HexagonalBlog

CONCACAF's 2006 Honor Roll

From the Soccer America website: a gift to lazy bloggers everywhere.  They did the work of compiling the list of champions of the top-flight domestic competitions in CONCACAF, so that I wouldn't have to. 

This is most likely the last post of 2006, so Happy New Year to my readers.

CFU First Round Complete

The group stage of the CFU Club Tournament finished a week ago, but that's the disadvantage of being on the road and not having internet at my parents' house.  As in the UNCAF club tournament, the clubs advancing to the semifinals came from the major countries in the region - Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago.  That's not to say that there weren't surprises.  Other than Group A (hosted by Jamaica's Harbour View), none of the host teams advanced.  There wasn't a surprise in Group D, where Jabloteh were clearly the dominant teams.  But Baltimore Sportif, who won the Ouverture tournament in Haiti this year, defeated the host Waterhouse in Jamaica and Trinidad's W Connection won a tight match in Puerto Rico.  I thought that the Islanders had a better than even chance of advancing to the last four, but from reading the match report it sounds like a lack of international experience did them in.

In the end, the semifinals are scheduled for 26 January at a single location (not yet announced by CFU/CONCACAF):

San Juan Jabloteh - Baltimore Sportif
W Connection - Harbour View

Lamar Hunt, RIP

Last week brought the news of the passing of Lamar Hunt.  The heir to a massive oil fortune, it was Hunt, through his investment and ownership, who made major contributions to the development of the two major football codes in this country.  There are tributes to him from the National Football League and the Kansas City Chiefs, and from the tennis world as well.  Of course, this is a soccer blog, so I'm going to concentrate on his contributions to soccer in the USA.

Hunt's involvement with soccer started in the 1960s when, impressed by the television coverage of the 1966 World Cup, decided to invest in what would later become the North American Soccer League.  He was not one of those investors who was not interested in the sport except for making a quick buck.  He was in it for the long haul.  Nevertheless, he was forced to take a step back with the collapse of the NASL.  Over ten years later, he returned to soccer by becoming an original investor in MLS, and his experience with the NASL proved valuable in the early days of the league.  But it was his investment in Columbus Crew Stadium that may be his most important achievement.  It wasn't the size or the cost that was significant, it was that the sport was moving into homes of their own and setting down roots.  That act started the trend toward soccer-specific stadia, to the point that now more than half of the MLS teams will have their own stadia by next April.  The Open Cup now bears his name, and I am sure that other entities in American soccer will bear the name who made so many contributions to the game over four decades. 

Lamar Hunt was humble, unassuming, a visionary, a gentleman.  The more I read about him, the more that I'm convinced that he was an extraordinary man.  Herman Edwards, coach of the NFL's Chiefs, said in an interview for tonight's NFL broadcast, "I'm not embarrassed to say that I love Lamar Hunt."  Soccer fans in the USA should hold similar affection for the man who has contributed so much to the growth of the game that they love.  RIP, and Thank You.

Thoughts on recent events

Like I said, over the past week I've been on travel and away from any TV showing anything soccer related.  As it always happens when one is away, a lot of important news events occur.  Here are a few of them:

• Bob Bradley joins the US national team.  Actually, that happened before I left for San Diego, but I needed some time to organize my thoughts about his hiring.  It's clear that Bradley was not the first choice of the USSF (it should be clear by now that Pekerman was not the second choice after Klinsmann), but the Federation might have backed themselves into the right choice.  It's not that Bradley is not a competent choice - if he had never gone to the MetroStars he might have been a more obvious selection - but rather it's that he's not Klinsmann or a high-profile foreign coach.  And that will make him a poor choice to some, because he's not recognizable to the rest of the sports media and/or general public.  I thought it should have been clear by now that one hire will not make US soccer mainstream, nor will it make it more serious overseas.  It will take a long time (if ever?) for either to happen, and as I've said before, if only US soccer's problems could be solved with the hiring of a single coach!  In the end, Bradley has a very small window of opportunity to prove his worth while the Federation figures out what direction to take.

• Freddy Adu moves to Real Salt Lake.  The news was big enough to be announced during halftime of Monday Night Football last week, which tells you something about his mainstream recognition.  Adu's move was perhaps inevitable given his well-publicized feuds with Peter Nowak.  In the end, I think Adu will be asked to play a more important role for RSL than he was with DC United.  The change of scenery could work both ways for him - the pressure could be somewhat reduced now that he's away from the NY-Washington-LA media axis, or the pressure could be more intense because he's a big draw in a small market city.  I believe Adu can have a successful professional career, but he's been the victim of unrealistic and unfair expectations from the press and US soccer.   He's a good player for his age, but he's not that good.   Nevertheless, I wish him well.

Blogging note

My apologies for not blogging - I've been on the West Coast for a business trip this week and I won't be able to find time to blog for a couple more days.  Yes, I know that A LOT has happened since I last wrote, but I will have something say about it all.

Against the conventional wisdom

After the silence, the rumors, the speculations....wow.  What a day.

