HexagonalBlog

Announcement imminent?

My previous post on the US national team search linked to an article in the Los Angeles (Spanish-speaking) press saying that a decision would be announced after the Women's Gold Cup this past weekend.  It's now Monday night, and I haven't seen any press conferences announced by the USSF.  Of course, "after" could mean after the game, the day following the game, or a week or more afterwards.  We'll have to wait and see.

I must say that the USSF has been pretty good at keeping their decision a secret.  I have searched the archives of the major Argentine newspapers and haven't seen any reports on Pekerman and the US national team.  (There is perhaps more information linking Klinsmann to the national team, but I don't know how much and I don't speak or read German.)  I found this post by Jorge Chusit of the Fútbol Mundial magazine blog, but he seems to be as much in the dark about the negotiations as I ("The rumor is true, but I don't know if it's a fact") .  I do agree with him that, barring any huge surprises, the choice comes down to either Pekerman or Klinsmann.

I'd like to say that I have contacts within the USSF House in Chicago, but I got nothin'.  None of my contacts in Argentina knows either.  So I'm going to have to wait for the news to come out like everyone else. 

More from the CONCACAF office

There were some more items considered during CONCACAF's Executive Committee meeting on Friday.  Among them was the agreement by the committee to ask FIFA for four direct slots to the 2010 World Cup.  I had to laugh at Chuck Blazer's defense of the request:

"Existen elementos para pedir esto. Nuestros cuatro representantes en el Mundial de Alemania 2006 realizaron un gran papel..."

(There exist the elements to ask for this.  Our four representatives in Germany played a great role...)

And then he went on to mention Trinidad & Tobago's performance in the World Cup in order to make his point.  T&T did play well and got a great result from the match against Sweden, but in the end they only won 1 out of a possible 9 points.  USA won 1 from 9, Costa Rica won 0 of 9, and Mexico won 4 of 9.  That's six points out of 36 in the group stage.  And Blazer thinks this is a great performance by CONCACAF's representatives??  At best such a statement is delusional; at worst, this is idiotic.  When FIFA House stops laughing, someone should pull Glazer and/or Warner aside and tell them that CONCACAF are very lucky that they won't end up with two slots next time.

The other major item was a proposal to start a Champions' League in 2009.  Nothing concrete was decided upon, but it will be considered at future Executive Committee meetings.  My guess is that it will be an expansion of the coming Champions' League-type tournament between US and Mexican clubs.

The committee also decided the dates of the regional qualifying tournaments for the U-17 and U-20 world championships and approved a resolution supporting Trinidad & Tobago's bid to host the 2010 U-17 world championships.

Draw for the 2007 Champions Cup

Another thing happened while I was gone - the draw for next year's Champions Cup.  Will this be the last Champions' Cup as we know it?  Here is how the final eight teams will line up:

(1st leg home team listed first)
Q1: Pachuca (Mexico) v. Marquense (Guatemala)
Q2: Puntarenas (Costa Rica) v. Houston Dynamo (USA)
Q3: CFU champion v. Guadalajara (USA)
Q4: Olímpia (Honduras) v. DC United (USA)

Semifinals will be Q1 v. Q2, Q3 v. Q4, and the final series will be played in April.  And as in previous years, it will be a two-leg format with an overtime period and penalties if necessary.

Once again, this draw gives no favors to the MLS clubs.  The Central American clubs will complain that they won't have the decisive second leg at home, but MLS teams seem to look at it differently.  Dynamo and United simply must improve on the woeful road form of the MLS teams in the Champions' Cup, or failing that, hope for a 0-1 or 1-2 scoreline.  Nevertheless I believe that if American clubs are going to advance further in the Champions' Cup, a year like this, with no Alajuelense or Saprissa in the final eight, would be the year.  DCU-Olímpia looks to be the pick of the quarterfinal round.

The Mexican clubs should have no problem making it to the semifinals.  Pachuca might have a little more trouble than the Apertura '06 champion, but both should make it through.

