U.S. Has Golden Chance in Gold Cup
Chuck Blazer breezed into town last week, sat down with Alan Rothenberg at a news conference at the Biltmore and unveiled some interesting plans for the new year.
Yes, it is only August, but with the international soccer calendar as crowded as it is, the pair felt it necessary to get the word out early.
And so Blazer, CONCACAF’s general secretary and a member of the FIFA executive committee, and Rothenberg, a CONCACAF vice president, wanted to talk about the Gold Cup.
The major championship for national teams in the North and Central American and Caribbean (CONCACAF) region, the Gold Cup will be played in Los Angeles, Miami and San Diego Feb. 12-27, with the championship final at the L.A. Coliseum.
Adding spice to the 12-nation tournament is that three non-CONCACAF teams will be taking part: Colombia, Peru and South Korea.
In addition to the United States, as host, and Mexico, as defending champion, other competing countries will be Costa Rica, as Central American champion; Guatemala and Honduras as Central American qualifiers; and Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, as the two most recent Caribbean champions.
Two places remain open and will be decided in a four-nation, round-robin tournament to be played at the Coliseum Oct. 6-10. Competing for Gold Cup berths will be Canada, Cuba, El Salvador and Haiti.
The U.S. and Mexico, which played to a 0-0 tie before the Mexicans won in sudden-death overtime in the semifinals of the recent FIFA Confederations Cup in Mexico, will be the Gold Cup favorites.
But Peru could be a strong challenger. It lost on penalty kicks to Mexico in the quarterfinals of this year’s Copa America in Paraguay. In addition, South Korea will be out to prove its worth as co-host (with Japan) of the 2002 World Cup.
All in all, it adds up to a busy beginning of the year for Bruce Arena, the U.S. coach, who already knows that a trip to Cuba is in store next July as the Americans gather speed for their World Cup qualifying run.
The last time the full U.S. national team played Cuba in Cuba was in 1947, when it was beaten, 5-2. The U.S. did win the Pan American Games gold medal there in 1991, beating Mexico in the final with a team that included the Galaxy’s Cobi Jones.
Incidentally, it was former Major League Soccer commissioner Doug Logan who went to Havana on U.S. Soccer’s behalf and secured what will be a home-and-home series with Cuba.
RETURN OF THE WOMEN
The world and Olympic champion U.S. women’s national team plays its first game since its July 11 World Cup victory over China when it takes on Ireland on Sept. 4 at Foxboro, Mass.
The game, part of a doubleheader with the New England Revolution, is in preparation for the four-nation Nike U.S. Women’s Cup, to be played Oct. 3-10 in Columbus, Ohio; Kansas City, Mo., and Louisville, Ky.
Even though opponents for that tournament have not been announced, Mia Hamm and company’s overwhelming popularity shows no sign of abating. Already, the game at Crew Stadium is sold out and more than 12,000 tickets have been sold at Arrowhead Stadium, where the MLS Wizards average only about 4,000.
“We want to use this enthusiasm to start our preparation for Sydney 2000,” said Coach Tony DiCicco, who needs to win two more games to earn his 100th victory.
The U.S. women are 20-2-2 this year.
Foxboro Stadium is where the U.S. shut out North Korea in the World Cup and where Tisha Venturini did her well-documented back-flip, a goal celebration subsequently cast into the shadows by Brandi Chastain’s Rose Bowl antics.
“Everyone is looking forward to getting back on the field,” said Venturini, who along with her teammates has been kept busy by post-World Cup appearances of all sorts.
For instance, Hamm and Kristine Lilly were among four players scheduled to make a convention appearance in Anaheim on Saturday afternoon. Shannon MacMillan spent Friday morning doing radio talk shows in San Diego, then was to be the guest of honor at the San Diego Flash-San Francisco Bay Seals A-League game Saturday night.
In Chicago, meanwhile, forward Tiffeny Millbret was set to be honored by the Chicago Fire before its MLS game against the Dallas Burn on Saturday.
Considering the pace they’re setting, getting back to playing games might almost be a relief for the world champions.
MATTHAEUS AS MLS SAVIOR?
It’s expecting a little too much if MLS believes that signing Lothar Matthaeus will be the move that turns the league around.
After negotiating with the German defender for more than six months, the league finally has him under contract, and Matthaeus will report to the New York/New Jersey MetroStars in January.
Or thereabouts.
