Mexico’s Loss Offers Hope to U.S.
In the Coliseum press box Wednesday night, separated by a blue screen from what coaches widely regard as the unwashed herd that constitutes the media, was a veritable brain trust of U.S. coaches.
U.S. national team Coach Bruce Arena was there, having flown in from Hawaii earlier in the day just to watch Mexico play Argentina.
Also in the group were Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid, Galaxy assistant coach Ralph Perez, U.S. under-20 national team coach and former Los Angeles Aztec player Wolfgang Suhnholz, U.S. Olympic team goalkeeping coach Peter Mellor and, most intriguing of all, 1990 World Cup winner and 1996 European Championship winner Juergen Klinsman of Germany.
It was the sort of gathering that must have produced a score of interesting comments, the sort of gathering reporters would have loved to listen in on, but for that cross-at-your-peril blue screen.
Without a shotgun microphone to pick up their remarks, all that can be surmised is that they must have come to the same conclusion that the journalists did: The U.S. can beat Mexico.
That’s important because barely two months remain before the U.S. has to play Mexico in a key World Cup 2002 qualifying match at Columbus, Ohio.
The Americans defeated the Mexicans twice this year, but no one took those results seriously because Mexico was not fielding its true starting lineup.
On Wednesday night, it did, and still lost to Argentina, 2-0.
Of course, key players Ramon Ramirez and Cuauhtemoc Blanco were sidelined by injury, but they will still be out when the match is played Feb. 28 at Crew Stadium, so what Arena and the rest were watching was basically the real thing. French-based defender Rafael Marquez was the only starter missing.
Even so, Argentina, fielding basically a third-string team, managed to win before an estimated crowd of 70,000.
If the U.S. wants to do as well, the lessons for Arena were clear. He needs to put together a lineup that has speed in defense, the ability to take full advantage of the few scoring opportunities that will come its way--especially those that come courtesy of Jorge Campos’ mistakes--and the willingness to play a hard, physical style without getting players into yellow- or red-card trouble.
Easy to say. Difficult to accomplish.
Mexico is an overwhelming favorite to be one of the three teams from this region that will advance to the Japan-South Korea World Cup. But Enrique Meza, Mexico’s coach, has yet to devise the formula that can make qualification a mere formality.
If he fails to do so in the next two months and if the U.S. plays its best game in Columbus, the U.S. can win.
TRAFFIC UPDATE
Another traffic nightmare around the Coliseum prompts these thoughts:
* If promoters of these games want fan support in their drive to lower the percentage of the gate they have to turn over to U.S. Soccer, they would be wise to fork out a bit more money for traffic control.
* If U.S. Soccer wants to earn the percentage it currently gets, rather than receiving the money for nothing, it needs to make sure the experience for fans is better than it is now, when gridlock surrounds American stadiums.
* If the Galaxy is smart, it will cough up the extra cash the Rose Bowl is asking and will stay there for the next two years until its new stadium is built. Then it can tell Pasadena to stick it in its ear.
GALACTIC HAPPENINGS
This is the time of year when the Galaxy’s Schmid and Perez earn their coaching salaries, when they try to sort out the puzzle pieces for the season ahead.
Right now, two pieces are off the board.
Cobi Jones and Greg Vanney are still negotiating new contracts with Major League Soccer, but if both get the deals they are seeking, the Galaxy has a problem.
“Cobi has been in a good mood in practice, so hopefully that means negotiations are going well,” Schmid said the other day. “As for Vanney, we’d certainly like to hold onto him. Unfortunately, if they both sign, then we’re probably dealing with problems with the salary cap, once they establish that.
“So we want them both to sign, but if they both sign, then we probably have to make a move.”
In other words, it might not be possible to keep both, or if it is, someone else will have to be traded.
Jones and Vanney, along with Mauricio Cienfuegos and Robin Fraser, are the only remaining members of the original Galaxy team of 1996. Keeping all four would seem to be paramount, especially considering the key role each plays.
Only in MLS, it seems, do teams get built simply to be dismantled.
STRIKE FORCE
It looks more and more as if Luis Hernandez will be playing even fewer games for the Galaxy in 2001 than he did in 2000, because of the Mexican league season and Mexican national team commitments.
Who, then, will the Galaxy be relying on to score its goals? One fascinating possibility is Eric Wynalda, the U.S. national team’s all-time scoring leader and a man just voted player of the decade by his peers.
“Eric is training [with the Galaxy] just to stay fit,” Schmid said. “He’s out of contract with New England right now, so he has to determine what he’s doing.
“Eric knows he needs to raise his game back to where Eric can play, but I’m confident he might be able to do that. Obviously, we’re just giving him the opportunity to train. Any time you have good players training with your team it helps everyone.”
Wynalda would like nothing more than to trade a Revolution uniform for a Galaxy one. Meanwhile, another Revolution player, former Galaxy defender Joe Franchino, would like nothing more than to return home to Southern California.
All of which puts a trade that sends Vanney to New England for Wynalda and Franchino well within the realm of possibility.
In the meantime, Schmid is trying to turn midfielder Sasha Victorine into a forward while turning Haitian forward Sebastien Vorbe into a midfielder.
“We definitely want to play Sasha up front as a forward,” Schmid said. “One of the things he’s been working on is collecting and turning with the ball. He’s just got to get more and more comfortable with that.
“Sebastien last year played forward for us, but he really feels he’s more comfortable in midfield so we’re trying to give him a good look there, either on the inside or the outside.”
Schmid will also be doing some shopping in the spring.
“We’re hoping to pick up a striker, either by the discovery method, in the draft or maybe in a trade,” he said.
Again, Wynalda’s name comes into play.
If the Galaxy eventually acquires defender Alexi Lalas, a good possibility, and trades for Wynalda, just as good a possibility, there is someone else who wouldn’t mind joining the team.
Colorado Rapid defender Marcelo Balboa, who used to partner Lalas in the center of the U.S. defense, said he would readily trade Denver for Los Angeles.
The question then becomes: Would Fraser want to trade L.A. for his former home, Denver?
