Hey, hey - here we go now. Well, not just yet, some telenovela is on. "No quiero verle nunca mas!" spits the heroine. Oh, ok, it's over now. Bring on SuperLiga! Post predictions quick!
Ha, the announcers know all about the Houston/Pachuca history.
"Houston wants revenge," they say. I've picked Pachuca to win, however, so I predict a heartbreaking 2-1.
Pachuca
* 1 - Miguel Calero (GK)
* 2 - Leobardo Lopez
* 3 - Julio Manzur
* 6 - Jaime Correa
* 7 - Damian Alvarez
* 8 - Gabriel Caballero
* 9 - Bruno Marioni
* 12 - Juan Rojas
* 16 - Carlos Rodriguez
* 18 - Jose Torres
* 21 - Fausto Pinto
Houston
* 18 - Pat Onstad (GK)
* 9 - Brian Mullan
* 11 - Brad Davis
* 13 - Ricardo Clark
* 14 - Dwayne De Rosario
* 16 - Craig Waibel
* 20 - Geoff Cameron
* 24 - Wade Barrett
* 25 - Brian Ching
* 27 - Nate Jaqua
* 32 - Bobby Boswell
Robertson doesn't look full, but not shabby for a Tuesday night.
Kickoff!
1- Dynamo early on.
3 - The announcers compliment the field. It's not so nice, but definitely improved than the last SuperLiga game, which was embarrassing.
4 - Brad Davis takes a corner, overshoots everyone.
6 - Davis threatens to bring a ball down in the box, but the defense of Pachuca covers - Lopez slides in to claim the ball with a tackle. Announcers agree that the Dynamo are far more aggressive early on.
8 - SAVE! DeRo creates somethng out of almost nothing. A Pachuca clear falls to him and he touches it to himself and rockets a shot on goal from 30 yards out that Calero just dives to touch over the bar. Close.
9 - Corner cleared.
13 - Hey, a Sangre Americano reference - they're talking about how Torres turned down the U.S. Olympic team.
14 - Heh, announcers are amazed that Ngwenya, who is infamous for a crappy PK against Calero, is now on trial in Germany with Bayern Munich.
15 - Ching with a header! It's a ways out, though, and Calero comes up with it.
17 - "Food poisoning" sound worse than "stomach pain" which is the reason the announcers give for Eddie Robinson's absence. Dynamo take a FK, clearance falls to Mullan, who takes a rather crappy shot. The announcer has fun with it, though, getting very dramatic. "Mullan shoots with his left foot! He shoots the ball very hard! He shoots badly!"
19 - DeRo's cross caught by Calero, but the Dynamo aren't just knocking on the door, they're banging dents in it.
20 - Mullan! Wide.
24 - Pachuca has had a bit of run lately, now has a corner. Onstad catches it and the announcers give him props, but mercifully, manage not to reference his advanced age. (It's like the "Jay Heaps played basketball at Duke" reference - done to death.)
25 - Nice Pachuca shot, blocked by Boswell. The color commentator scoffs at giving Boswell any credit. "He didn't move - the ball just hit him." Well, maybe he didn't move to make sure the ball hit him.
27 - The announcers also reference how Erikson is watching the SuperLiga games.
29 - Marioni is down. He touched the ball into the box too far and then dashed after it, vaulting over Wade Barrett along the way. He's not going to get that call - he doesn't even have the ball.
31 - Heh, the announcers talk about getting the the stadium, mentioning how many fans are trickling in still. "With GPS, it's no problem."
33 - Torres gets a card for a late, hard tackle on Davis - Lopez argues it. Lopez gets a yellow, too.
34 - Pachuca clear the FK.
35 - Correa with an outside shot. Wide by more than a bit.
36 - DeRo on the run - beats his defender, into the box, shoots right into Calero. The announcer lament rightly that he should have passed. Ching was right there.
38 - Apparently coach Meza has the whole bench warming up, so changes could be coming soon for Pachuca.
39 - Rico Clark has a yellow, but they never really showed why. Reckless foul, apparently. Ok.
41 - Not much point in playing a lot better than Pachuca if the scoreboard doesn't reflect that. Yes, I love to point out the obvious.
42 - Meza is now arguing with the linesmen, they don't like where the subs are warming up, getting in their way. "Are you going to eject all my subs?" a snide Meza apparently asks.
44 - Davis wastes a cross to Ching - just overhits him badly.
Halftime - All Houston, in every aspect, except the most important one. There's not even a single goal. Ooooh, Pachuca going after the referee! Marioni, Meza, they're all up in his grill.
Alvarez interviews that this is a contentious and emotional match.
