So after a look into the two most prominent footballing continents we shift our attentions to North America.
The United States. 2009 was a year of historical heights for the American team that made its way to the final of the Confederations Cup, but despite an early effort which put Brazil at all sorts of panic, they failed to ultimately win in their first ever international final. However there is much solace to be taken from the performances put in against Spain (a 2-0 victory for the Yankees) and the initial first-half performance against Brazil where they galloped to an astonishing 2-0 lead before ultimately failing to reply to 3 sambalicious goals.
Their group play, however, is something that wasn’t even talked about at the end of the tournament. Media in America, in an attempt to give ’soccer’ a boost, made mention only of the game with the Spaniards and the Brazilians. For the everyday American who doesn’t follow soccer, the games against Brazil and Italy which ended in one-sided defeats may as well have never happened. Ultimately the Americans scraped through after beating Egypt and then going through not even on goal differential, which was the same as Italy’s, but rather on goals scored, which was a mere one goal margin in front of the Italians.
As for the qualifying run… it’s the easiest qualification process out there. The only easier qualification method is that of being host. Even then the Americans suffered a few hiccups which included a 3-1 loss to Costa Rica, a 2-2 draw with Honduras and a draw with Costa Rica. Ultimately they did place first, ahead of Mexico (who were hit with a case of Sven-Flu, more on that in a bit).
Looking over to the domestic spectrum, the MLS, I find it hard to talk about the ‘league’ without talking about the amazing flaws in the system that is currently in place. However, I’ve taken the executive decision of leaving this for another article to come soon (so consider this a ‘to be continued’, of sorts). To sum up, a team from Salt Lake City won the whole thing. Salt Lake City. Let that sink in. There are no Karl Malone-like players on Real Salt Lake’s roster; the only player who could arguably be compared would be Freddy Adu… but we all know how that little over-hyped fairytale went (while we’re on the record, and on a bitter note, Freddy Adu failed to respond to my request for a one-on-one interview… you’d think warming the bench at a low-level Portuguese team he’d have plenty of time!). Granted there is no written rule in soccer or football that to win you have to come from a big metropolitan area; however it’s not every day in Europe or South America that you hear about teams winning that are based outside of London, Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester, Milan, Munich and so on and so forth.
What is hurting the MLS is that weak teams can go all the way. The season prior to the one that just finished the Red Bulls, on a losing record, managed to make it to the final and were 90 minutes away from possibly being champions. That’s rather absurd to the common sport fanatic. Then of course you have to factor in that the trophy was handed over based on a penalty shoot-out, of all things. A penalty shoot-out, the football equivalent of a coin-toss, is the desired method to decide the winner of a season’s length of work? I can’t imagine how Landon Donovan, after all his off-the-pitch moaning about Beckham’s captaining of the team and performance, felt when he replicated the infamous David Beckham NFL-styled field-goal that blazed over the bar in Portugal in 2004. Two notable differences stand out of course. One being that this particular kick had a trophy directly on the line, and two, there is no chance in hell you will ever find Donovan’s missed penalty kick ball up for auction on eBay for some crazy amount like Beckham’s did.
But all these things I’ve just written? They’re all secondary to the fact that the final produced sloppy football. In an attempt to combat this criticism I’ve heard commentaries that tried to lighten up that aspect by saying it was played at a good pace. A good pace? The most positive thing you can take away from that game is “good pace”? I think it is time to go back to the drawing boards for ways to make MLS seem anything remotely appealing.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2010:
The MLS, like I noted with the Argentine league, may as well be decided and predicted using a ‘Jump to Conclusions’ mat. Having once again gone through the troubling process of doing this for you, the reader, I can tell you that FC Dallas will emerge as the victor in the MLS Cup. Now, if we were to talk about which team will be able to boast the best record? I fancy Seattle Sounders. They’ve been a wonderful addition to the league and the presence of a true professional by the name of Freddie Ljungberg (who some Americans probably already recognize… no not for his time at Arsenal, but for being the face of Calvin Klein). Two other notable mentions on this team go to Fredy Montero as well as the veteran and aged-to-perfection keeper Kasey Keller. 2009 was the Sounders’ first season in the MLS, and they proved they merited the spot by selling out their home games on a consistent basis and providing a winning record, and that is no laughing matter for a team that has a minority owner in the form of Drew Carey.
Obviously you’ve also got the Galaxy who have a good group of players at the moment, and this will be helped as attention starts to sway off David Beckham and the back room chaos that has plagued the club for the last few years. An obvious mention also has to go to the Columbus Crew who have placed first in the overall league record category for two years running. However, I’m going to assume that this has been largely due to good managing since the only player that I can vouch for in terms of ability is Eddie Gaven. You’ve got the over-aged Hejduk as well O’Rourke, who was thought to be a break-through star when he first appeared in the MLS. However, like a majority of the MLS teams they’ve decided to disregard the idea that a 36 year old forward might just be a little too old to be playing by taking on former Boca Juniors hit man Schelotto. At any rate, like I said, this is all insignificant since FC Dallas will win the whole thing, mark my words.
As for the World Cup, we have a juicy little historical matchup between the British and the Americans. Unlike in any other public showcase, this is the one event where the people of the world will likely actually back America to win, because of the love-affair with the underdog. However, I’ve got two words to say to any claims that the Americans will be able to defeat the Brits. Those two words? The Italian. The Yankees might feel like they can pull another upset over their former rulers but the truth is that the Americans will have to settle for second place in the group, while remaining wary of Slovenia.
