Ruthless taunts. Hurling urine and vomit at the opposition. Merciless, tasteless taunting. But enough about my weekend plans…The United States Men’s National Team rolled on down to Mexico to get abused by fans and officiating alike in World Cup Qualifying yesterday, and as for all the abuse heaped upon the American side by the world’s future landscapers, it paled in comparison to the hosing provided by the match referee, Panama’s Roberto Moreno.
“This is an intimidating place for teams to come,” U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard said. “It makes it a lot harder when the most intimidated person in the stadium is the referee.
“Both teams went in hard [for the ball], but we always came out with the foul.”
Mexico won the match, 2-1, and remain undefeated against the United States at home. But when “undefeated” entails carrying around your own pee in a cup and throwing it at people, we could probably do without. Enjoy that, Mexico. We’ll enjoy our drinkable tap water and relatively benign government corruption.
I haven’t done the math yet, but I figure I was a fan of US Men’s National Team (MNT) for about two months and change. Well, the MNT outbreak seems to be finally contained as the Men’s took on Mexico in New Jersey yesterday. And like so many other things coming out of New Jersey, this wasn’t pretty–Mexico crushed us, 5-0:
The United States, fielding a raw squad after the top team finished second in the Confederations Cup last month, could not maintain American dominance of its continental rival. Not even close.
“We were chasing the game a lot in the second half, and it tired us out,” said forward Brian Ching, a regular with the ‘A’ team who missed the Confederations Cup with an injury. “Look at anybody in the United States and this loss has to anger you.” via.
Eh, for me to get angry, I really have to care. And let me see if I can…wait a minute…no, I just can’t bring myself to care enough. To reiterate, this was not the same team that was kicking ass in South Africa; this is a new group of dudes. But still: this was Mexico’s first win against the States since 1999. I mean, if you don’t count smuggling one-fifth of their population over our southern border a victory.
The United States Men’s National Team was minutes away from winning the FIFA Confederations Cup this weekend, taking a stunning 2-0 lead into half time. It’s two words in soccer. I don’t know why. Anyway, goals from Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan were not enough, as the clearly fatigued American side allowed three goals in the second half, giving away to championship to Brazil, 3-2. FIFA.com asked USMNT captain Landon Donovan what happened to his team in the second half:
What changed in the second half?
The first goal right after the break killed us. It just took the air completely out of the balloon and after that I have to give them a lot of credit. They just kept coming and coming and putting more and more pressure on us. They took their chances and put a lot of bodies into the attack.Is there anything you think you could have done differently as a team in the last 45 minutes?
I think we probably could have done a little better job of counter-attacking and keeping them unbalanced and on their toes with our movement forward. But they’re a great team and they just didn’t give us an inch.
USA’s strong showing in the Confed gives them a great chance of qualifying for the World Cup. And what better place to bring the world together than a nation with a long and rich tradition of celebrating diversity: South Africa.
We’ll get to the details of the U.S. losing to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final tomorrow, but for now, let’s just bask in the first half of the game — and in particular, Landon Donovan’s gorgeous 27th-minute goal. I’ve followed USA soccer closely since the World Cup in ‘94, and I’ve never seen the Gringos score a goal as beautiful as that. And from Donovan! He usually disappears on the biggest stages, but he was tremendous during the last two games against the best in the world.
A counterattack goal in five perfect touches. You don’t see that much, and certainly not from the Team USA. I’m ready for the World Cup to start now.
I want to thank Chris for this email that he sent in yesterday, and I hope he doesn’t mind that I’m sharing it here with you now:
Would you write an article exposing Landon Donovan for the complete fraud, gaping vagine, p.o.s., pretty boy prima donna, media fluffer, gaping vagine that he is? I can’t believe this pile gets as much media attention as he does. He sucks. He doesn’t do anything. I’ve had players like him on my team before, they dribble around in open space but can’t take an elbow, or give one out. They always want to take the free kick b/c the box gets nasty. He wants to take the free kick and he has a sh!tleg!!! Half of his assists are accidents too. In fact I doubt he would have made my high school team. Well, maybe his senior year.
This girl isn’t good enough to start on a bad german club team (and rightly so) so he comes and plays in the U.S. Start a trend, nickname him “The American Cacka” or something. You’re funny, come up with something.
The worst part about that axe-wound is that he runs around during warm ups with a tough look on his face. Yes, I have seen his girlfriend, it doesn’t change anything. Btw, do you have any photos of his girlfriend that don’t have him in it?
My knee-jerk reaction to America’s 2-0 win over Spain yesterday was, “Hey, Landon Donovan seemed like he was everywhere.” Of course, I forgot about the one place Landon wasn’t yesterday–in net, where Tim Howard did everything except stack garbage cans in front of the net to keep Spain at bay. But even hotter than seats on the MNT bandwagon is Landon’s wife of 2-1/2 years, Bianca Kajlich. She’s on that one show with David Spade which isn’t really funny unless you’re married, and even then it’s only kinda funny. In other news, David Spade is still working. And not in porn. Good job, him.
For the 98.7% of you who have no interest in soccer or the U.S. Men’s National Team: move along, nothing to see here. For the other seven of you, we feel it’s only fair to do a restrained jig about the Gringos’ 3-0 win against Trinidad & Tobago last night in World Cup qualifying, featuring a hat trick from 19-year-old phenom Jozy Altidore.
True, it’s not like T&T is stiff competition (Altidore’s third goal was a combination of inattentive defense and lazy goalkeeping), but the new lineup of Brian Ching and Altidore at striker freed up Landon Donovan to create more on the left wing and reduced the pressure on Donovan to be a goal-scorer (which he isn’t).
So there’s your little World Cup 2010 update. Only one more year until everything goes to complete hell in Africa! Er, y’know, more so.