No one is going to tell him what to do, least of all Charlie Stillitano, the MetroStars’ bumbling general manager who has managed to almost single-handedly wreck what is supposed to be the league’s flagship franchise.
The MetroStars have been a revolving door through which big-name coaches and big-name foreign players have come and gone with depressing regularity. Perhaps Matthaeus didn’t do enough homework before signing on the dotted line.
Or perhaps he’s only here on holiday, like so many foreign players before him.
“The criticism is fair that we’ve had a revolving door, but we hope that Matthaeus will steady that with his excellence on the field and in the locker room,” Stillitano said.
“The only way to know what effect he will have is to see what happens after he arrives. He is a very, very special player and person. We shouldn’t lump Matthaeus with the other foreign allocations that have come here. The only one we’ve had in his class is [Italy’s] Roberto Donadoni.”
Stillitano, incredibly, believes that Matthaeus will not want to abandon ship in midseason and play for Germany in the Euro 2000 championship in Belgium and the Netherlands.
“In my discussions with Matthaeus, he has told us that he will not go to the European Championship,” Stillitano said. “We did not want to lose him for a big block of time. . . . Matthaeus is a man who is true to his word and he has said that he is not planning on playing in that tournament.”
Significantly, there is nothing in Matthaeus’ contract that prohibits him from playing for Germany in the European Championship next summer.
“There are no contractual provisions that deal with it,” said Ivan Gazidis, MLS executive vice president, choosing his words with great care. “He is not committed to the German team. . . . It’s too early to say with 100% certainty that he will or won’t be selected, or that Germany will qualify. . . . He has told us that he has not committed to that tournament.”
Germany is the defending champion, having won Euro ’96 in England. Matthaeus is the team captain. He is in top form, having been named Germany’s 1998-99 player of the year. Of course Germany will qualify and of course Matthaeus, 38, will want to take part. Euro 2000 will be the last hurrah for the man with five World Cups on his resume.
To believe otherwise is simply foolish.
But then again, these are the MetroStars.
CONCACAF CRACKDOWN
The coach and three players from Guatemala’s Pan American Games team have been banned from all soccer for periods ranging from six months to a year after their attack on a referee in Winnipeg, Canada, last month.
Dennis Chen was suspended for six months for “deliberately pushing the referee,” CONCACAF said in handing down the suspensions. Carlos Ruiz was handed a similar punishment for “deliberately kicking the referee in the ankle,” and Alegria Briones was banned for a year for “running the length of the field following the conclusion of the match, eluding the efforts of the assistant referees trying to stop him and punching the referee in the back.”
Coach Walter Clavieri was suspended for six months for “his abusive conduct toward the referee and the lack of discipline and restraint demonstrated by his team.”
The incidents occurred in the Canada-Guatemala match. The referee, believed to be an American, was not identified.
And so it goes.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
College Rankings
The Hoosiers and Broncos top Soccer America’s men’s and women’s college preseason polls, respectively.
*--*
MEN Rank School Last season 1. Indiana 23-2-0 2. Maryland 16-8-0 3. UCLA 17-4-0 4. Clemson 22-2-0 5. Stanford 18-5-2 6. Virginia 16-4-3 7. SMU 15-5-1 8. Brown 12-3-2 9. St. John’s 16-5-3 10. Connecticut 17-4-0 11. Santa Clara 15-5-2 12. Saint Louis 14-5-1 13. Cal State Fullerton 14-5-2 14. Washington 16-4-0 15. Creighton 16-4-2 16. Duke 18-4-0 17. South Carolina 15-4-0 18. South Florida 12-8-2 19. William & Mary 15-8-2 20. Jacksonville 19-5-0
*--*
*--*
WOMEN Rank School Last season 1. Santa Clara 22-1-1 2. North Carolina 25-0-0 3. Notre Dame 21-3-1 4. Portland 19-3-2 5. Connecticut 21-2-2 6. Nebraska 17-4-1 7. Florida 26-1-0 8. Penn State 21-4-1 9. Hartford 17-5-0 10. Clemson 16-7-0 11. Dartmouth 16-2-2 12. San Diego State 19-3-1 13. Stanford 11-7-2 14. Virginia 13-6-3 15. William & Mary 17-3-2 16. Michigan 14-7-1 17. Vanderbilt 17-6-0 18. Northwestern 16-5-0 19. Baylor 15-5-1 20. Brigham Young 20-5-0
*--*