45 - Pachuca already looks better this half. They're deep in Dynamo ground.
47 - Marioni wide.
48 - The announcers like Onstad, they mention him as a possibility for 2010 if Canada makes the World Cup. Guess they're not Greg Sutton fans.
49 - Save! Onstad! He cut off the angle, foot save.
50 - SAVE! Onstad! Dives for this one, a more difficult one. Out for a corner.
SAAAAAVVVEEEE! The toughest one of all, the announcers can't believe it, but Onstad's reflexes stop a point blank shot off the corner by Lopez.
52 - What did Meza say at the half? Pachuca all over the Dynamo now.
53 - Corner for Pachuca. Onstad punches out, but not far and Caballero tries, but misses a bicycle kick. Must have been inspired by last year's Chris Klein version.
56 - This is weird. Calero is limping around and Marioni is bringing paper cups of drink to his teammates.
59 - Calero apparently has a slight pull. Houston readies a sub.
60 - NO goal! Offside. But the replay seems to show even. Announcers gripe about the call. Caballero wuz robbed.
61 - Davis is out - Ashe in.
64 - Rodriguez! Shoots high, but not by too much.
65 - Jaqua! Diving header wide, but close. Announcer, "The Tower Jaqua threw himself knee high to send the ball toward the goal!"
66 - Ashe sends in a cross that Calero can't hang on to, but Jaqua hits the ball out.
67 - Ashe with another cross, but this one is poor and Pachuca claims the ball.
68 - Kinnear is throwing everything but the - oh wait, here comes Kei Kamara for Jaqua.
69- Ashe with another cross, but misses the front line and Mullan's shot on the follow is blocked.
70 - Corner for the Dynamo, earned by Geoff Cameron's cross.
Montes comes on for Rodriguez. Pachuca clear the counter.
71 - Caballero sulks off the field. Aguilar is subbed in for him.
73 - Corner for Dynamo - header by Kamara goes over goal and falls in the back of the net.
74 - Hah, that's always tricky - fans have to text in the game's MVP. Well, no goals yet, so I say Onstad, but the true hero could yet be shown.
76 - Dynamo on the attack again. A corner chance. DeRo takes it.
77 - GOAL! Waibel flicks the ball on and it goes far post, where Boswell gets a foot, or an ankle on to the ball, with Calero way out of position. It goes into the goal, not pretty, but finally, very effective. 1-0 Dynamo. Waibel's flick really made the goal.
80 - Pachuca have picked up the pace looking for the equalizer, but the Dynamo are also primed to release on the counter. Ashe is likely to get a good chance here.
82 - Ching wastes a chance to pass to Kamara, passing to his buddy DeRo instead, but overshooting him with the cross.
83 - Marioni shot, deflects off Waibel.
84 - Torres is out - limping slightly. Dynamo fans are celebrating already. They can taste their revenge.
85 - Ashe with a great move gets a good cross off to Ching - but the header is wide.
86 - Houston trying to keep the ball, Pachuca trying desperately to set up a goal chance. Tough tackling both ways. Meza is cussing on the sidelines.
87 - GOAL! ASHE! This time, he's the beneficiary of a great cross by Mullan, who somehow slips two defenders and gets a pass into the area, who misses everybody but the littlest guy on the field - who nails a header into the goal. 2-0 Dynamo.
89 - Onstad takes him time with a goal kick, infuriating the Pachuca fans, who clamor for enforcement of the six-second rule.
90 - Barret is shoved down and then when he gets up, gets shoved again. Boswell comes up to defend him and all manner of shoving and insults break out. Marioni gets a card, but others get away with pushing. Marioni was losing it, though. I wonder what he says when he's that mad. None of the Dynamo players speak Spanish.
90 + Boswell wins the games MVP. The assistant coach of Pachuca has been tossed from the game. Baldomero Toledo, the 4th official, had it with him, I guess.
Final whistle.
More shoves and insults break out, Security intervenes. They have to protect the ref, Neil Brizan, but also Ashe, who apparently made some gesture that pissed off Pachuca players. Torres is interviewed and says that the team was robbed a goal, but that they accept the outcome. Calero says little, "That's how refs are."
Well, Pachuca was hard done by that goal that was called offside but didn't seem so. Still, the Dynamo dominated the early going and should have scored. They asserted themselves again in the second half after Pachuca had a good run, and this time, the Dynamo sealed the deal and broke the Pachuca jinx.
As much as I'd like MLS to succeed, I'm not sure I can stomach watching the houstoquakes lift another trophy.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glade Houston reliad some grass on that field of theirs.
ReplyDeletebooooring futbol on display... can't decide what sucks more -- mls or femexft.
