Tonight, the USA and Mexico square off in the Rose Bowl to determine which nation’s soccer team will travel to Russia for a sneak peak at their World Cup facilities and a chance to win the Confederation’s Cup.
HOT TICKET: You can bet that every one of the 92,000-plus seats in Pasadena’s august arena will be filled, with the game having been pronounced a sellout well in advance; tickets on secondary market Web sites are reaching many times face value. To underline that point, one El Tri fan’s emotional reaction to a gift of tickets has gone viral on social media. Security will be tight, given that these teams’ last meeting at the Rose Bowl, a 4-2 Mexico win in the 2011 Gold Cup final, was marred by incidents of violence and conflict in the dominantly pro-El Tri crowd. CONCACAF has gone to some lengths to create a peaceful and balanced affair: Each federation received 30 percent of the total ticket allocation and Mexican fans are being clustered in the north end of the bowl, opposite US partisans in the south end.
It’s not like people are blowing up peace protestors but it’s sad that fans have to be “clustered” into one part of the stadium in order to segregate the crowd and lessen the potential for violence.
Nonetheless, this is going to be top quality entertainment and better than anything College Football has to offer tonight.
“Hot ticket” in more ways than one: it’s another scorching hot day out here, in what is easily the longest, hottest summer this reporter can recall. Let’s hope kickoff isn’t until after sunset, when there’s a chance temps can dip below 95.
As as American, I’m going to have to root for the Mexicans, in protest of our gubmint’s stupid attitude towards Vladeemer Putin and the forced retirement of Kevin McCarthy back to his curious hometown of Santa Mira.
You have a bizarre love affair with Vladimir Putin.
No more bizarre than my love affair with Santa Mira references. Yet strange as it may sound, the authoritarian Vlad has been more in the right lately wrt trying to repair relations with the US towards positive goals (like actually trying to destroy ISIS vs ousting Assad), as compared to his befuddled (and no doubt greatly pressured) counterpart in the Oval.
But I was probably thinking above: let’s try to avoid warlike activity in the stands today while at the same time let’s try to avoid an actual war elsewhere.
Hey, it’s too hot here for much other than letting the mind wander …
That’s treasonous, and makes no sense whatsoever. I want to kick Mexi-butt myself. GO YANKS!!
Meheeco trace, Estados Desunidos dose. Buenos nachos to the clever attacking Meheecanos.
Terrible terrible game. Mexico was a much better team. Younger, faster, more organized. Klinsman must be fired.
Exciting game — went into overtime (er, extra time) ferchrissakes, and the US didn’t quit.
#1 – I wonder if Klinsmann regrets dumping Landon Donovan, who might have been the veteran glue that held the team together
#3 – Ironic because if there’s one thing this US team should have learned from the former great German midfielder Klinsmann it’s proper winning midfield play.
The US side seems to rely on its size advantage and power plays, plus the accurate passing of midfielder Bradley, but it’s all in intermittent quality spurts not in a dominant overall way, as the Germans consistently display. And the first brilliant Mexican goal showed the importance of players who are used to playing with one another. The US squad still has some “put together” qualities that don’t seem to mesh well.
My dos centavos from a non-expert in futbol. I did watch on the local Spanish station KMEX, as my Mexican maid had screwed up the cable system by unplugging the system, so no FoxSports1. But plenty of attractive young women announcers to look at on the pre-game and as sideline commentators. Very entertaining game.
The last thing we need is another washed-up, old mediocre player. I have never been a huge fan of Donovan, who is at best a mediocre pro. The speed of the Mexicans was so obvious – they simply ran more quickly, were on the ball faster, passed better, showed superior coordination, individual skill, creativity, cleverness. Much the better team. How we got to overtime is a mystery to me.
Smaller, faster (probably cheaper too …). The size of our players (for sure, an advantage on set plays near the goal and corners) was a disadvantage in the long haul of a long match under heat conditions.
I hear our under-23 team is also not up to expectations, so filling out our squad with talented younger players for the World Cup and culling some of the current deadwood may be a problem.
