News & Notes 11/14/2007

USMNT announce date with Mexico
The USSF officially announced the February 6th match with Mexico. It will be held in Houston at Reliant Stadium. The USMNT has faced Mexico there once before, playing them to a 0-0 draw in what was seen as Tim Howard's coming out party on his way to being signed by Manchester United.

I have said it before, I like that we seem to always play Mexico each year. It marks the best type of regional competition that we can get and it is always a heated match. I don't really like the fact that we always play them in the USA, with the one trip to Azteca every four years being the exception to the rule. I understand that even in the southern USA, when we play Mexico, it is a pro Mexico crowd, so home field advantage isn't "as" strong (when was the last time they beat us here???) but playing Mexico in Mexico is an entirely different beast. That is one beast that we should see more of. Hell, losing to Mexico might actually do our guys some good.

America advance to Copa Sudamericana Finals
America of Mexico (Blanco's former club) has advanced to the finals of the CONMEBOL Copa Nissan Sudamericana, winning their series with Millonarios of Colombia 5-2. They won the first leg 3-2 in Columbia only to return to Mexico and win 2-0. They will face either River Plate or Arsenal in the finals. That series is tied 0-0 going into tonight's match.

It is good to see another CONCACAF club is crashing the party down south. As the Mexican clubs continue to flex their muscles with the CONMEBOL clubs, MLS will sooner or later have to increase the club salary caps to allow for deeper rosters and the ability to sign the best young domestic talent.

Chris Armas Retired
Chris Armas of the Chicago Fire retired yesterday, after capping a 12 year MLS career with a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. Armas player the last 10 years with Chicago, winning one MLS Cup and four US Open Cups.

I will give props to the guy, he had a great MLS career. Best of luck to him in the future.

Match Recap: DC United 0 - 1 Houston Dynamo

That was pretty bad. DC United looked listless out on the field. It almost looked like there were 20 guys out there in Orange and about 7 guys in black. The guys in black looked like they didn't know how to pass with each other. It was a bad match.

It was good to see Jamie return to the field and once he did, United looked like a different team. The injection of Moreno gave United a controlling presence and a creative player that brought a new life into the side. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

Bobby Boswell has now muffed two sitters in two straight games. Bobby, if you aren't going to hit the open shots, don't go forward. Send somebody else.

Now we all have to hope for a draw or an America win to ensure that we advance to the Semi Finals. In all honesty, I hope United doesn't advance. The club has more problems on its plate in the league right now. The club that performed admirably in the CONCACAF Champions Cup and through the month of May and June has disappeared. I really don't know what they are now.

One idea is that they are lacking the one thing that they had differently last year, which was a larger amount of discipline. Peter Nowak had these guys set in a much tighter structure; maybe it wouldn't hurt to start using some of that right now.

Match Recap: DC United 1 - 0 Club America

Ok, time to eat crow.

After the first SuperLiga match, I wasn't too thrilled with DC United, it's players or the coaches. I felt that the players had lost their heart and desire and played a very listless match against what should have been an easy opponent in Morelia. After two matches, I might be in the early stages of changing my attitude.

Unfortunately, due to attending a wedding Saturday night in Iowa, I was unable to get down to RFK for last nights victory over Club America. I did catch the match on the TV. I saw a huge difference in the Wednesday night match and the Sunday night match.

Our players started the match much better Sunday night, making better runs and causing problems for America's goalkeeper Armando Navarrete. Rod Dyachenko's 12 minute strike was a great team performance and is the type of brilliant flashes of light that keep people from saying dump Dyachenko.

Over all, I saw a much stronger DC United than the one on Wednesday night and a more composed and organized side. Our team defense was much better and our substituting helped kill off the match. It was a good result.

Marc Burch, IMHO, has staked his claim to the left back position. Over his last few starts, he has shown that he can hang with the rest of the guys and not get burned. Having him in a back line of Namoff, Boswell, & Vanney might do us well down the stretch in the MLS season.

DC United overall played much better. Their finishing remains something to work on, as I counted 4 separate sitters that somebody muffed on. Coach Soehn finally decided to use the subs (more likely a result of guys getting healthy rather than just deciding to sub guys out) which helped kill off the match. Rojas' red card, on TV, really didn't look that bad, not any worse than several of the other challenges in the match. I guess because he took the flying attack and had both feet ready to strike was the reason that Referee Carlos Batres gave him a straight red.

So now United sit on 4 points and are tied with Houston for the top spot in group B. As these two play each other Wednesday night, who advances out of group B could be interesting. If America drops Morelia, than both Houston and United advance with their current points. If Morelia defeats America and either Houston or United win on Wednesday night, Morelia and the winner Wednesday night advance. If United and the Dynamo draw & Morelia wins, then we probably need to call Stephen Hawking to have him figure out the tie breakers and such.

