Everyone has that friend.
You know, the one everyone loves.
This friend is touted for his prowess at a particular sport. Traditionally, he has won all the games in the schoolyard. No one will play him, except you.
You have played many times before – you have lost many times – but lately, you have started winning (hypothetically, we’ll say eight of the last 10 matches) and the Latin American juggernaut (your friend) is starting to get upset. His authority in the region (err, schoolyard) is being challenged and people are starting to refer to ya’ll as rivals. He really doesn’t like you.
Let us call this friend “Mexico” and let us refer to the sport as “soccer.” (Many people in this state still put the beautiful game in quotation marks.)
The United States and Mexico faced off for the 27th time on February 5, 2008 in front of 70,000 fans at Reliant Stadium in Houston. For those of you who witnessed the 2-2 draw on ESPN-2: congratulations. Everyone else, I will replace your shame with enlightenment (story lines):
• Oguchi Onyewu (D) earns the game’s first goal off an awkward cross from Landon Donovan in the 29th minute. Unless you are 6 feet 2 inches tall and almost 200 pounds of muscle you couldn’t have made the superb header from 10 yards out to the far post look more inadvertent, which it wasn’t.
• Josmer Altidore (F) gets his first start for the big boy national team and scores in the 40th minute on a technically impeccable header. At age 18 (and technically “92 days”), Altidore is the youngest player to score for the national team in the modern (post-1990) era.
• Jonny Magallon scores twice for Mexico (35th, 47th). Both goals are “gimmes” off defensive lapses on set pieces. SEE entry below on “Moor’s short-lived U.S. career.”
• Two minutes after Altidore’s goal, Clint Dempsey (M/F) outmaneuvers two Mexican defenders and fires a shot to the lower right corner, but the goal is called back as it is revealed that Dempsey was offside an hour (ten seconds) earlier. Most telling is Mexican Goalkeeper Ochoa’s expression, which turns from depression to elation in two seconds flat.
• U.S. Head Coach Bob Bradley extends his record to 13-5-2 in14 months at the helm of U.S. Soccer.
• Six yellow cards are shown (four for the U.S., two for “El Tri”). Onyewu is one of them (actually, this isn’t really noteworthy).
I was most surprised by the rosters for each side. Since Bradley is wanting to shuffle around and test new players ahead of World Cup Qualifying this summer, it was understandable that we would see new faces, but why so few? Bradley only brought 17 players (five defenders) for the one time the U.S. is scheduled to face Mexico this year. Legendary Mexican player and current head coach Hugo Sanchez was criticized early in his tenure for not including enough young blood on the roster. Sanchez held back in not playing his fierce young attacker Neri Castillo and chose to share time between teen wingers Gio Dos Santos and Carlos Vela, who started and looked very impressive. Sanchez could have been more aggressive with fresh faces, but stuck with the old guard in FC Barcelona Defender Rafael Marquez and VFB Stuttgart Midfielder Pavel Pardo. While Sanchez conservatism may have earned him the best finish for the Mexicans in several years, it was Bob Bradley’s defensive decision-making that left many U.S. fans bewildered and even angered.
On the FIFA-mandated international release date (where club coaches are obliged to release a player upon national team requests), Bradley started not one but two unknown fullbacks Drew Moor and Ramiro Corrales. (Granted, Moor played in that 2007 Copa America nightmare, but I don’t even think Bradley watched that tournament.) Worse yet, Bradley only had one other defender on the roster: Michael Parkhurst, who at his best can hang with the best … in Major League Soccer. So, fans should stop complaining about how tragic it was to see Moor get beat twice by Magallon on set pieces, because we are not likely to see Drew start any other than scrimmages against the U-21’s. In fact, without Moor’s Bocanegra-like resolve to make up for a stupid mistake by running up field to assist Altidore, I might have written this off as one of the worst defensive performances of the post-Jeff Agoos era. Oh yeah, and Corrales was not even good enough to allow any goals, he just fouled anyone that got near him. For the first time in U.S. Soccer history, certainly since the 2006 World Cup, a U.S. head coach underestimated Mexico. (Side note: The Onyewu-Bocanegra marriage at the heart of defense is starting to pay dividends as this was one of their strongest performances to date, considering their support.)
The U.S. attack was significantly hindered by Bobby Convey’s (M) confused performance along the left midfield and Michael Bradley’s (M) defensive mindset throughout. Altidore earned his place on the national squad by demonizing Marquez throughout the match and providing a much-needed goal. Too often during the match though, the United States simply tried to contain a fitter Mexican squad defensively, which resulted in quick, jittery passing rather than legitimate offensive buildups. Replacing an injured DeMarcus Beasley (M) along the left side will be more difficult than first thought, but if the U.S. succeeds, we may see a consistent offensive creativity with Landon Donovan (M/F) on the right and Dempsey up top with Altidore.
Moral of the this hard-fought storied rivalry: don’t make the friend too mad. Keep playing him close, until he asks you to play on his playground in Mexico City. Then embarrass him in front of 140,000 screaming fans.
(Fair Disclosure: My comments about Bobby Convey come from adoration that he engaged to marry a girl from my hometown in Walterboro. May he and Sloan have a happy ceremony with only slight heckling about her marrying a footballer.)