ReplyDeletesaludos
What was that about? Looks like there was some type of disagreement going on regarding Pachuca after the halftime whisle blew. Telefutra showed some shots but kept on interviewing a player.
ReplyDeleteThis is typical Pachuca in a way. Sometimes this team just brings. For moments of a game they are just on and are absolute brilliant, then it seems to turn off again.
ReplyDeletethe fix was in tonight... that was a legit goal... i'd love to know how much the mls paid the ref for tonight's performance
ReplyDeleteGot pretty spicy there at the end. Couple nice goals by houston, too bad Pachuca got burned on that offside.
ReplyDeletegano el menos malo... nefasto el partido
ReplyDeleteHouston sucks, can't stand the orange ,Pachuca got robbed of a sweet goal, at the end both side were out of control.
ReplyDeleteNo fix. That's the way it is... Sometimes you benefit, sometimes you get shafted by bad calls. If the scoreline was 1-0, I might feel bad but Houston put TWO in... I'm sure all the Pachuca fans will cry conspiracy but in the end, they are still left wanting. Way to lose with class by the way!
ReplyDeleteRicardo Clark seems to me like Mastroeni 2.0, only more skilled.
ReplyDeleteGreat game overall. Both teams could have played better but it was entertaining, and the crowd was obviously into it.
Dude from Wales linked in an earlier post should take some time to watch instead of pimping the Championship (which is basically unwatchable half the time)
ugh. I can't tell who is worse the refs or the announcers. These guys are so biased. I can't stand Swartz (sideline reporter). According to these announcers, Mexican teams can do no wrong. I just loved the way how Swartz keeps bashing the Dynamo. You got to respect Pachuca on their class after the loss (tv interviews).
ReplyDeleteMuch respect for Pachuco. I wanted Houston to win, but not like that.
ReplyDeleteIts funny how MLS fans always bash Mexico, make racist comments or are just complete idiots when they post comments such as "they have no class"
ReplyDelete(Hypocrites)- Emotions can run deep when the game is played. As for the whole incident @ the end of the game, Clark is a instigator,every fight the Dynamo has, clark is involved.Both sides are at fault, the referees were awful, and we have a Superliga, let the Mexican, US hated rivalry continue.
Wow! MLS fans are hypocrites? Are you saying the Mexican fans aren't? Take the blinders off. And the racist bit... Just a feeling or do you have proof?
ReplyDeleteJose Francisco Torres made some interesting comments about racist slurs from the Houston players after the game.
ReplyDeletehmmm, not surprised really and it's funny that Rico Clark went out of his way to shove Enrique Meza, who might just be the classiest coach south of the border.
Luis and Andrea, you both follow FMF enough to know that the Pachuca organization is class and they don't really get into altercations like the one last night.
what are your thoughts about this?
in the past few years these teams have met up several times. pachuca never complained about houston before as they won every series/match. now that houston won all these bad comments about houston are coming out. sounds fishy to me....
ReplyDeleteIf Torres is complaining about racial slurs from the Houston players then it doesn't really bode well for him suiting up for the US, especially since some of their players play for the USMNT.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I heard Torres say that the Houston coach might be racist, maybe he doesn't like Mexicans...my hopes for him playing for the Nat Team died.
ReplyDeleteBy that one commment alone it told me that he considers himself Mexican...not a person with dual loyalties..not a Texan...not a mexican-american...but 100% Mexican.
This isn't the first time Houston beats Pachuca at home, in fact, I think the overall series stands at 2-2.
ReplyDeleteMarioni was pissed about something, I think he had a bit of a scuffle with Boswell, nothing bad or anything, just how the game goes sometimes.
After the game some of the players wanted to confront some Dynamo players that taunted them with racial slurs. Maybe it wasn't the right choice but I'd probably be pissed to if Waibel spends the whole game slinging racial slurs at me.
whatever though, I still think Houston did enough to win but the altercation sure puts a negative tint on the game.
I love it how MLS teams can do no wrong and they are always juding FMF to see if they are "classy" or not. WHat, the Dynamo is classy??? Please...
ReplyDeleteHard to take Torres seriously as a champion of racial justice, when in the same interview he blames the loss on how "Central Americans" always ruin Mexican teams' chances. Later Calero, in an otherwise classy interview, said refereering was "typical of Central Americans." (though the ref was from T&T, and the linesman was Canadian). Implications being that we Central Americans are too stupid (or shifty) to referee games featuring exalted Mexican teams. Next time you play the racism card, guys, do it without your own. And as a Salvadoran who's watched Mexican Natl. Team players act like utter prima donnas/asses to our players, there's nothing more fun than watching them or any FMF team lose, and lose without class.
