|
|
 |
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Enjoy the ride Incredible run by U.S. team is a win-win-win situation
Updated: Saturday April 28, 2001 10:14 AM
You wake up this morning with a sense of pride and accomplishment and double check your daily newspaper or favorite sites on the Internet, wanting to make sure you still aren't dreaming. You finally find the information you are searching for: U.S. 1, Costa Rica 0. It is true. Three consecutive wins. Nine out of nine points. First place in CONCACAF by five points over three second-place teams. Pretty incredible stuff, huh? While U.S. head coach Bruce Arena reminded reporters several times Wednesday night that the U.S. hasn't reached soccer's promised land just yet, the ramifications of an early qualification can be a win-win-win situation for the red, white and blue. It would make a lot of people happy. First of all, it would take pressure off the U.S. national team, which has a history of waiting to the 11th hour to qualify for the next round or for the World Cup itself. It would allow Arena and U.S. Soccer to start planning for pre-World Cup preparations. It would make many Major League Soccer and European clubs happy because players won't have to be called in en masse for important games. Players will be able to rest nagging injuries. Arena also will be able to experiment and pick and choose his players and give ones inexperienced at the international an opportunity to get their feet wet. Imagine a Landon Donovan or Bobby Convey getting an opportunity not only to play in an international match, but one that means something for the Hondurans and Costa Ricans of the world, down the stretch in September and October. You can't buy that type of experience anywhere but in qualifying and the World Cup itself. This can only help U.S. soccer in the long run. Given the U.S.'s fast start, it certainly is not inconceivable that the Americans will reach the magic number of 15 after the opening five matches (they may not be able to clinch just yet because of the mathematics involved). Wins in Jamaica on June 16 and against Trinidad & Tobago four days later certainly are not out of the question. This achievement can be put into perspective in these two ways: This is the sixth time since 1950 that a CONCACAF team managed to roll off three successive wins to open the final round (the 1970 competition had a playoff between Honduras and El Salvador). The other five countries were Honduras (three games, 1982), Mexico (five, 1978), Haiti (four, 1974), Mexico (four, 1954) and Mexico (four, 1950). The Americans' five-point lead is almost the equivalent of a two-game lead in baseball, which is even more remarkable when you consider only three matches have been played. Pretty incredible, huh?
A couple of other thoughts from K.C.
Twice during qualifying, the Racing Ferrol forward was ready to enter the match and twice the player he was to replace found the back of the net. It happened during the 4-0 win in Barbados when Arena was ready to pull Clint Mathis and again on Wednesday night with Josh Wolff.
There is little question that Jeff Agoos is the leader on the defense and Carlos Llamosa has demonstrated again and again he should be starting over Eddie Pope (healthy or not). Defender Steve Cherundolo was beaten a few times on the right side, and David Regis overlapped into the midfield, but many times he passes did nothing. Chris Armas was Chris Armas, swooping in to clear the ball, strip a Costa Rican of it or intercept a pass. Claudio Reyna had a slow start and got stronger as the game progressed (he was dead-on with his cross to Wolff, whose shot was saved off the line via a bicycle kick. Tony Sanneh had trouble at right midfield, at times seeming out of sync. Earnie Stewart moved from the left side into the middle, but did not come close to playing to his potential. Perhaps we've been spoiled by his three previous performances. While Mathis played a vital role on the goal and had several shots on goal, his best position is a withdrawn forward. Wolff, who has speed to burn, was burnt out by the 70th minute and wasn't always sharp.
Mathis knows how to burn DallasThe Dallas Burn just might be Mathis' favorite team. Mathis connected for a league-record five goals in one game against Dallas last season. He also has 13 goals -- in as many career starts -- and five assists against them. He became the Burn's public enemy No. 1 in his rookie season in 1998, dribbling through the heart of the defense to score the winning goal to eliminate them from the playoffs. He added to his reputation in last year's quarterfinals, connecting three times to oust the Burn. "I don't want you to repeat this. I don't want you to jinx me here," Mathis told a reporter. "Dallas is one of those teams. In sports you have favorite teams to play against. "They don't have bad players. I don't know why. I just have good games against them. I enjoy playing against them." Oh yeah, Mathis literally has a hand or a foot in five of the U.S.national team's last six goals.