I remember telling a friend of mine, after it became clear that Bruce Arena would step down as US national team coach, that the Federation would try to make a deal with a well-known foreign coach but in the end settle on an MLS-based coach.  It looks like the USSF will do just that - Sunil Gulati is going to hold a press conference tomorrow, and the word on the street says that it will be Bob Bradley from Chivas USA.  If what is being rumored is true - that Bradley will be an interim coach, maybe through the summer (!!) - then this episode would be a case of the USSF keeping the coach's seat warm while they figure out what to do next.   It's 1995 all over again, and it's no less embarrassing for the USSF this time.   You can take a look at some of the current threads on BigSoccer.com, and it's not going over well at all.

There is an article in Argentina's sports daily Olé saying that José Pekerman will be the next national team coach, but that report seems to be a combination of prior press clips and conjecture - Klinsmann is out, ergo Pekerman.  I wouldn't keep my hopes up for that one. 

In the meantime, what this episode shows is that press reports based on the ubiquitous "unnamed source" are often unreliable.  And yet huge segments of the press rely on them.  Caveat emptor indeed.

CONCACAF/CONMEBOL playoff for 2010 WC

Another decision made by FIFA's Executive Committee, of interest to this hemisphere, was to have a CONCACAF/CONMEBOL playoff for the 2010 World Cup finals.  The fourth-placed team from CONCACAF's Hexagonal will play the fifth-placed team from CONMEBOL's double round-robin qualifiers. 

The decision should go over well in South America - not only will the playoff team have a much shorter flight, they also have a better chance of winning over two legs.  In effect, FIFA is giving the Americas 8 spots and Australasia 5.

Warner escapes FIFA punishment

An investigation conducted by FIFA's executive committee found that Jack Warner was not guilty of illegally reselling tickets for the World Cup finals last summer.  One way to say it is that there was "no concrete evidence", which is in fact what they did say.  He did receive a reprimand for not being prudent in ticketing matters, which in the end is not exactly a devastating punishment.  Warner will remain in charge of CONCACAF for as long as the Caribbean nations continue to support him, which they did throughout this scandal. 

This article in the Trinidad Express has more information.  And if you read this report from SportsTicker, it includes quite a synopsis of Warner's implication in some really shady deals going back to the mid 1980s.   

CFU Results [Group A]

The CFU Club Tournament kicked off Friday with matches from Group A.  The remaining groups get started this week.

Group A:
Harbour View 1-0 Aigle Noir
13' Taylor

SV CSD Barber 2-0 Positive Vibes
10' Molina Palomino
36' Cassiani Pérez

Final Standings:
Harbour View  9 +8
SV CSD Barber 6 +2
Positive Vibes 3 -6
Aigle Noir         0 -4

Tonight (5 Dec) Harbour View will play Barber and Aigle Noir play Positive Vibes.  (The headline from the Jamaica Gleaner's site is incorrect; Harbour View have played the Haitian side already.) The match between the Jamaican and Antillian sides will most likely decide first place.

UPDATE:  I missed the second matches of the group, which were played yesterday:

Harbour View 5:0 Positive Vibes
SV CSD Barber 2:0 Aigle Noir

The matches that I mentioned previously will be played on the fifth.  I've corrected the text above and updated the group standings.

UPDATE #2: The final matches in the group were:

Positive Vibes 3:2 Aigle Noir
Harbour View 2:0 SV CSD Barber

Harbour View will advance to the semifinals at the end of this month. 

As a commenter pointed out, I forgot to update the points of the top two teams after the second round of matches.  I've corrected the standings to include the last round of games.

More on the Pekerman vs. Klinsmann sweepstakes

I was reading this article in La Opinión about the recent ultimatum that CONCACAF's Chuck Blazer gave yesterday to Mexican soccer officials (Mexico must send their strongest team possible to the Gold Cup, and no more guest appearances in the Copa America until a new deal is worked out between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL) when I saw this juicy paragraph:

Además, en el caso de Hugo Sánchez, luego de presentar a sus equipos en estas dos competencias deberá jugar casi inmediatamente los Juegos Panamericanos en Río de Janeiro con la selección preolímpica, y el mismo horizonte aguarda para Estados Unidos, ya sea que Juergen Klinsmann baje sus pretensiones (de tres millones de dólares por año), como lo hizo la semana pasada de manera sustancial, o con Néstor José Pékerman, quien deberá dar hoy su respuesta definitiva a Sunil Gulatti, como negociador por la Federación de Futbol de Estados Unidos.

Also, in the case of Hugo Sánchez, after taking the team in these two competitions [Gold Cup and Copa Libertadores] must play almost immediately in the Pan-American Games in Río with the U-23 Olympic team, and the same scenario beckons for the USA, whether it be that Juergen Klinsmann lowers his expectations (of $3 million per year) as he did last week in a substantial manner, or with Néstor José Pekerman, who today must give his final response to Sunil Gulati, [who is acting as] negotiator for the United States Soccer Federation.  (My translation)

Assuming that Rafael Ramos' reporting is correct (and he is on the same byline of the article saying that Pekerman would be the next US coach by the end of the Women's Gold Cup - didn't happen), it seems that a final decision really is imminent.   Salary was always going to be a major issue on whether to hire Klinsmann.   But what is odd about this story is that this is the only mention that I've seen on the hiring matter.  I agree with Ives Galarcep - if there was any validity to the Pekerman-coming-to-USA story, why wouldn't other reporters in the US soccer media have known about it by now?  I'll go out on a limb and say that the major issue in the hiring decision will be how much autonomy the new coach will have, from the staff to selection of players and other matters.

It looks like we'll all find out very soon.  Maybe.