U.S. Loses Mathis to Injury
The U.S. national team suffered a significant blow Wednesday when it was learned that forward Clint Mathis will be sidelined by injury for at least six months.
An MRI exam revealed that Mathis had suffered “a complete tear of the [anterior cruciate ligament] in his right knee,” his club, the New York/New Jersey Metro-Stars, said in a statement.
He is expected to undergo surgery in two weeks and will be lost to the MetroStars and the U.S. team for the rest of the season.
Mathis is Major League Soccer’s leading goal scorer in 2001 with seven goals and five assists in 11 games and has played a vital role in helping the national team go unbeaten in qualifying play for the 2002 World Cup.
He created the goal for teammate Josh Wolff that helped the U.S. defeat Mexico, 2-0, in Columbus, Ohio; scored the game-winner on a free kick in a 2-1 victory on the road against Honduras, and set up Wolff for the lone goal in a 1-0 victory over Costa Rica in Kansas City, Mo.
Mathis suffered the injury Tuesday while training with the U.S. team in Columbus for tonight’s game against Ecuador (5 PDT, ESPN).
“It was kind of a freak thing,” he said, “but it’s a situation where I’ll go out and get the surgery and work hard to get back. . . . Everything happens for a reason. You’ve just got to move on and deal with it.”
U.S. Coach Bruce Arena called Miami Fusion defensive midfielder Pablo Mastroeni into camp for tonight’s game as a replacement for Mathis.
Originally from Argentina, Mastroeni, 25, grew up in Arizona and recently became a U.S. citizen.
The U.S. team resumes World Cup qualifying play next week, facing Jamaica in Kingston on June 16 and Trinidad and Tobago in Foxboro, Mass., on June 20.
Luis to the Rescue?
Mexico’s disastrous run of four consecutive losses, two of them by 4-0 scores, caused Coach Enrique Meza to recall veteran goalkeeper Jorge Campos to the team, as well as Galaxy forward Luis Hernandez.
Both were named Wednesday to the squad that will play key World Cup qualifiers against Costa Rica in Mexico City on June 16 and at Honduras on June 20.
Mexico was beaten 2-0 by Australia, 2-1 by South Korea and 4-0 by France at the Confederations Cup in South Korea, this after a 4-0 loss to England, and disillusioned fans greeted the players with shouts of “idiots” and “failures” when they arrived home at Mexico City airport.
The hostile reception included a failed attempt to steer the media to the wrong terminal so that the players and coaches could avoid being questioned.
Replay, S’il Vous Plait
France and Brazil square off today in Seoul in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup in a game that not only pits the No. 1- and No. 2-ranked teams in the world against each other but is a replay of the 1998 World Cup final won, 3-0, by France.
Neither country brought its full-strength team to the tournament, and both have paid a price for doing so. French pride was dented by a 1-0 loss to Australia, while Brazilians have been humbled by successive 0-0 ties against Canada and Japan.
The Brazilian media is fed up with its once-mighty national team.
One newspaper, the Estado de Sao Paulo, was bitingly sarcastic. “We’ve done it,” the paper wrote. “We’ve managed to make ourselves equal to Japan.”
Emerson Leao, who has won only two of eight games since becoming Brazil’s coach in November, might find his job in jeopardy unless he can somehow defeat French Coach Roger Lemerre’s squad today.
The winner plays the winner of today’s Australia-Japan semifinal in Sunday’s final at Yokohama International Stadium, the site of next year’s World Cup final.
As the World Cup Turns
No country has clinched a place in next summer’s World Cup, but several are close to joining defending champion France and co-hosts Japan and South Korea in the 32-nation field.
Among those that have all but secured a spot are Argentina, Cameroon, Germany, Italy, Paraguay and South Africa.
On Wednesday, Russia moved closer to joining that group with a 2-1 victory at Luxembourg, and Poland edged closer despite being held to a 1-1 tie at Armenia in a game in which four players were ejected.
In other qualifying matches, Germany earned a 2-0 victory at Albania on goals by Marko Rehmer and Michael Ballack, thereby maintaining its lead over England, which traveled to Greece and won, 2-0, to give Sven Goran Eriksson his fifth consecutive victory as England’s coach. Paul Scholes and David Beckham got the goals.
Challenge for Women
April Heinrichs, the U.S. women’s national team coach, has lined up an interesting challenge for her team this fall by inviting three strong opponents--China, Germany and Japan--to take part in the sixth U.S. Women’s Cup.
The Americans, who are 20-0 in their own tournament, will play Germany on Sept. 9 in Chicago, Japan on Sept. 11 in Columbus, Ohio, and China on Sept. 16 in Kansas City, Mo.
U.S. Leagues
In the only MLS game Wednesday night:
Dallas 1, Tampa Bay 0--The Burn (4-5-1) got an early goal from Jason Kreis off a free kick after Mutiny goalkeeper Scott Garlick handled a back pass and Dallas held on to defeat the Mutiny (2-8-1) in front of 5,384 on a rainy night at Tampa, Fla.
In a Women’s United Soccer Assn. game:
Atlanta 1, Boston 1--The Beat (3-1-4), playing without injured Chinese forward Sun Wen, got a goal from Canada’s Charmaine Hooper to earn the tie in front of 4,392 at Boston. Germany’s Maren Meinhert scored for the Breakers (2-3-3), who have yet to win at home.
