time during the U.S.-Honduras match taking pictures behind the goal. A&M to host N.Carolina Texas A&M will take on North Carolina in Spring in women's soccer on April 9 at Houston Christian High School. For information, go to albionhurricanes.org. Glenn Davis covers soccer for the Chronicle. gdavis98@swbell.net
I hope the U.S. wins and I hope if Cobi plays that he will score, in order to get revenge for the mugging he took in Korea. The thing that makes international soccer so fun to watch in my opinion is the different cultures expressing an ordinary game in different ways. This also can be a detriment as it can turn the game into a political and racial battle as with other sports,but on a worldwide scale. Only the olympics can come close. Alot of history of both countries will be facing off Sunday and I don't think the US national team recognized how much that comes into play until after they played Iran in 1998. I think everyone supporting the US now knows that whenever we play Mexico it's not like playing England. This game means so much and so many different things to so many people. I think the Mexicans take it too seriously and the Americans seem to think of it as no big deal. If more Americans showed up to support their team we wouldn't have to complain about playing road games at home. I have to give the Mexican fans props for their support of their team. A journalist in Korea praised their fans for their singing during the Mexican National anthem and they will pack the stadium almost anywhere on the planet to see them play. That being said, I still want the US to beat them for once, just once for now in Mexico. Even if the US doesn't win, Mexico should be worried that the US still has a better chance of winning the WC before they do. And win it we will. Sometime in the next 3 WC.
I'm more worried about my Team Iran vs Japan Tomorrow.... but i am sure i will watch all the other games i can as well....
Cobi will probably never get the chance at retaliation. His international career is done. Besides, he's better than that. It's more than enough to know that we won and Mexico was knocked out.
WHY DO YOU KEEP TORTURING ME?!?!?!?!?! WHY DO YOU KEEP BRINGING THIS UP??!?!!?!?!?!!!!!! ARRRGGHHHH!!!! :MAD: jk, dudes... Hey, LeRoy, be thinking about what you would like my signature to say, for I shall be thinking about what YOUR signature would say... Did anyone catch pp. 54-57 on the Sports Illustrated issue this week? "Yes, Hard Feelings"... 5h1t, that's an understatement... This needs REGISTRATION, so here it is: -------------------------------------------------- Yes, Hard Feelings In a continuation of a bitter rivalry, the U.S. travels to Mexico for a World Cup qualifier this week and attempts to do what it has never done: win at the dreaded Azteca By Grant Wahl Though he has battled the Tricolores five times, the sights (and smog) of Mexico City's Azteca will be new to Donovan. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images Landon Donovan doesn't know what's coming this Sunday. He can't know. Not until you've played for the U.S. at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City can you understand what it's like to face your nation's most bitter soccer rival in that 115,000-seat caldron, a place where the Americans have never won a game. U.S. veterans of the Azteca speak in evocative terms about sensory overload. The sound of the hostile fans? "Like playing inside a beehive," says midfielder Cobi Jones. The towering, almost vertical grandstands? "Like Mad Max's Thunderdome," says retired defender Alexi Lalas. The choking smog and 7,200-foot altitude? "I once saw Cobi cough up something that looked like a brownie," says former forward Eric Wynalda. "It's like never smoking your whole life, then being told to smoke a pack of cigarettes and try to function normally. You get sick." The Yanks will get another taste of the Azteca -- site of Pelé's exploits in the 1970 World Cup and Diego Maradona's in '86 -- when they face Mexico during the final stage of World Cup qualifying. Each side won its first of 10 qualifiers, placing them at the top of the six-team group from North and Central America and the Caribbean. Only three of those teams are assured a berth next year in Germany. Donovan, the 23-year-old U.S. captain, is preparing for the worst. "I've never played in front of 100,000," he says. "From what I hear, every condition you can imagine is as bad as it gets: the crowd, the noise, the altitude, the smog, the field, the heat. That's what Mexico counts on, and you have to take it out of play." So debilitating are conditions at the Azteca, says U.S. Soccer Federation executive vice president Sunil Gulati, that the USSF has tried to strike a deal with its Mexican counterpart on the sites for their home-and-home World Cup qualifiers: If you host your game in some other city -- say, low-altitude Monterrey -- we'll stage ours in heavily Hispanic Los Angeles, where Mexico's supporters normally outnumber U.S. fans by a factor of 10. The Tricolores have never accepted, prompting the USSF to schedule two straight qualifiers with Mexico during frigid weather in Columbus, Ohio. Mexican journos dubbed the most recent one, a 2-0 U.S. victory on a 29° day in February 2001, La Guerra Fría. The Cold War. That's typical for the most heated international rivalry in North American sports. Since 1934 the U.S. and Mexico have clashed 49 times on the soccer pitch, and though the Mexicans have dominated the series, 28-11-10, the Yanks have gained the upper hand in recent years with six wins in the last eight matches. Their most stunning victory came at the 2002 World Cup in Jeonju, South Korea: With the stakes the highest and the stage the largest, the U.S. eliminated Mexico 2-0 in the second round. For Mexican-Americans whose fútbol loyalty lies with their native land, the agony of that loss remains vividly painful. "I have cried three times in my life," said Regelio Ruiz, a 36-year-old used-car salesman from Las Vegas, while attending a Mexico-Argentina game in L.A. this month. "That day was one of them." As with any worthwhile rivalry, U.S.