US/Mexico Game Thread

"The ref was horrible. He was asking for attention when he crossed himself prior to coming on the pitch. Garbage."

Many, many Latin American soccer folks cross themselves coming on & going off the pitch (as most are Catholic) - especially on Ash Wednesday. It has nothing to do with seeking attention...
Bash his officiating all you want, but lay off religion.

 

70,000+ crazy people - Must have beeb loud.

I saw quite a few Fulham shirts in the comparatively small # of US fans.

Seems like one of them would be here on the site.

Moor and Corrales - Terrible.

 

Good comments Eric D. I do feel LD played better than he was given credit for, but still needs to lead a little more. Was not a factor early. Outside defenders had a rough night, especially Moor. First goal, two or three players unmarked, so it was more than Moor. Disorganized set pieces. I thought Howard was going to have a heart attack. Agree, Bradley and Feilhaber in Mid would be better. I missed the last 15 minutes. Have trouble with technology (DVDs, posting, everything above sundials). How did Giovanni do? Overall, a nice 3-2 victory. I am still trying to figure out why Dempsey's goal was disallowed. Perhaps we can get some Russian figure skating judges. They are more impartial than a CONCACAF referee.

 

FYI article: USA-Mexico: Analysis, reaction & report card.

SoccerAmerica_LINK

 

Shiner,
I think you misinterpreted what I wrote. It was not intended to be a bash on religion because I would have to say it about every player who crosses himself coming on or off the field all over the world. I think it was more of a play in front of the camera. The ref seemed to want attention in this game. He made bad calls, gave out unwarranted yellows and was inconsistent. He became a factor in the game. I thought his job as a ref was garbage. That is my opinion. I could care less about his religion.

 

I was impressed with young Jozy last night. It looks like he is not afraid of the weight room and his composure on the ball the few times he touched it was superb. Dempsey had a nice game and Gooch and Boca were both solid.

Like several others have said I was not impressed with the midfield pairings. Either Dempsey needs to drop back to center mid or Benny needs to be a starting choice.

Drew Moor did a couple of nice things but they did not outweigh the shoddy defending on set plays. Dolo was obviously missed.

Somebody should report Corrales and Convey to the missing persons bureau because our left side looked nonexistent.

Off the bench Benny made an immediate impact and Edu provided a physical presence. Adu made one nice run at the end of the game for the free kick but looked a little harried by the pace of the game.

 

Thoroughly enjoyed the match. 70,000 people watching soccer in the USA on a weeknight - that's great! I hope some of you Houston FulhamUSA members (Lyle did you go?) went and will give us a first hand account.

Altidore's goal was magnificent. He is a tank and I'm thinking that he may become the US's first world class striker. Add that to the embarrassment of riches we have at goalie and our depth at midfield, and things look very promising for 2010.

The commentators were soooooooooo awful. With all due respect to Faudy, all I could think about was how much more I would rather hear what Wynalda had to say. However, she was better than all the others involved in the broadcast. The play by play guy just couldnt stop himself from making inane, uninsightful comments. Please get someone better ESPN.

 

I never thought I'd long for the days of O'Brien/Balboa/Wynalda but my god were those two new bums bad.

Even FSC cant good get announcers. Which makes me think that either a)we start shipping our boys/girls to SkySports University in england where they'll learn how to PROPERLY announce or b)just pony up and buy some announcers from Sky.

Honestly....is that too much to ask?!?!?


edit-->or just have ray hudson announce everything.

 

American sports announcers are raised watching American sports which all require the filling of dead air time. Think about them:

1. Baseball - If announcers didn't fill the dead air time with stories and chatter we would think we were visiting a library during the broadcast.

2. Football - play stoppages are built into the game with time to discuss each play before the next one occurs.

3. Basketball - Even in what is probably our most free flowing sport there are still a significant number of stoppages in play and even the time when the ball is just being brought up the court.

American sports broadcasting demands the announcers provide more than just play-by-play. Hopefully the networks will figure out with soccer that less is more and return to the true play-by-play man and leave the color for before the game, at the half and after the game.

 

After watching the EPL for a few years, I MUCH prefer the British football announcers to the loudmouth, talk all the time, American sports announcers. I always want to tell the NFL announcers just to STFU for a minute! And when did they become the stars of the show? Why do I want see them on camera, talking to each other? I guess there aren't enough commercials and replays to show?

Anyway, about Mexico-USA, this is sad but I didn't even watch the match. I couldn't get excited about yet another Mexico-USA match. Do we play anybody else? We need to be playing European or South American competition, not some team that we know we can beat on a regular basis. We won't get any better if our biggest matches are against Mexico.

 

Yet matches against Brazil are much more beneficial for USMNT. I liked the way they played against the Brazilians. A 4-2 result was pretty good for me.

 

I would like to see the US play more European sides as well, but the fact is we need to be able to beat North American sides. Playing them a lot seems to be helpful toward that goal. Bring on Barbados.

 

I was there...most everything on the field has already covered already in this thread.

The (3rd goal)offsides call was a darn lucky (but correct) call by the ref...no one present could figure out why it was a non-goal (til we all got home and checked).

I went to this same game in '03, and I think there might have been even more MEX fans this time around. Atmosphere was fantastic regardless of the ratio.

This time around they tried to have segregated sections for US/MEX and Neutral supporters. That failed miserably. So yes, there were fistfights before, during and after the game...beer thrown and all the norm. It really doesn't bother me too much, especially knowing that it's 95% alcohol fueled.
There were two people shot in the parking lot afterwards, but the police say it was people not even attending the game...but it will be bad pub regardless.

Fantastic time, great game to watch, can't wait til next time.

 

It's sad to hear about all the fights and shooting. That will be bad publicity. Maybe those people involved in the shooting didnt attend the game but that's still an area of the city where you dont expect random shootings.

Please explain how it was offsides? Do you mean Josy or whoever was running forward when Clint shot? That should not be offside.

 

Mo, Clint was offside when Moor initially played the ball. It just took the ref forever to see that the flag went up.

 

Yeah Mo, what Berry is saying is the shot that I saw afterwards.

I think 7 out of 10 times nothing would be called on that play.

 

Actually, you do expect those type of things on that side of town....It's cleaned up quite a bit in the immediate Reliant/Astrodome area in the past 5 or so years, but still pretty crummy.

 

Could you elaborate on how the segregation failed? Based on the TV shots, the fans seemed pretty segregated.