ReplyDeleteWhich bum was it that shoved Corey Ashe into the boards surrounding the pitch?
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's because most central americans hate mexico for whatever reason and central american refs have been known to be bias against mexican teams.
ReplyDeleteCONCACAF refs are horrible and that includes some Mexican refs and it's not a big deal UNLESS a ref's decision directly affects the outcome of a game, in this case it did.
If you watched the end of the game, Enrique Meza was having a word with someone on the Dynamo bench and Ricardo Clark went out of his way to shove him, that along with Marioni's attitude started the post-game scuffle.
Read the comments by Pachuca players and coach after the game, they all agreed Houston deserved to win and had some harsh words for the refs.
yeah, I heard the bit from Calero, a Colombian, about Central American refs - that bugged, frankly, but it's also true that Brizan is from Trinidad. Perhaps it was a dig at CONCACAF refs in general, which a lot of people do criticize. What's funny there is how Mexico sometimes acts like it's not a part of CONCACAF.
ReplyDeleteit absolutely makes no sense that houston players made racial slurs. i just don't believe it. if it is true i would most delfinitely protest anything those players do but i just can't see it. if they made some statements like "loser go home to mexico" in the contents of the game it's not racist because pachuca players can simply say "losers got back home to the US" if the game was down there.
ReplyDeletei meant pachuca has won every home and away series against houston.
Why do some MLS and US fans refuse to believe their players would do anything wrong? They're human beings, not saints. I don't Torres would make anything up like that anyway, you can even say it might have been a language issue because he speaks English.
ReplyDeleteWhat did Torres hear? I've been hunting around, and I can't find anything specific that the Pachuca players said Houston players said. Does anyone have a link to an article with details?
ReplyDeleteWhat I have heard is Houston players praise their fans numerous times, talking about how their support helped them overcome the trauma of relocation - many of Houston's supporters are Hispanic.
Torres was speaking on TeleF right after the game. Personally I thought he was talking more about overcoming the "racism" (bias, really) of the refereering crew, not the Dynamo, but I was listening from the other room, so may not have caught it all. I don't doubt all sorts of trash was talked by both teams (happens all the time), but if it crossed the line into clear racism you'd think there'd have been a formal complaint. In Europe when it happens (black players being taunted in La Liga, Eastern Europe, etc), there's an immediate complaint lodged. So this may be more something that the blogging community is talking about, not so much the Pachuca team, most of whom were actually pretty respectful in the comments afterwards, once the handbags settled down. And yes, even though the Dynamo is very non-Hispanic, most of their supporters are, so you'd imagine the players would know they'd risk losing their fan base if they used certain language. But who knows.
ReplyDeleteGood point, because I heard Torres' TeleFutura comments and that's the way it seemed to me - just a casual condemnation about "they're against us". "they" meaning refs, fans, the world, etc, not referring to anything specific.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't doubt that a culture clash of sorts took place on the sidelines, at least. Frankly, in the U.S., there's a heck of a lot of emphasis on rules that other people don't bother with. The whole bit about Meza being pissed off that the linesmen wanted him to have his players warm-up elsewhere. I'm sure he thought that was stupid and felt singled out.
They wouldn't necessarily have to make a formal complaint if racial slurs were thrown. Some people react differently to those types of things. I remember reading a few years ago about Roy Lassiter saying he had racial remarks made about him on the field during his days in the MLS and I don't think he ever made a formal complaint about it.
ReplyDeleteThough some players do lodge formal complaints, like Patrick Vieira did against a Serbian player in a Champions League game in Italy a few years ago.
Could be some of that 'culture clash,' but there's almost always some fist-waving, let's-chase-the-ref-around-the-field throwdown during any close, controversial game in the FMF (or anywhere beyond the cozy MLS confines, in fact). Viewers who only watch FMF teams when they play MLS (or the natl. teams playing one another) always assume "Wow, they hate to lose to the gringos," but it's actually "Wow, they hate to lose." Remember the Jaguares/Cruz Azul fiasco in the playoffs last year? That was an even bigger, crazier fight, all between two Mexican teams. (Remember the FMF playoffs, in fact, and you'll recall even worse reffing decisions!!)
ReplyDeleteMaybe the reason Pachuca and the Dynamo went at it isn't a culture clash, but what's in common: unlike a lot of MLS players, the Dynamo are just as fiery, pissy, and confrontational as FMF players (hello, E-Rob and Rico, especially). That's one thing that makes them good, and beloved by their fans (and hated by everyone else, ha ha). Once MLS has more teams (and players) like that, it will gain more fans, and respect, from "south of the border."