-Mexico has had its excruciating moments. Like the time in 1997 when Mexico's Ramón Ramirez karate-kicked Lalas in the groin ("a full-frontal assault on my manhood," as the recipient put it). Or the manifold occasions on which Wynalda lashed out at Mexico fans in the U.S. ("The more people I had rooting against me," he says, "the more people I flipped off.") Or the 2004 Olympic qualifying tournament in Guadalajara, when the crowd chanted Osama, Osama. Or that epic '02 World Cup match, during which, Donovan says, Mexican forward Luis Hernández turned to him after an on-field tangle and snarled, "I will find your mother and kill her." "To say things like that is pretty evil," Donovan says. "I'm sure it's something he's forgotten, but I never will." Though the Tricolores don't deny the intensity of the competition, not all of them take it personally. "The U.S. has grown so much in its soccer, because it has a league now and many players in Europe," says longtime Mexico goalkeeper Jorge Campos, now a national team assistant coach. "But that doesn't mean we hate the Americans. Cobi Jones is a very good friend of mine." Yet much more than soccer fuels many Mexican fans' animus toward the U.S. team, says Rodolfo de la Garza, a Columbia professor who specializes in immigration studies. "There are very few instances in the history of the two countries where Mexico has either been dealt with fairly or has won when there were differences," he explains. "Central to Mexican nationalism is anti-Americanism. The U.S. invaded Mexico on various occasions, and by their judgment the Mexicans lost half their land. There's a built-in structure of resentment, a built-in rivalry. "Mexicans have one big sport. They invest completely in it, and it is deeply resented that the U.S. beat them at the World Cup. That sticks in their craw. It should be their game. But the power and the money of the U.S. has denied them even that." Maybe so, but if you're an American soccer player, it's hard to see yourself as the hegemonic power when the whistling and booing is directed at you in, for instance, L.A. Says Lalas, "There were times I'd get off the field and think, The thousands of people who just cheered against their national team have reaped the incredible benefits of coming to the U.S., and yet they don't recognize that the team in red, white and blue is much more representative of their lives than the team they're cheering for. We've had players from all different ethnicities, so we really represent what this country is about." The U.S.'s recent domination has led to extensive soul-searching in the Mexican soccer community -- as well as numerous theories to explain the change in fortunes. "For me it's easy," says Javier Aguirre, who coached Mexico's 2002 World Cup team and now runs Osasuna in Spain's La Liga. "In the last 10 years the Americans have had 30 to 40 players in Europe. We have two or three players in Europe, and that is the great difference. Mexico doesn't have that type of competition." In other words, the comfort of staying at home and playing in the relatively lucrative (but insular) Mexican Football League might be stunting the Tricolores' development as soccer players. (Though that doesn't account for the fact that three of the four U.S. goal scorers in World Cup 2002 represented the supposedly inferior MLS.) Martín Vasquez, a Mexican-American and the only player ever to compete for both countries, says the rise of U.S. soccer is tied to the type of players being drawn to the sport these days, ones who might once have chosen baseball, basketball or football. "In Mexico maybe some of the players are more gifted," says Vasquez, who's now an assistant for the MLS team Chivas USA, "but I think the American players are catching up because they have something the Mexican players don't have: athleticism." Yet perhaps the most fascinating explanation is that the Tricolores have somehow lost the confidence they once had when facing their northern neighbor. Rare is the discussion that doesn't included the word mentalidad. "I think it's a psychological game now," says Guillermo Cantú, a former player for Mexico who now directs its national teams. "The mentality is on the American side, and we have to steal it." Rafael Ramos, who covers the Mexican team for the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión in Los Angeles, takes the notion a step further. "The Mexican writer Octavio Paz once said, Mexicans have more fear of victory than of defeat," he explains. "The fans are the same way. Just watch this next game against the U.S. No matter how much confidence they have in their team -- in the altitude, in the smog, in the pressure they'll bring against the U.S. -- they will grow worried. There will be total euphoria the first 10 to 15 minutes, but