Monday, April 7, 2008

The Women of Juarez

The U.S. wins, but Mexico made them fight for it.

The other view is here. Notably, the article says the ref was bad and in favor of the U.S. time and again.

7 comments:

rtt281 said...

Any reason to believe that? It seemed to be a good win against an fired-up Mexican side. Any eyewitnesses out there?

Anonymous said...

I was at the game. Mexico hit the crossbar once and the post twice and had plenty of chances. US hit the post at least three times. The referee had zero impact on the game. Atmosphere was fantastic. Stadium was sold out and the fans were absolutely crazy for their team. Canada's going to have their hands full on Wednesday.

Evan said...

Andrea, I'm really surprised at the title of this post. I think it's a bit inappropriate.

A.C. said...

That right, we wouldn't want to upset anyone with the truth that made Juarez infamous.

Look, women's teams, of all sports entities, should care about issues like this, issues that all too often are bypassed because people don't want to talk about it. As soon as I read Olympic qualifying was there, I was thinking about the irony - strong women battling for glory in a place where women died helplessly. Then I thought, all the better, because if people respect the players, perhaps that will help change attitudes, give the helpless more hope, in some small way.

Evan said...

(wish I could edit my comment instead of deleting it).

Why do you assume that my objection has anything to do with drawing attention to the murders in Juarez?

I agree with you that it deserves more attention, and I agree with you that it is bitterly ironic that a qualification game was there, when the "Olympic ideals" are about peace and nonviolence.

My objection was that I found it a bit crass to use the phrasing often used to talk about the murders for a post on a soccer game.

A.C. said...

Here I thought I was making a delicate and oblique reference to the issue while still being informative about the game.

Anonymous said...

another Mexican national team claiming superiority over the US if not for those pesky officials...don't they have another line of BS to use?

So played, the Mexican ladies are simply a few classes below the US ladies right now. They could grow into a good team if given support but lets face it, the situation in Latin America isn't exactly great for the growth of the ladies game. The Brazilian team looks promising and they get about $1000 a year for their program sine they're 'just the girls'. Sad really.

I think it'll be a while until the US/Europe domination of the ladies game will be truly broken.