HexagonalBlog

Santos-Morelia abandoned due to gunfire

Scary scenes in Torreón last night as the Primera match between Santos and Morelia was abandoned due to a gunfight between drug cartels and Mexican police.  It happened around the 40 minute mark of a match that was 0-0 when the sounds of gunfire could be heard.  Players, referees, and technical staff ran for the tunnels while spectators crawled into the spaces in front of the seats.  What had happened was that a criminal group traveling in a three car caravan failed to stop at a police checkpoint near the stadium and the occupants engaged the police in a confrontation that left a soldier injured.  One of the abandoned cars contained a cache of small arms.

You can find photos and videos of the incident at Medio Tiempo and at Argentina's sports daily Olé.

Drug cartel violence has become a lamentable feature of Mexican life in the last five years, but I have never heard of such violence interrupting a Mexican football league match, and according to the reporter at Medio Tiempo it has never happened before. 

Bahamas withdraws from 2014 World Cup qualifying!

Shocking news coming out of the Caribbean this afternoon.  News outlets in Panama are saying that the Bahamas FA have announced that they have withdrawn from the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying tournament.  The announcement came in the form of a memorandum sent by FIFA's head of Qualifying Competitions to the Panamanian FA.  No official confirmation has been made by FIFA at this writing, but if you look at the fixture list for the next three months, no matches involving the Bahamas are listed. 

The withdrawal means that Group C now becomes a three-team group, composed of Panama, Dominica, and Nicaragua.  Only six matches are needed to play the double round-robin, so we will see one group match on the six international matchdays between September and November.

I have to wonder if there are other CONCACAF minnows who are giving a hard look at their capabilities of carrying out a six-match qualifying program.  If so, I fear that the Bahamas may not be the only withdrawal from the CONCACAF qualifiers.

UPDATE: About two hours ago there was a news release from CONCACAF that communicated Bahamas' withdrawal from the competition, but now I cannot find any mention of it on their website.  It's hard to find anything on CONCACAF's website but could there be a reversal? (Here it is. -H)

Whatever the excuse is from the FA, it can't have anything to do with the lack of an international stadium.

UPDATE #2: This article from the Nassau Guardian explains the main issue behind the reported withdrawal.  Bahamas' national stadium was rebuilt thanks to financing and construction funded by the Chinese (PRC) government.  The Chinese part of the project was completed on time, but the Bahamian part of the project -- construction of roads, sewer systems, parking and landscaping -- started at least four months late.  Worse, the stadium operation teams, which have to be staffed by Bahamaians, have not yet been formed. 

As a result, Bahamas has a gleaming new stadium that is inoperable, like a sports car with no gas or tires.  What a profound embarrassment.  The costs to Bahamian football could be severe, at minimum a CHF20,000 fine up to and including exclusion from future World Cup qualifying cycles. (cf FIFA World Cup regulations)

Belize gets the all clear from FIFA

FIFA announced that Belize have been cleared to participate in the next round of the World Cup qualifiers that start next month after the Belizean government reached an agreement with the Football Federation of Belize (FFB) to hold new elections at the end of the year. 

Last month, the government refused to recognize the FFB as the governing body for football in the country and refused to provide security at the national team's home qualifier against Montserrat.  That match was moved to Honduras and the federation was provisionally suspended by FIFA.  Earlier this month, FIFA and CONCACAF officials traveled to Belize to broker an agreement between all parties.  With this agreement, the FFB will continue to perform its duties as the governing body of the sport in the country, with fresh elections for the executive board by the 10th of December.

So the government and the dissident groups within the Belizean football hierarchy will not see the immediate departure of FFB president Bertie Chimilio, but might be able to make that happen later this year.  (Several members of the FFB Executive Committee have already searched for the exits, such as 2nd Vice President David Jones over the weekend.) The four months should provide them with enough time to coalesce behind a common candidate and formulate a reform plan for football in the country.  If Chimilio is the impediment to the sport's progress as they claim, it's important that they do not fail.

A CONCACAF Champions League table generator

I wanted to develop a spreadsheet that would accept match results in the group stages of the Champions League and calculate an updated table.  It took a while to get the cell and array formulas right, but I finally have that spreadsheet which is linked below. 

The table generator is straightforward to use and the four groups are in separate sheets.  You enter the match results as they happen and the spreadsheet automatically recalculates the table.  It does not do automatic sorting, but it's not too difficult to do manually.  (To implement a table sorter that incorporates all of the criteria would require a sophisticated macro.)

This generator can be used for other Champions League competitions.  It can also be used for domestic league competitions, but I suggest that you freeze an appropriate cell so that you can scroll through the matchdays without losing track of the league table.

Here's the document.  Enjoy!

CCL_201112 GroupStage.ods [12 kB]

CCL_201112 GroupStage.xls [30 kB]

A preview of the 2011-12 CCL group stage: Groups C and D

This is the second part of the preview of the CONCACAF Champions League group stage, focusing on Groups C and D.

A preview of the 2011-12 CCL group stage: Groups A and B

With the group stage of the Champions League starting up this week, it's time to write some previews of the four groups.  This post will focus on Groups A and B.  A preview of Groups C and D will come tonight or early tomorrow.

Klinsmann's first selections

A look at Jürgen Klinsmann's selection list for the USA friendly match vs Mexico reveals a high level of turnover from the squad that faced Mexico in the Gold Cup final.  Some of the changes were forced by injury (Zach Loyd), others by the start of the European domestic season (Clint Dempsey) or by players' unsettled situations at their clubs (Michael Bradley).   Nevertheless, it looks like Klinsmann is attempting to groom the next generation of the national team at every generic position.

