HexagonalBlog

Reading Is Fundamental

And now Reading is in the English Premiership for the first time ever.  Congratulations to the Royals and to Marcus Hahnemann and Bobby Convey, who both made significant contributions to the club's promotion run this season. 

Who to replace Arena?

First of all, may Bruce coach the national side for as long as he wants.  But someday he will leave, and as Michael Lewis pointed out, the list of suitable candidates for the national team is very short.  This assumes that the USA is only looking for a native-born/naturalized coach (a good strategy in my view except in some rare cases).   The question I have is, who should follow Arena?   Who would be on  your short list?  Should the USSF have some kind of grooming program for national team coaches, or should that happen through MLS?

I don't have any answers to these questions, but maybe my readers do.

Well the first half wasn't all that bad

This is probably sour grapes talking and I'm willing to take heat for it, but three goals wasn't the difference between the USA and Germany today.  As previously stated, I did not expect the USA to win the game because their missing players meant a lot more to the team's fortunes than any of Germany's missing players.  That said, the USA played a fantastic first half and almost scored on two occasions.  Convey was terrific in the middle.  Unfortunately in the second half the Americans' habit of giving away free kicks near the area bit them in the rear, and after the second goal the floodgates opened.

So Germany fans get the feel-good result of the year, but they still have a lot of work to do.  That first half was really bad and the boos/whistles were well deserved.  As for the USA, some players improved their case but midfield depth really needs to improve.   When I said "some players", I meant Convey but maybe he's in already; Arena certainly wasn't impressed with his squad's performance. 

USA vs. Germany

Bruce Arena isn't sweating out the outcome of today's match against Germany, and neither am I.

Germany, on the other hand...

(I do think Germany will win, because they are playing under local conditions and because the US is missing so many important players.  But you never know...)

El Reto Final, and Mexico's obsession

I'm a frequent watcher of Fox Sports en Español, and I often see a commercial about some effort to reunite the US and Mexico teams from the 1998 World Cup.  The commercial has a Mexico supporter in Home Depot Center talking about the great Mexican team of that era that dominated the region (and they really were a great team) and were expected to steamroll the USA in the qualifiers.  Well, 2-2 and 0-0 results were a big disappointment (especially the 0-0 in Azteca), so now the objective is to find the members from those teams and have them play again to see who really is the better team.

When I stopped laughing I started to think about how silly the whole plan is.  Never mind that Mexico would later beat the USA in the Gold Cup final that following January - a match that ensured that the USA will never play a World Cup qualifier in California.  Never mind that Mexico had a much better performance in France than the USA, and won admiration from more than a few American fans for battling in every game.   It's those two draws in ultimately meaningless qualifying games that obsesses Mexico.   By "ultimately meaningless" I mean matches between sides that would ultimately qualify for the World Cup finals,  and if you don't think these matches are meaningless in the end I would compare and constrast Argentina's qualifying and finals performances in 2001-2002.

Now that I think about it, there's a another commercial where Jaime Lozano and Pablo Mastroeni have a revenge match for 2002 (and 2005?) by searching for ... Mexican and USA players off the streets of LA!

I don't know what irritates Mexico and its fans more - that the USA beats them semi-regularly in soccer, or that very few in the USA care that the USA beats Mexico semi-regularly in soccer.  But in the end, I hope that they get the two original teams together - and that it ends 1-1.  And besides, Mexico beats the USA at baseball now!

T&T gets a website

Or at least, a very nice website.  Trinidad and Tobago's Ministry of Tourism created a website devoted to the World Cup finalists.  I've only taken a cursory look at the site, but I like its design.  They also have information about the country and a tutorial on "soca" music.

I hope a lot of T&T fans make it to Germany - they could be the Jamaica of 2006.

USA in fifth

I think the FIFA rankings are much BS, but considering that FIFA actually takes them seriously I might as well discuss them.   I don't know if I should be more amused that the USA is ahead of France, Mexico, and England, or that the USA is barely behind Argentina.  We'll find out where everyone stands soon enough.

You can compare and contrast with ELO's ratings. 

Remember that TV deal?

When I was at the MLS Cup final, the rumor on the ground was that the league was about to get a TV deal with the ABC family of networks or Telemundo, but this time for broadcast fees.  I have not heard a word about a proposed deal since, and we are now two weeks away from the start of the season.

So where's that deal?

Doug Hamilton, RIP

Very shocking and sad news - LA Galaxy president and general manager Doug Hamilton died of a heart attack during his return flight from San Jose to Los Angeles this evening.  From looking at TACA's flight schedules, it might have occurred at 6 or 7pm local time (CST).

I really have no words.  What a tragic loss.  RIP.

What to say

It's amazing how closely the Champions' Cup matches corresponded with my predictions (for once).  The Mexican clubs advanced by comfortable margins, although Olimpia and Portmore United scored goals to keep the tie interesting for a while.  And the Costa Rican clubs got pushed hard, and they got pushed very hard by New England and Los Angeles.  But in the end the result was the same.

I need to make a more comprehensive post later, but I'll just say this.  It's now clear that the MLS representatives take CONCACAF competition seriously and want to do well.  The play of the Revolution and the Galaxy has improved greatly over previous years since the Champions' Cup switched to the current format.  But despite this improvement, it's becoming clear that MLS teams are just not good enough on the  international level. 

If the league is serious about increased participation in international competitions such as the CONCACAF cups or even South America's Copa Libertadores, there has to be a sea change in the way the domestic league competition is structured.  I want to discuss some ideas in a future post, and hopefully get some input from my readers.