I had to chuckle a little at this story on mediotiempo.com .
It gives a rehash of the last friendly that the U.S. and Mexico played. Without translating the whole thing, it says that Mexico played far better and the U.S. was lucky to win. It describes the first goal of the United States (Jimmy Conrad's header) as the first time the U.S. even got near Mexico's net. The second goal is blamed entirely on the referee, Mauricio Navarro, as the writer says that Navarro deflected the ball directly to Landon Donovan. (The writer also perpetuates the myth that Landon was running and teasing the Mexican players before he scored. He uses that logic to explain away Oswaldo Sanchez kicking Eddie Johnson.)
Navarro didn't get the ball to Landon. Pavel Pardo sent a pass that hit the referee. The ball bounced into the path of Ricardo Clark, who took one look up and hit a perfect short pass to Landon, who was off to the races.
I brought the pass up to Rico in our interview yesterday. "That's right," he said, smiling. "I forgot about that. That was my first assist."
You forgot?
"It hit the referee," he said, recalling the moment. "It was just one of those things. I saw that (Landon) was through and I was lucky enough to get the ball in a good position and send him on his way. I was thankful to get my first point, first statistic with the national team."
Anyway, to refresh everyone's memory:
9 comments:
I agree with you, It just gets me som mad when people say that it was the referees fault, but if you look at it, who mad the error, big time error of passing it to the referee? Oh yea it was Pavel Pardo. But anyways we are going to beat mexico once again!
Ah, thanks for the trip down memory lane. How sweet it is!!
Wow, that's a travesty. Fine journalism indeed.
I could watch that 1,000 times! Let's go USA!
Nice article on si.com Luis. What exactly is the story with the Canadian team partipating in the CONCACAF Champions League? As a Canadian and a fan of Toronto FC I hope they do represent MLS and the entire country in this competion. Having said that it would be a joke to have five MLS squads, compared to only four Mexican teams. Lets not kid ourselves, this is purely about money and growing the US market. Otherwise Mexico would have six teams and Costa Rica would have four.
As a fan of both teams. Frankly, this game is not that much fun to watch because it is like a replay over and over, a re-run if you will.
The storylne is tried and true like a bad hollywood sports film script.
It follow this line: a team is portrayed as bad guys who are full of themselves and don't respect their opponent. Plucky team and underdog rises to the challenge and although is outplayed handily somehow wins over and over.
The aftermath is always some innocuous and meaningless commentary about stats, or about taunting...
What would make the game more attractive for me???
1. I would love the US to continue to find and play a new style and I would love for Bradley to keep incorporating new faces all the while putting the Arena counter-attack style in the rear-view mirror. Watching them defend for 90minutes is like watching paint dry.
It's time to take the training wheels off and not rely on LD.
2. I would love for Mexico to play a crisp organized game for a full 90 minutes plus stoppage time. Lapses plague them on set-pieces and counters. Defending set-pieces is cringe worthy for them. How many counter-attacks goals will they give up. The "we played better" line is old. Can they earn a clean scoreline?
3. I would love for the media to stop with their corny storylines after the game, their wannabe ESPN stats are meaningless. This is a friendly, nothing is on the line but pride. As far as I'm concerned unless the World Cup is on the line it's just a game.
BBSC
wow. I guess the writer of that article forgot that a little thing called 'video' existed.
Neither team played particularly well but to make it sound like El Tri were playing like Gods who merely were unlucky to have been scored on twice is ridiculous. If someone had bothered marking Conrad on that header it might have been a different game.
I agree with BBSC's point about leaving the Arena counter-attack style behind. With all of the goals Michael Bradley has been scoring for his club, I can't imagine him not playing a CM role rather than his usual DM.
I just hope it's as exciting as the Gold Cup final was. (preferably with the same result. :D)
there goes another reason I don't much care for the Mexican team.
Sure, sometimes a team is lucky to win but according to the Mexican players, staff, and media, the USA is lucky to win EVERY time.
The USMNT must have truck loads of luck because Mexico hasn't won the classico for a good long while.
I says top whining. Go score a goal or two and, like BBSC says, play a crisp organised game for the full 90.
Maybe that would be enough to overcome our superior "luck".
Kenny Cooper should be getting a call-up, especially with Twellman out, no EJ, no Rolfe, and no Ching. This is ridiculous, in fact this is bs. Altidore is good but will see minutes in the Olympic qualifyers. Did KC crappe in BB's cereal?
Mexico is fielding a tough squad, MLS hasn't started yet, and Houston might as well be located in Mexico City. This will be a very uphill battle for the US.
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