2011 Gold Cup Final - Remember the Alamo?

The last time that Mexico faced the USA in Los Angeles was in 2001. It was Landon Donovan’s debut and the score ended up being 2-0 in favor of the USA. I was there and it was a great day for American soccer. The US Men’s National team generally doesn’t like to play in Los Angeles, because of the large immigrant population who are mad about soccer and anyone but the US. If you go a Chile vs USA, there are more Chilenos. If you go to a Sweden vs USA, there are more Swedes. LA is a melting pot and soccer is still a niche sport in this country. Sure a lot of people support the LA Galaxy and such, but a lot of those Americans do not support the US Men’s National team. That’s just the way it is.

So knowing the fact that we were going to be in the minority sitting with 90,000 Mexico fans, was not going to be a problem for us. We wanted to support the red, white, and blue in hostile territory. Concacaf decided to for financial reasons to hold the final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, right in my back yard, and I was ready for this adventure. This would be my second time watching the USMNT live, up close and personal in June 2011. As an added benefit I was excited to see La Liga’s Andres Guardado (Deportivo La Coruña), Giovani Dos Santos (ex-Racing Santander), Hector Moreno (now at Espanyol), Rafa Marquez (ex-Barçelona), and Gerardo Torrado (ex-Sevilla & ex-Racing). While both Efrain Juarez and Pablo Barrera are rumored to being going to Real Zaragoza.

The tailgating was great. The atmosphere was intense and impressive. 95% Mexico fans versus 5% USA fans was my estimate. We did not encounter any problems for the most part. Both the Mexican players and fans were shocked that the USMNT pocketed two early goals. Both goals were very lucky opportunities to be fair. The small amount of USA fans went crazy in celebrations. The stadium was silent. But it was only matter of time that a huge comeback from Mexico was due. Guardado, Giovani and Barrera attacked the weak left side of the USA and were unrelenting and punishing in their methods. The Mexico fans were ecstatic and celebrated with a crazy frenzy. The Rose Bowl became a mini Azteca. The beer spilled on our heads. (At least it was not urine). We were taunted by the surrounding Mexican fans with jeers of “USA, I can’t hear you”, “USA, I can’t see you” and “Boring Boring USA football”. It really upset me and struck a chord during the game, but now I can look back and just laugh in hindsight and realize that’s football.

We felt humiliated, pissed off, and ready to fire Bob Bradley, but at the end of the day I realized that Mexico was and is the better team. The fruits of the U17 golden generation, has finally arrived. But at least I wasn’t afraid to come out and support my team in the good and the bad, fully aware that we are the underdog and the minority at the stadium. Unfortunately, I don’t think that we will be seeing the USMNT in SoCal in the near future.


See more photos from the pre-game atmosphere and training at our flickr page. or forza futbol facebook page.

Whatever happened to Andres Guardado?

In April of 2008, after playing a full 90 minutes in a midweek friendly playing for México in London and then topping that with a weekend match against Real Murcia, Andres Guardado re-injured his right leg in the biceps femoral muscle; his hamstring. It was a painful injury, the second to that part of the leg within the span of two months, and it would end a promising start to his second full year in Spain. The player was mystified, ¨I have never had any kind of injury, and now there have been two straight. This is brand new for me, but I have to move forward. It´s sad to lose almost the whole second half to the season, especially with what´s happening at the club (a relegation battle), but I´m young and I have a lot to look forward to.¨ It is interesting to note that when questioned about the possibility of it being a chronic injury, club doctor Ramón Barral said that, ¨It wasn´t common, so we are hopeful that won´t happen.¨

Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened. The last two years have been marred by niggling injuries to both legs, muscular injuries all, where he has lost the equivalent of an entire league season if all the absences were added together- a total of 39 league games. A career that started at Club Atlas of Guadalajara with huge promise for the kid known as the ¨The Little Prince¨ has been mired in injury, questions about his preparation and his training keep coming up, and frankly those questions return often to the manner in which he is prepared either for club or country. Miguel Ángel Lotina has blamed El-Tri´s doctors and vice versa, but the answer might be even simpler than that.

There was another kid who came out of his boyhood club with that similar burst of lightning-pace, who could take on defenders with a quick feint off the ball and a directness that would scare an entire back-line. He became a media-darling, a star for both club and country, and drew attention from some of the great sides in Europe. He scored at will. Then, after carrying the weight of expectation for an entire country and playing almost non-stop for two years straight coming into Euro 98 (still a teenager in fact) Michael Owen´s body started breaking down with the sort of niggling muscle injuries, hamstrings primarily, that sapped his pace and dulled his impact on the world stage.

Now, I´m not comparing Guardado and Owen in the terms of skill-level, or effectiveness really because they play very different positions, but at their prime both players used their fast-twitch muscle fibers to gain an advantage over defenders. Over time, and especially with the sort of abuse that all players get both on the field (tackling), and off the field (lack of rest), it is not surprising that Andrés Guardado has struggled with recurring hamstring injuries. I would love to see him recover his form. He is an often brilliant player (and one of the few stars that I have actually seen play live in Spain) but his story is an all-too frequent one. These players are like Ferraris, in need of constant care and attention, and we are treating them as if they were Rally-Car racers.