Sack of the weekLlorenc Serra Ferrer was fired as Barcelona coach on Monday after fifth-place Barca fell 17 points behind Real Madrid in Spain, thanks to a 3-1 loss to Osasuna. Three Barcelona players were red-carded in that match. Barcelona players Pep Guardiola, Rivaldo and Luis Enrique said that the players should take much of the responsibility of the firing. In a couple of other coaching moves and non-moves: Word out of Nigeria is that the Africans are ready to dump Dutch coach Johan Bonfrere as national coach in the wake of the stunning 1-0 defeat in Sierra Leone last week. The fate of Bonfere, who directed Nigeria to the men's Olympic gold medal in 1996, was supposed to be revealed on Thursday. And Mario Zagallo, 69, who coach Brazil to the 1970 World Cup title and the 1998 championship game, says he will not retire despite rumors that claim he will. "Note it down here -- on Jan. 13, 2013 at 1300 [hours] I will retire from football," Zagallo told Reuters. Zagallo's lucky number is 13.
Lothar's cornerOur former favorite MetroStars' German defender learned this week from the German Soccer Federation that he would become only the fourth honorary captain of the national team. Lothar Matthäus joins former German internationls Fritz Walter, Uwe Seeler and Franz Beckenbauer.
Chip shots
The former upset at least one well-known woman who has championed the cause of women's sports. Quite frankly, if women wanted to be treated as equal as men, their weight should be listed. And if women have trouble with telling the world their weight, then do what people have been doing for years -- lie about it. Men and women have been doing that for years. Heck, they always had at least an inch or two to the height of some basketball players.
On the opposite end of the spectrum was owner-investor Phil Anschutz, whose picture did not grace the page of the league's board of governors. I guess when you invest millions and millions of dollars in a sport and own four teams, you can ensure that you're photo is not published. That is how private an individual Anschutz is.
The story said that Mutiny coach Alfonso Mondelo had abandoned the MetroStars with a game remaining in the 1998 season. So, that's the real story on what happened to Mondelo. Gee, I thought he was fired by the MetroStars. I realize AP might have gotten it from an official MLS release. Instead of saying a coach is fired, the league prefers to use the phrase "left the team." Someone at AP should have put two and two together. You would have to question why a coach would abandon a team. Wonder if the same mistake would have been made with the NFL, MLB or NBA.
Hmmm. Where did that happen before? Yep -- for the 2-0 victory against Mexico in Columbus on Feb. 28, as well as Wednesday's 1-0 win over Costa Rica in Kansas City. To paraphrase yet another Yogi Berra- ism, some papers will get into the qualifying a little too late, because the way the U.S. is playing, the Americans' road to South Korea and Japan will be over before it's over.
So if a newspaper, TV, radio or news organization decides at the last minute to cover the World Cup and it did not cover the team during qualifying, it could lose out. It happened in 1998, when several news organizations came out of the woodwork asking for credentials. Unfortunately, history is likely to be repeated next year.
Guess where Mondelo was on Sunday? Watching the New York Albanians battle the N.Y. Pancyprian Freedoms for first place in the Cosmopolitan Soccer League at St. John's University. It was in the CSL a good 10-15 years ago that Mondelo originally made his reputation as coach. "I'll never forget it," Mondelo said of his CSL experiences and New York roots. "It's the best. It's where you grew up."
After nearly two years of penning a column each week, my tenure is coming to a close. Unfortunately, cutbacks have forced CNNSI.com to make some difficult decisions, and the soccer columns were affected. That's life in fast lane on the Web these days. I went in with my eyes open in the modern rollercoaster ride that is known as the dot-com industry. About a month ago, I thought about what a privilege it has been to write a regular column on the internet. I take that back. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to write that column. Given the extra space, I believe I did some of my best writing for CNNSI.com. I hope you enjoyed reading my stuff as much as I had writing it. It has been a pleasure to work with soccer producer Jeff Green -- a great editor who knows his stuff -- and the rest of the CNNSI.com crew. As for yours truly popping up again in cyberspace, well, that could be sooner than you think. I'll send up a flare or two on the BigSoccer.com boards to let you know where my next web gig is. If you ever want to drop me a line, please e-mail me at SocWriter@aol.com. Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News. His third book, Soccer For Dummies, was published last year.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
