A lucky result. El Salvador had the game locked up. I blame the lack of conditioning that caused several Salvadorans to have cramping issues, or their attempts at playing slow-down games once they got to 2-0, if those weren’t really cramps (I tend to think they were, since three players were substituted for them!). Had they continued playing at 2 - 0 the way they had up to that point, we were dead.
Fun to see Frankie Hejduk still roaming the right side for the U.S. Even more fun to see him pushing Altidore out of the way to head home the tying goal!!
Ugly game, the US had no width in the attack and some pretty horrible midfield play until Torres came on.
I think it was all time wasting. The subs were just to waste extra time. This was the second most blatant I’ve ever seen it. The first was the last qualifying round against… Grenada? I think the ref gave 8 minutes of stoppage time then, which was actually woefully short of what it should have been (15 minutes, easily). What’s the most stoppage anybody has seen?
Back to the play. Thank god for Frankie, but I hope he’s not starting come 2010. Here’s to Spector and Cherundolo being healthy.
Again, all countries where teams control their own stadiums and where midweek attendance doesn’t kill the teams’ revenue streams.
I love the idea that MLS goes out of its way to schedule games while the National Team plays. Look at MLS attendance for games last night; the league took a hit from their usual weekend average by playing on this FIFA date. But, in having to deal with all the scheduling constraints that the league faces that few others in the world does, it decided that scheduling these games was better than pushing matches midweek. Finding fault with that is just looking for something to complain about.
YOU were the one who said that one of the factors involved was lack of a decent season. I’m simply pointing out that the length of season is irrelevant, as proven by the countries I quoted.
As for the other, I am not just looking for something to complain about. It’s part and parcel to the whole problem with soccer in the United States. This mindset that America has to do things differently, that it can’t simply adopt the methods of other parts of the world is a significant part of what holds soccer back in this country. How is a youngster to become a national team devotee if he is forced to choose between his favorite top flight team and the national team? Last night’s game was a thriller in San Salvador; if you were stuck at the stadium in Chicago or Columbus or any of the other places that had games last night, you were out of luck unless you TiVo or tape, which is hardly the same thing. Even in Europe and South America, if the lower leagues are playing on a day with qualifiers, the games are often scheduled earlier than the qualifier games, so you have time to get home and watch.
And midweek attendance figures, which are lower for any sport, don’t stop the NBA, the NHL, MLB, etc. from scheduling midweek games. MLS has to stop shying away from developing a fan base on Wednesday nights and start making that happen. You don’t grow a thing by refusing to do it.
This pervasive attitude that we can do it differently goes all the way down the ranks. Hell, in high school soccer in this country, they even have a different version of the LAWS of soccer, with such basic differences as awarding the other team the throw in if an attempted throw in never goes in, restarting play with indirect free kicks after stoppage for things like injury, allowing red-carded players to be subbed for under certain circumstances (!), etc. As far as I know, this country is the ONLY place in the world that has a different set of laws for some levels of soccer (college is also a little different, though the NCAA has been moving to reconcile it’s differences slowly but surely). We need to eschew this approach, and begin to willingly adopt the concepts that 150 years of work elsewhere in the world have resulted in plenty of support for the sport elsewhere.
That game last night was pretty dismal on a lot of different counts. Klejstan and Bradley were fairly ineffective in the middle, Danny Califf is a big step down from Gooch, Pearce is always mediocre and even Hejduk looked lost in the back. Donovan didn’t do much to impress me, either. Both Torres and Altidore brought more in as subs than their counterparts, which I guess is good.
Full credit to El Salvador, they played well; I think the “cramps” were a mix or real and BS. It looked like the Salvadorean keeper pulled a muscle on one jump, which is why he came out. Maybe the other guys were over trained, since cramps would normally affect both sides. Regardless, El Salvador did a good job in the center of the field, drew more fouls, even though a lot were probably illegit, and clogged the rear enough until the end. You do have to wonder, though, how Altidore got so open on both goals - he would have scored the second, too, if Hejduk hadn’t pushed him out of the way. Poor marking at the end cost them a huge result. And Hejduk would have been called for a foul if he had pushed a player from the other side out of the way like that.
How is this the case here? The reasons the league doesn’t suspend play have nothing to do with needing to do things differently. I’m sure the league would love to avoid competing with the qualifier, but they obviously don’t think it’s in their best financial interests to do so.
Well yeah. But those leagues have bigger markets to draw from. Significantly bigger.
So you’re suggesting that playing Wednesday night games (you do realize that there’s a qualifier this coming Wednesday, right?) will cause Wednesday night attendance to grow? I really don’t think that’s how it works.
Maybe. Maybe not. But this is a different discussion than the reasons for the MLS/qualifier clash. Unless you’re seriously suggesting that the MLS decision makers got together and decided to schedule games just to be different. As opposed to, say, maximizing revenue.
Did I see correctly that a Salvadorean got yellow-carded for diving? That and the fact that the referee had the stones to add Seven! extra minutes gave me some respect for him (even though I suspect the Salvadoreans used up more than seven minutes in their injury rolling around, some of which might have been legitimate). The linesman did blow one offsides against the U.S., as one Salvadorean defender was late on the trap during a free kick.
Estonia v Armenia in Tallinn
Bulgaria v Cyprus in Sofia
Latvia v Luxembourg in Riga
Hungary v Malta in Budapest
Liechtenstein v Russia in Vaduz
Northern Ireland v Slovenia in Belfast
Wales v Germany in Cardiff
England v Ukraine in London
Scotland v Iceland in Glasgow
Denmark v Albania in Copenhagen
Switzerland v Moldova in Geneva
Poland v San Marino in Kielce
Czech Republic v Slovakia in Prague
Andorra v Croatia in Andorra la Vella
Kazakhstan v Belarus in Almaty
Austria v Romania in Klagenfurt
Bosnia-Herzegovina v Belgium in Zenica
Netherlands v FYR Macedonia in Amsterdam
Italy v Ireland in Bari
Turkey v Spain in Istanbul
France v Lithuania in Saint-Denis
Georgia v Montenegro in Tbilisi
Greece v Israel in Heraklion
Venezuela has long been the CONMEBOL doormat, the one that other teams routinely pulverize 10 - 0. Columbia was at the Finals in 1994 (I got to watch Columbia v Switzerland, and we all know about what happened after the own goal from the Columbian side that gifted the US its victory that year). Obviously, some changes ongoing in northern South America futbol!