if a goal doesn't come, there will be complete silence. The doubt kills you. It's a very Mexican idiosyncrasy." The U.S. players' explanations for their recent success aren't so complex. "When it comes down to soccer, we're the better team," says Donovan. "But if we want to get to the next level, we need to win World Cup qualifiers on the road. For too long we've had this mind-set that a tie on the road is good. I don't care if you throw all the [Azteca] factors in. We're a better team, and we should beat Mexico." More than any other U.S. player, Donovan inspires mixed emotions from the Mexican fans. On the one hand they appreciate his fluency in Spanish and his fast-but-precise playing style, which some observers consider vaguely Mexican. Not for nothing did Donovan receive a third-place vote from the Mexican federation in the 2002 FIFA World Player of the Year balloting. On the other hand Donovan offended his hosts at the '04 Olympic qualifying tournament in Guadalajara, where he was caught relieving himself discreetly on a training-field shrub. Caught on video, the incident got huge play in the Mexican media. "To me it was never a big deal," he says. "I would say chanting, 'Osama, Osama,' carries a lot more weight than me going to the bathroom on the side of their field." Ultimately, Donovan's best response might be the one that translates into any language: Scoreboard, baby. "If you're a Mexican soccer fan, it must be incredibly disheartening at this point," says Lalas. "Because that one thing that you could pin your hopes on was, At least we're going to kick your ass on the soccer field. When that's taken away, it must be depressing. But I'll tell you what: We've taken it away, and we're not giving it back. It's up to them to come and get it. And I hope that we keep kicking their ass, time and time again." But it's one thing for that to happen in a U.S. stadium, quite another if it took place in the vaunted Azteca. "If Mexico loses at home against the United States," says Ramos, "only God can say what might happen." On Sunday he may find out. Issue date: March 28, 2005 -----------------------
I didn't want to start a new thread for this, so I decided to put it here. http://www.ussocceruk.com/news/?CatTypeId=2&ContentId=2205 Looks like Landon Donovan has already given up on playing in the Bundesliga and will return to MLS. Not good news.
I haven't had a chance to see him play since he went back. I had not heard anywhere else that he was performing so poor. If it's true, it's a shame. Unfortunately, there is only so far that he'd be able to take his game playing in the US. Would he be better off playing in Mexico (I know, the irony. But the league is at least a couple notches above the MLS)? If it's homesickness, I don't see him going back to Europe at all. Until there's a quote from Landon, I'll take this with a grain of sand.
I'd like to see him try... that #&^$#*&^(%&... he will be on his BUTT on Sunday at least 10 times from the rough play he deserves, that little... arrrrghgghghghgh!!! jk. No, but seriously, I remember Dooley did well back in the late 90's when Tigres of U.A.N.L picked him up. He was consistent and a major part of Tigres making it to the semis one year, and losing to Monterrey. Explain this "couple notches about the MLS" stuff... I didn't get your imagery... are you saying that MLS is below, above, close, or average compared to the Mexican league? I'd say below... more than a few notches.
I believe he meant "a couple of notches above the MLS. As far as I'm concerned, the MLS has progressed a great deal in the last few years, and right now is on par, with the Mexican league. In a few more years it will surpass it. I know that SwoLy-D, will come out and say how stupid I am and how great the Mexicans are, but I truly believe that. Look at guys like Beasley, Bocanegra, and Cory Gibbs all starring for their team abroad coming straight out of MLS, ans alot of guys are going to be following them in the next couple of years (Adu, Gaven, Johnson, Dempsey etc.) A good indication of how close the two leagues are will come when DC United play Pumas UNAM in the semis of the CONCACAF Champion's Cup in a few weeks.
Edited...I meant the Mexican league is a couple of notches above the MLS. It's slowly getting closer.
I think that too much emphasis is put on a country's professional league. They ARE important, but can be somewhat detrimental when it comes to players playing way too much during a season. Look at Ronaldo prior to the 2002 WC. He had a month or so of rest before the WC due to an injury and he ends up scoring 8 goals. The US players who play in the MLS have been lucky not to have the same schedule as Europeans or South american soccer players. as fa as leagues go, I think the MLS is great in that americans have a chance to build their own identity as opposed to adopting the style of another country like the English or God forbid the Italians. Look at Landon, he has stated that he felt unwanted and uncomfortable playing in Germany. He wants to be closer to home. Why make him play somewhere he doesn't want to play? He has proven he can play at the international level and play well. And most of his professional time has been spent in playing in the MLS. He could probably make alot of money and be very popular abroad but I feel he will continue to grow into a great player here in the US and prove that MLS can eventually be as viable and profitable as the european leagues.
