Balboa’s Bicycle Kick Is His Tour de Force
There hasn’t been this much fuss over a bicycle since Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France last summer.
But there are bicycles and then there are bicycles.
It all began in Columbus, Ohio, over the weekend when Marcelo Balboa, the Colorado Rapid and U.S. national team defender from Cerritos, launched himself into the air, flipped over backward and delivered a stupendous bicycle kick from about 15 yards that crashed into the back of the Columbus Crew net.
The crowd roared--for a goal by an opposing player in what eventually would be a 3-2 Crew loss. Within hours, the video was available at Major League Soccer’s Web site, https://www.mlsnet.com.
“It’s something that I guess you always dream about doing,” Balboa said, “but as a defender the chances of you getting an opportunity are slim and none. I got lucky.”
As lucky as he was in 1991, when he scored for the U.S. on a close-range bicycle kick against Trinidad and Tobago in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and luckier than he was in the 1994 World Cup, when he narrowly missed connecting on one against Colombia, also at the Rose Bowl.
“It’s an event that happens every once in a while, like a triple play in baseball,” Balboa said. “You just don’t see it that often.”
The player who was most adept at the maneuver was, of course, Pele, who executed it in the 1981 film “Victory.”
“At the time the movie came out, I was still pretty young,” Balboa said. “As a kid, you’re looking at it going, ‘You know what, I’m gonna try that.’ And I went out and tried it and killed myself. I’m 32 now. It’s taken me almost my whole career to get the timing down, to get the right jump, to get everything perfect.”
ELIAN NATION
Baseball players aren’t the only sports figures protesting the U.S. government’s handling of the Elian Gonzalez case.
Miami Fusion midfielder Henry Gutierrez, whose parents are Cuban, opted to sit out a scrimmage against the minor-league Miami Breakers this week to signal his displeasure.
“I’m backing up the Cuban people,” Gutierrez said. “It’s a hard, long fight they have gone through. . . . I’m supporting Elian, and as long as we stand together as Cubans, we’ll get something out of this.”
MEXICAN HAT DANCE
The fact that Galaxy forward Clint Mathis has signed a long-term contract with MLS and that Los Angeles this week also signed Haitian forward Sebastian Vorbe does not mean the team will not be getting a top-class Mexican striker in the near future.
Lothar Osiander, the San Jose Earthquake coach, doesn’t believe it will be via a trade involving his team, however.
“Sure, I’m interested in Mathis,” he said, “but I don’t know how I’m going to get him. I tried to get [Steve] Jolley [traded by the Galaxy to the MetroStars] and I couldn’t get him. It is a difficult deal for us. We think for our team, the trade with Los Angeles apparently is off the table, so Mathis is out of reach for us.”
Not necessarily, said Ivan Gazidis, the league’s executive vice president.
“I think Lothar may have been a little premature in saying that it’s all dead between San Jose and L.A.,” he said. “Certainly, that’s one possibility.
“I’ve always said, though, that if we can’t find a trade, then we’ll find another way to sign an important Mexican player for L.A., if the deal makes economic sense. What that mechanism would be I don’t want to speculate on because I don’t think the trade possibilities are dead yet.”
