Meanwhile, deep in the heart of Central America, it was a dark and stormy night
The US Men's National Team went to Guatemala last night in the first game of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. It's always a little surprising when you mention "US" and "soccer" to people and they seem stunned that we're any good at all. But, well, we're one of the top two teams in our qualifying region (North America, Central America and the Caribbean) and we've qualified for every World Cup since 1990. Which is a better track record (cough-cough) than some teams.
We won 1-0 in exactly the kind of game that ten years ago we would have lost. There is really, honest-to-goodness progress being made here. And the even better news is that the days of going out and finding a player with either: a) the most tenuous connection to the US you could imagine ("His grandfather once was rescued by a fishing boat off Chile just after the US Civil War and on that boat was someone who had been to America during the Coronado expedition"); or b) a desire to become a US citizen because he wasn't good enough to play for his country of birth. Out of our starting line-up, there was really only one player last night that has that kind of status and while he's important to the team, he's not even one of top guys out there.
Anyway, the game . . .
It was a classic Central American qualifying game. The crowd is whipped into an absolute frenzy. It's summer, so even at night it's unbelievably hot and wet. The field is a mess because it can't be kept dry often enough, so the grass can't root properly. The Central American teams always get amped to play the US. Even when we were crap and they beat us like a drum, but now that we've show semblence of competency on the field, all bets are off. And holy cow, do these games get physical in a hurry -- despite what you might think, in soccer, the US doesn't have a reputation for being a very physical team. In the past, they would shirk from the more violent tackles and other teams knew it so they would play us rough. That's changed a little over the recent years. You get the point though -- last night the elbows were up and the crowd wasn't sending air kisses to the US team.
We won on a corner kick header from Carlos Bocanegra in the second half. I cooked dinner so didn't pay especially close attention in the first half which finished tied. The first ten minutes of the second half were excruciating -- Guatemala poured forward and had a half dozen great chances while the US hung on for dear life. Then we got our right back sent off for one of the most retarded and blantant fouls I've ever seen. I tried to find it on youtube to no avail -- he was scuffling for the ball along the sideline, lost the ball, then got beat and as the Guatemalan midfielder blew past him and he was slipping down, he reached out and grabbed the guy by the ankle with both hands. Moments later, poor Eddie Lewis got positively decked after a header, split his wide open and the Guatemalan guy got sent off to make it ten on ten. Moments after that, the US scored. And then we hung on for another twenty minutes to get the win against arguably the other best team in our group.
Human interest story -- our goalkeeper plays in the English Premier League for one of the non Big Four. Last night, he was easily our best player -- kept us in the game during the aforementioned onslaught. He has Tourette's.
Anyway, it was very entertaining game and a solid result. Anyone else watch? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
We won 1-0 in exactly the kind of game that ten years ago we would have lost. There is really, honest-to-goodness progress being made here. And the even better news is that the days of going out and finding a player with either: a) the most tenuous connection to the US you could imagine ("His grandfather once was rescued by a fishing boat off Chile just after the US Civil War and on that boat was someone who had been to America during the Coronado expedition"); or b) a desire to become a US citizen because he wasn't good enough to play for his country of birth. Out of our starting line-up, there was really only one player last night that has that kind of status and while he's important to the team, he's not even one of top guys out there.
Anyway, the game . . .
It was a classic Central American qualifying game. The crowd is whipped into an absolute frenzy. It's summer, so even at night it's unbelievably hot and wet. The field is a mess because it can't be kept dry often enough, so the grass can't root properly. The Central American teams always get amped to play the US. Even when we were crap and they beat us like a drum, but now that we've show semblence of competency on the field, all bets are off. And holy cow, do these games get physical in a hurry -- despite what you might think, in soccer, the US doesn't have a reputation for being a very physical team. In the past, they would shirk from the more violent tackles and other teams knew it so they would play us rough. That's changed a little over the recent years. You get the point though -- last night the elbows were up and the crowd wasn't sending air kisses to the US team.
We won on a corner kick header from Carlos Bocanegra in the second half. I cooked dinner so didn't pay especially close attention in the first half which finished tied. The first ten minutes of the second half were excruciating -- Guatemala poured forward and had a half dozen great chances while the US hung on for dear life. Then we got our right back sent off for one of the most retarded and blantant fouls I've ever seen. I tried to find it on youtube to no avail -- he was scuffling for the ball along the sideline, lost the ball, then got beat and as the Guatemalan midfielder blew past him and he was slipping down, he reached out and grabbed the guy by the ankle with both hands. Moments later, poor Eddie Lewis got positively decked after a header, split his wide open and the Guatemalan guy got sent off to make it ten on ten. Moments after that, the US scored. And then we hung on for another twenty minutes to get the win against arguably the other best team in our group.
Human interest story -- our goalkeeper plays in the English Premier League for one of the non Big Four. Last night, he was easily our best player -- kept us in the game during the aforementioned onslaught. He has Tourette's.
Anyway, it was very entertaining game and a solid result. Anyone else watch? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?