The inclusion of DC United's Bill Hamid is a case in point.  Hahnemann is too old to be thought of as a replacement for Tim Howard, and Nick Rimando is a quality keeper but approximately the same age as Howard. I'm interested in seeing how Hamid makes the transition from MLS to international play, and hopefully he will get to play half of the match tomorrow night. 

The most intriguing selections are on the defensive line which has seen the highest level of turnover.  Bornstein, Lichaj, Onyewu, and Spector have been placed on the sidelines and Loyd, Orozco, Pearce and Castillo brought in. Klinsmann will be the latest coach who will try to find a regular starter at left back and it appears that he will look to Pearce and Castillo to fill that role. 

The midfield sees the return of Kyle Beckerman and Ricardo Clark from varying degrees of exile from the national team.  Beckerman has been arguably the best American midfielder in Major League Soccer over the past two seasons but found it difficult to get a call during the Bradley era.  It will be very interesting to see how he is used in the midfield and how he performs. 

The forward line has also experienced some turnover, not just with call-ups but also players shifting position.  Adu remains in the squad but listed as a forward, as are Beasley and Donovan.  Klinsmann has also decided to give another look to Buddle, who had a moderately successful first season at Ingolstadt.  One surprising omission was Chris Wondolowski, who is having another good year for the SJ Earthquakes, but perhaps Klinsmann will select him for one of the two friendlies in September.

Another selection list that has drawn interest has been Klinsmann's coaching staff for this game.  The selection of Martín Vázquez was not at all a surprise since he has worked with Klinsmann at Bayern Munich.  Mark Verstegen (Athletes' Performance) worked with Klinsmann when he was the German national team coach and is well-known for his individualized training programs for pro and amateur athletes.  (His facility in the Phoenix area is really fantastic.)  Tomorrow's match also sees the return of Thomas Dooley and Tab Ramos to the USA sidelines and the incorporation of Claudio Reyna as a liaison between the senior team and the junior national teams.

With the exception of Hamid the player pool hasn't expanded all that much, although there are players called up who have not been selected for the national team in quite some time.  The real changes to the national team, at least in the short term, will be in its interaction with the junior national teams.

2011-12 CONCACAF Champions League: The Group Stage

This post will be promoted to the top of the site on Champions League match days.

Below are collated results and tables for the CONCACAF Champions League group stage. Top two teams in each group advance to the Champions League knockout stages in 2012.

Group A

	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
LA Galaxy	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Alajuelense	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Morelia	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Motagua	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0

Group B

	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Colorado Rapids	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Real España	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Santos Laguna	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Isidro Metapán	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0

Group C

	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
UNAM	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Tauro	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
FC Dallas	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Toronto FC	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0

Group D

	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Monterrey	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Comunicaciones	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Seattle Sounders	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0
Herediano	0	0	0	0	0	0	+0	0

Disciplinary and refereeing situation in the CONCACAF Champions League [2011-08-02]

This is a summary of the disciplinary and refereeing situation in the 2011-12 CONCACAF Champions League going into the second legs of the preliminary round matches.

Real Estelí vs. Toronto FC
Referee: Raúl Castro (Honduras)

The following players will be suspended for their next CCL match if they receive a yellow card:

Torsten Frings (TFC)
Gianluca Zavarise (TFC)
Jaime Ruíz (Estelí)
Francisco López (Estelí)

Seattle Sounders vs. San Francisco
Referee: Jeffrey Solís (Costa Rica)

The following players will be suspended for their next CCL match if they receive a yellow card:

Ricardo Brown (San Francisco)
Osvaldo Alonso (Seattle)
Jeff Parke (Seattle)

Puerto Rico Islanders vs. Isidro Metapán
Referee:Valdin Legister (Jamaica)

The following players will be suspended for their next CCL match if they receive a yellow card:

Héctor Mejía (Metapán)
Jeff Cunningham (Puerto Rico)
David Foley (Puerto Rico)
Logan Emory (Puerto Rico)

Tempête vs. Morelia
Referee: Javier Santos (Puerto Rico)

The following players will be suspended for their next CCL match if they receive a yellow card:

Guerry Romondt (Tempête)
Mysson Fenelus (Tempête)

FC Dallas vs. Alianza
Referee: Enrico Wijngaarde (Suriname)

The following players will be suspended for their next CCL match if they receive a yellow card:

Marvín Chávez (FCD)
Bruno Guarda (FCD)
Christián Castillo (Alianza)
Herbert Sosa (Alianza)
Elman Rivas (Alianza)

Municipal vs. Motagua
Referee: Ricardo Arellano (Mexico)

The following player is suspended for the second leg:

Eliseo Quintanilla (Municipal)

The following player will be suspended for their next CCL match if he receives a yellow card:

Odis Borjas (Motagua)

Alpha United vs. Herediano
Referee: Clifton Garnes (Barbados)

The following players will be suspended for their next CCL match if they receive a yellow card:

Anderson Andrade (Herediano)
Anthony Abrams (Alpha United)

Klinsmann's hire goes much deeper than the national team post

I've held off on making comment about the dismissal of Bob Bradley and the selection of Jürgen Klinsmann to the head of the US national team until today's introduction to the media in New York City.  I wanted to hear from Gulati, but more so from Klinsmann, about the reasons for this change and the overarching vision for the US national programs in the coming years.