Poor Jurgen Klinsmann — stuck with the Over the Hill Gang with a narrow and shallow farm system to replenish it. Sounds a little like the Dem Party in current times …
better than anything College Football has to offer tonight
America’s love affair with minor league football and basketball because they have the word “College” associated with them is just another testament to how easily propagandized people are. We are often told that women can’t get the same money as men in identical sports because their quality of play is inferior, then we see two minor league sports with clearly inferior quality of play getting huge national attention.
And the myth that these are somehow scholar-athletes is so bogus that probably more fans are aware of this fact than are aware that “pro” wrestling is fake. So forget that as an explanation.
A very long American tradition college football, going back to the 19th C, well before pro ball and probably vastly more popular among the masses than the pros until the late 50s/60s and tv.
Most of us sports fans grew up watching our share of CF, or at least being familiar with it second-hand. Heck, I can remember when Instant Replay (as they called it then) first came along, on a CF game (Roger Stabauch’s Navy team vs Army (?) back in the fall of 1963. Heck2, CF was so big back then, in some different ways than today of course, that the annual Army-Navy game was the national game of the week, occasionally attended by the US President.
And today with all the tv coverage, it’s easy to follow one’s alma mater and remain somewhat emotionally attached to the sport. With the top tier college teams, the quality of play is actually quite good, not that far from what the pros offer, so watching can be rewarding in addition to the rooting interest factor.
The myth of student-athlete, and the fact of egregious economic exploitation of players, are concepts which will take a little while to sink in with the public before they turn away from watching. Thats how much CF has become part of the national fabric.
It’s not like people are blowing up peace protestors but it’s sad that fans have to be “clustered” into one part of the stadium in order to segregate the crowd and lessen the potential for violence.
You weren’t born yesterday, Boo. I’m sure you know how European football(aka soccer) stadiums operate. How stadiums have sections for away fans and all. And depending on the matches, those sections are often very heavily guarded by stewards and police.
If you wish to read something more about this, read “Among the Thugs”. Truly an amazing book about mid-90s soccer hooligans. They would begin the day of a football match by drinking 30 beers, and then drink more during the game. After the game, there would be organized battles between partisans. People would pee on each other in the terraces.
Not like that now. Costs a whole lot more to go to games, first of all.
What I continue to be amazed at is that this game is not on network TV, but FS1. I have to go to a bar to watch it.
Whatever the Mexican team had for dinner tonight, the US should order it immediately. Better organization on D, far better on O, better passing, better possession, better overall. Altidore sucked, period. Of course, he had about 3 chances. Dempsey same.
The main issue is the D. When they got the boot on the ball, it was punch it to midfield, where a Mexican awaited. The D needs to clear. But to who? If we just boot it up the field time after time, that is not the level of play we want. D must clear to our side. Watch the Germans, etc. They clear to Germans, and keep possession.
We need a lot of work. We have not progressed in the last few years, Klinsman or not.
Agreed, biggest problem was panicked play on the ball by defense.
But you won’t find three better goals in the same game than what Mexico created. Stunning quality.
I was incredibly impressed by the Mexican creativity, skill of individual players, and coordination. They should have won 4-1. The first US goal was exceptional. It should never have been in OT, since Mexico had 4-5 quality chances which should have been put away.
Our side was dreadful. Too slow, too old, too lacking in skill. Disappointing to say the least.
Soccer fans seem more prone to Hooliganism than fans of other sports. It seems odd.
to reclaim the name “football” for ‘the beautiful game’ it belongs to, the sport that originated the name, and the only one that it actually fits. To wit:
We will refer to that chronic-brain-injury stuff that goes on in the NFL and on the college (and hs, and junior high, and Pop Warner) ‘gridiron’ as the “fake football” that it is.
We will refer to the beautiful game as “REAL football”, until the campaign has succeeded even here in the benighted USofA, and therefore “REAL” can be dropped as superfluous, because everyone then recognizes football as football.
Who’s with me? Allons enfants de la patrie…
you’re all alone on this fight, buddy.
I had to erase your YouTube because it was huge and busted the margins badly for both the thread and for our recent comments thread.
Please repost it with a width no more than 600px wide.
Well, not ALL alone. At least one friend in meat world is down with it.
Sorry on the Youtube. Just right-clicked what I had open, then c&p’d the embed code. Didn’t know to make sure it was manageable size first. Will do.