Good match last night, lets see more of that rather than most of what we have seen over the last few weeks.

Here it comes…SuperLiga!

Ok, so how long has it been since the inaugural SuperLiga tournament was announced along with the participants and the bitching? After all of the complaining, arguing and debates, we are finally set to see inform MLS clubs go against pre-season Mexican clubs with 1 Million dollars up for the winner.

So what should we expect? Should we see the MLS clubs wipe the field with their Mexican opponents? The Mexican clubs are in preseason form after all, so they should be rusty and ripe for the picking.

I doubt that we will see anything other than some interesting matches. Clubs on both sides of the Rio Grande should do well, but I think we will see something of a Houston vs. Pachuca final. Houston is playing very well right now and Pachuca seem to have everything falling into place for them.

I am worried about two of the MLS clubs, the LA Galaxy and DC United. The Galaxy will be entering their second straight international tournament in pretty much as many weeks. They lost 3-0 to Tigres and 1-0 to Chelsea this last week. Considering that they have already faced a pre-season Mexican club and fared poorly, how are they going to do against two of the better Mexican sides? The Galaxy are still trying to figure out who is playing which position and what formation works the best. Pavon picked up a knock in the Chelsea match and that other guy from England doesn’t seem to be ready to really play until maybe Saturday against Chivas. I was impressed with their defensive form against Chelsea. Xavier played out of his mind in central defense and Cannon saved their bacon 4 or 5 times. That said, I expect the Galaxy to finish last in their group, using the three matches essentially as a pre-season run at the new players and see which formation works the best and to get them back in form for the MLS regular season.

DC United on the other hand really haven’t had that much of a run of good form lately. In their last four matches, they are 0-3-1, having been shut out in the three losses and having blown a 3-0 lead at home n the draw. So now the injury depleted Black & Red have to face two of Mexico’s best then travel to Houston and face the MLS leading Dynamo, one of the clubs that shut them out in those three losses. Considering that Tom Soehn should have both Ben Olsen and Fred available (Olsen had to sit out the RBNY match and Fred gets an MLS sponsored vacation when United face the Revolution on August 5th) I expect them both to be in the lineup for Wednesday nights match against Morelia. If United can get three points against Morelia, a draw against America then hopefully they will not have to worry about their match against Houston. If not, I think based on their current form, United might miss out on playing passed the group phase in this tournament.

Overall, my opinion of this tournament hasn’t really changed. I think that it is a great idea and one that will hopefully grow with each season that we see it. Based on Commissioner Garber’s statements on MLSnet.com, I think that it will:

“Matt from Chapel Hill, N.C.: What are your expectations of SuperLiga this year? Will it ever go to a Home and Away format? Will it expand? Will it be on TV in English?

Don Garber: We're launching SuperLiga in a reduced format this year and still have some work to do to determine the future structure of the tournament. I certainly hope we can achieve a home and away competition with expanded teams but this year have to determine the tournament's success before we move forward.” - MLSnet.com

The biggest thing that will determine its future is if the first run is a success. In order for the tournament to be a success, the current fans need to get behind it. It seems that a lot of MLS fans are shunning this tournament because the teams were selected instead of teams that won some type of qualification to get in.

I think that once the matches get started, there will be plenty of fans in the seats and we will see this tournament become a success. As MLS/SUM/MPD begin planning the next SuperLiga, hopefully they will take any mistakes from this one and eliminate them and expand the tournament to include more clubs. I would ultimately like to see MLS/SUM/MPD begin to invite the top two clubs from Costa Rica as well.

Their First Team can't win either: America falls to Pachuca

So right as I was leaving Mexico City last week, everyone and their brother was gearing up for the two legged series between America and Pachuca for the Apertura championship. America had sent it's second string side to Brasil to face Santos in the Copa Libertadores in hopes of resting their first string players for the Pachuca match-up. Well, it really didn't do them much good.

Pachuca won the first leg last Friday 2-1 at Azteca Stadium and drew 1-1 at home Sunday night to win their second league championship in the last three tournaments. Pachuca also added a third trophy to its case, having just picked up the CONCACAF Champions Cup in April and winning the CONMEBOL Copa Sudamericana in December.

One bright spot for America was that Cuauhtemoc Blanco scored in both of the matches; however, as these were his last two matches with America, they should begin to look for another forward. Blanco signed with MLS side Chicago Fire and should be joining them in the next several weeks.

So much for resting the First Team. Maybe they should have sent their first team to Brasil and used their second team against Pachuca?