| |
 Italy's Fiorentina rules Gotham
Posted: Friday July 30, 1999 12:52 PM
By Michael Lewis, CNN/SI Just a little reminder to teams and fans in Italy's Serie A -- Fiorentina could be an awfully tough side to overcome this season if the Gotham Cup is any indication. The Italian team rolled to a pair of victories -- 3-0 over Panathinaikos and 4-0 over Aston Villa in the pre-season tournament held at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. "They taught us a lesson in finishing," Villa coach John Gregory said. Fiorentina coach Giovanni Trappatoni's biggest challenge will be to make sure he can keep everyone happy and to pray that the key players stay relatively healthy. Among the promising sights was how comfortable Argentine forward Gabriel Batistuta and newcomer Predrag Mijatovic, the Yugoslavian international, looked working together. In fact, Batistuta worked his tail off for the team, which is incredible considering that it was only an exhibition game and that the Italian season doesn't start for a month. "They're the best in Europe," Gregory said of the forwards. Throw-InsThe reputation. Like it or not, Aston Villa and England defender Gareth Soughgate has a reputation to live down. He missed a penalty kick for England in the semifinals of the 1996 European Championship to Germany as his team was eliminated. He was roundly criticized in the media, including by his mother. He was called on to take Villa's first penalty in its tiebreaker against Ajax and fired wide right. This time, however, Villa prevailed after playing to a 2-2 draw in regulation and reached the final. Those two-goal leads. Remember this mantra: The most dangerous lead in soccer is a two-goal lead. Just ask the Chicago Fire, which lost a two-goal advantage late in its home game against the San Jose Clash last week. In fact, the Clash, the shootout kings of the world, managed to steal a point, prevailing in the tiebreaker. Why are two-goal leads dangerous? It can give a team a false impression of security. The lead appears to be insurmountable, in a low-scoring sport such as such. But the opposition scores and the advantage is cut to a goal, giving them new life. Attendance parity. While there is no MLS team averaging more than 20,000, the league has seven teams at 17,000 or more for the first time in its history. The list includes D.C. United (18,712), the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (18,681), Columbus Crew (18,333), San Jose Clash (18,072), Los Angeles Galaxy (17,920), Chicago Fire (17,460) and New England Revolution (17,392). Last season only three teams were above -- Los Angeles, New England and Chicago. But what were the fans thinking in Denver? Only 5,018 showed up for the Western Conference leader Colorado Rapids' match against the Los Angeles Galaxy on Wednesday. That has to be head-scratcher. True, it's a mid-week match, but we're talking about one of the top teams in the league. If winning does not get fans out to games, nothing will. Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of Soccer Magazine. To submit a question or comment to Michael Lewis, click here.
| |||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. Terms under which this service is provided to you.
| |||||||||||||||||