Now assuming that things go as the ever-so-deceiving paper would lead us to believe, the USA would face the daunting task of a virtual rematch of BeerFest. Now, many would assume this to be what I like to call a foregone conclusion, but I don’t know about that. Sure, Lukas Podolski and Schweinsteiger, despite enjoying huge anonymity at club level for some reason – perhaps steroid-infused frankfurters – seem to blossom on the world stage. Take them out of the equation however, and you have a team that relies too much on the experience of a few key players. Yes, there is the presence of Mario Gomez… but let’s not kid ourselves, he’s not got the same capabilities of Klose and Müller, and he can’t even claim to be a greater addition to the front-line than say, Michael Ballack, who has been striking them in from a midfield position. They are however solid in the defense with Lahm and Mertesacker providing good cover, but there must be question marks heaped onto the goalkeeping situation. Without Kahn and the recent tragedy that shocked the German football family with Robert Enke’s passing, Germany doesn’t have a goalkeeper in their roster with more than 10 caps under his belt, and you better believe that will be a problem in coordinating the defense. Their other weak points lie in the midfield where I personally believe that Ballack aside, and as mentioned earlier, Schweinsteiger and Podolski over-performance, they are largely overrated in this department. Up front is the last issue, since in modern football you need to have a second go-to guy when your top striker is hitting the over-the-hill point that is 31. So it’ll be a tight affair for sure. Looking beyond a possible matchup with Germany, the quarters will provide a complete surprise since it involves the Group A and B misfits.
Moving forward, I believe the next country on the list can be described with a single yelp. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL GOL GOL GOL GOL! Ok maybe that was five yelps. If you can’t tell, I’m talking about Mexico. 2009 for Mexico was a bit of a troubling year which was marred by the short Swedish love affair with Sven-Göran Eriksson which lasted (and when writing love-affair I had no clue of this time period) nine months. Generally in nine months in a love affair you wind up with a baby, but in this case, things ended in an ugly third-trimester abortion. After a string of bad results, the Mexicans had enough and got rid of Eriksson. After the sustained hiccups, however, Mexico was able to qualify comfortably in second place within their group.
In the league it was an unstoppable Humberto Suazo-driven Monterrey which won the Apertura and Pumas who won the earlier Clausura tournament. Most of the attention has to be given to Emanuel Villa who scored 17 goals in the tournament and making claims that Humberto Suazo was the best striker in Mexico look pretty silly.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2010:
The chances of Monterrey managing to do something that only a Hugo Sanchez-coached Pumas did are slim to none. With Suazo’s departure the goals have not been flowing as freely. The only possible advantage that they may have is that they won’t need to cede any players to the Mexican national team, though in direct contrast to their biggest competitors, Cruz Azul (home of Emanuel Villa) and America, they’ll need to field a team for the Copa Libertadores. Given that there was a Suazo dependency going on at Monterrey, I’ll throw my support to Cruz Azul to take the Clausura. They have a very seasoned squad with the likes of Gerardo Torrado, Riveros and as mentioned earlier the ever-deadly Villa to put away the goals.
Turning our attentions to South Africa we are left with no room for assumptions. Mexico has been drawn into a group which is worthy of Pandora’s Box classification. Mexico have a very cohesive unit that has been developed well to a certain point and with Javier Aguirre at the helm there won’t be many complaining about incompetent coaching. Should Mexico manage to make it to the second round they’ll be up against a team from another group that the chronic sports gamblers will likely avoid betting on. The possibility is open for a 2006 rematch with Argentina, but the reality is that with France’s shortcomings, we could actually see Mexico top the group. So the possibilities are obviously quite endless (not mathematically speaking). With the fact that the worst case scenario for Mexico involves a game against the worst Argentine team in many years, there is a very good chance that Mexico could make it through to the quarters, this is likely to be where they will burn out of fuel and crash as the possibilities include powerhouses like Germany and England, as well as dark horses such as Serbia, Ghana and Mexico’s favorite neighbor, the USA.
Oh Canada… No, I am not singing, I am saying it while sighing. Canada failed to make it to the final group stage of CONCACAF qualification in 2009. Need I say more? Toronto FC, for all the fans they bring to the stadium, are still not qualifying for the playoffs in the MLS. There is however one piece of good news to take from 2009. That would be the approval for the Whitecaps to participate in Major League Soccer. Is there more to add? Probably. Is it worth reading about it? Allow me to put it to you this way…
To wrap things up we’ll take a brief look at the surprise package from CONCACAF, Honduras. Honduras were able to defy the odds and finish ahead of Mexico in the pre-qualification groups for CONCACAF. However, that and their World Cup qualification are the only things they can manage to be excited about. Having been grouped with Spain and Chile, second place is out of reach and even third place is being claimed by the normally unobtrusive and neutral Swiss. CHANCE OF PROGRESSION: 1% (i.e. there is a better chance that the World will end in 2012 than Honduras walking out of their group alive).
Paulo Pincaro is an up and coming football analyst who previously wrote for the LusoAmericano newspaper based in Newark, New Jersey and can be contacted via email at: PauloPincaro@gmail.com
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