UNCAF Tournament wraps up

While I was gone for the Thanksgiving break, the first matches of the final and consolation series for the UNCAF Club Tournament were played.  In the 3rd/4th place series, Marquense took a big step toward the final Central American slot in the Champions Cup by winning 3-0 over Víctoria.  The  return leg will be in La Ceiba next Tuesday.  In the final series, Alvaro Guerrero scored the equalizing and winning goals in Puntarenas' 3-2 home victory over Honduras' Olimpia.  Despite the loss I would still rate the Lions as the team with the advantage going into the second leg.

I'll update this post with the second leg results next week.

UPDATE:  And here they are.  Puntarenas dug in well after Olimpia's early goal levelled the series and ended up with the victory on penalties.  It's the fourth time that a Costa Rican club has won the Copa UNCAF in the last five years, and the ninth time overall in the history of the competition (Copa Fraternidad, Copa Grande de Centroamérica, and Copa UNCAF).  Puntarenas' triumph went over very well among the local public, and across the country, as their victory served as a bright spot in a very rough year for Costa Rican football.

Marquense qualified for the Champions' Cup after drawing in La Ceiba.  Another first-timer in CONCACAF's final eight!

 

Results: (1st leg home team listed first and their score listed first for both legs)

Marquense 4-1 Víctoria (3:0, 1:1)
Puntarenas 3-3 Olímpia (3:2, 0:1, 3:1 pen)

Pekerman offered USA job?

Last night I came across an article (quoting a La Opinión article) saying that José Pekerman is very close to getting the USA national team job.  If what is reported in the article is accurate, then most of the contract has already been agreed upon.  I haven't found the La Opinión article, nor have I found any similar reports in the Argentine press.

If Pekerman is indeed hired, it would be one example of a news story that did not go according to the conventional wisdom.  It would also show that Gulati attaches greater importance to hiring a manager with international experience to one who is more familiar with the local soccer culture.

UPDATE(11/27, 8:22pm):  Here is the original article in La Opinión (in Spanish, of course).  I find interesting that Gulati insisted on a locally-based support staff; if the article is accurate, that would disqualify Klinsmann from the position, who wanted to bring on his own team of assistants.

More new coaches in CONCACAF

In addition to Mexico, a couple of new coaches in CONCACAF were announced over the last few days.  Panama announced the appointment of former Costa Rica coach Alexandre Guimaraes.  Guimaraes will replace Jorge Dely Valdes, who coached the team in a caretaker role and will now coach the national youth sides.   

Jamaica's federation announced Wednesday that Bora Milutinovic will coach the national side, replacing Carl Brown.  This is the latest stop for the traveling national team coach, who was last in Honduras for the 2006 WC qualifiers.  Jamaica won't be playing in the Gold Cup (they managed to get eliminated from the Caribbean qualifying group that they were hosting!), so Bora will have to make do with the odd collection of friendlies for the rest of the year.

Hugo's moment

Hugo Sánchez has wanted this job for a long time.  And now he has it.  The FMF's selection of Mexico's best football export may not be all that surprising, but I find it telling that he was not the federation's first choice.  The Argentine coach Américo Gallego turned down the job, opening the door for Sánchez.  (One thing to keep in mind is that in Mexico, the owners of the 18 first-division clubs select the national team coach.)  Two years ago, it seemed that Sánchez would be an automatic choice to head the national team based on his coaching successes, but since then the bloom has fallen off that rose.  He is, however, the best Mexican coach that the Federation hasn't picked yet, and he will receive a lot of support from within the country and from overseas.  Even so, I do consider it rich that Hugo's calling for unity now that he's the national team coach.

Hugo's first line of business will be to tell the naturalized Mexicans such as Guillermo Franco, Zinha, and others that they are off the team.  At least, that's what he has said he would do.  He will also have to figure out how to work Mexico's young talent, like Vela and dos Santos, into the national team.

So this is Hugo Sánchez's moment.  Now to deliver in four years.

UPDATE (11/18, 11:48am):   Sánchez has since walked back his original promise not to call up the naturalized Mexican players.   This issue is a very explosive issue in Mexican football, and is not going away.  I have to agree with Miguel Herrera's comparison to a politician who makes demagogic or populist promises during a campaign, and then realizes that it's not so simple to deliver on those promises now that he is in office.

RSL leads from the front

Real Salt Lake will become the first MLS club - and the first team of a major American sports league - to place sponsorship on the front of their jerseys.  Tomorrow they will make official a four-year deal with Utah-based dietary supplement company XanGo for about $4-5 million.

MLS teams have had sponsors' names on the shirts from the beginning, but on the back of the shirt and never the front.  (All of them negotiated by the league, by the way.)  The idea of having sponsorship on the front of the uniform, in a sport other than auto racing, has always been extremely controversial.  This might sound surprising to European readers, who might think that all of American sport is hyper-commercialized, but the matter of commercialization in sport is a touchy subject here.  On one hand there is a lot of advertising signage at professional sporting events, and adverts have been more or less accepted in sports such as auto racing where without sponsorship none of the racing teams would exist.  It's possible to look past it and focus on the event at hand.   On the other hand, there has been strong resistance to the type of advertising that you can't avoid, such as that attached to awards, or bowl games, or stadiums.   I for one find the corporate renaming of historic stadiums to be particularly foul.   Attaching corporate naming rights to brand new stadiums is a different matter, however.

I'm not saying all this to criticize RSL's move -- I think it is an easy way to make revenue and provides a way for sponsorship of soccer without the use of TV-induced stoppages.   I just think that such a deal will bring howls of self-righteous indignation from some quarters of the mainstream sports media.  And if there isn't too big an outcry, the remaining MLS clubs will follow suit.  The chance to make five or even ten million dollars will make the question of shirt-sponsorship answer itself.

Dynamo, the champions

Houston Dynamo, Dynamo Houston -- whichever way you want to look at it, the MLS Cup champions are the team dressed in orange.  I can't say it was a great final -- and to be honest, it wasn't -- but the last ten minutes sure were dramatic.  I apologize to Revs fans for saying that their team would win, but I really thought that Ricardo Clark's suspension would give the New England midfield an advantage.  It didn't work out that way; New England had difficulty taking control of the center of the field and took a long time to generate goal-scoring chances.  Twellman did his part, so did Dempsey to a lesser extent, but it still wasn't enough.  Even so, they had to like their chances with Reis in goal during the penalty shootout.  And he performed great, making an important save to keep the shootout 2-3, but Noonan and Heaps took nervous shots and those made the difference.

You have to feel for the New England Revolution.  Three trips to MLS' final match, and losses in all three.  It was great to break that scoreless drought (346 minutes!), but in the end it's an empty satisfaction.  And now, the team awaits what will almost certainly be the breakup of their talented core.  Dempsey is almost certain to go to Europe, Joseph might follow, could Twellman, Reis and Noonan stay?

Dynamo's triumph will be celebrated in Houston, and in San Jose as well.  Yes, the colors, the name, and the history stay in California, but the players are the same, and this is for the most part the same bunch that ran away with the Supporters' Shield in 2005.  They combined the midfield talent of DeRosario, Clark, and Davis with the striking prowess of Ching and Dalglish, the defensive experience of Mullan and Barrett, and the goalkeeping reliability of Onstad.   Dynamo will join DC United in CONCACAF's top competition, a just reward for a side that has played some of the best soccer in the USA over the past 18 months. 

So the soccer season in the USA comes to a close, and in five months a new MLS season will be upon us, with a new club in a new country, a new stadium in metro Denver, and perhaps some new high-profile players - Becks perhaps?  See you then.

My MLS Cup prediction

The match starts in about 15 minutes, and I guess I should make a prediction on the MLS Cup final.  I haven't done a really indepth analysis of the match, but I think that the Revs have been the hottest team at the end of the season (which matters most going into the playoffs) and should be able to make the third time the charm.  The loss of Clark could be a big blow for the Dynamo. 

There will be lots of orange in the stands, but the ribbons on the cup will be red, white, and blue.