Usual Suspects Already Make Marks
Flying home from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, last week, the only trouble the U.S. men’s national team ran into came in the small hours of the morning after their charter aircraft had landed at Miami.
There was no one there to meet them.
Not no one as in no fans. No one as in no one at all.
Landon Donovan and Co. had to sit in the plane for more than an hour while crews were rounded up to operate the jetway so that everyone could disembark. Then there was a further delay -- all under the suspicious eye of uniformed officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service -- while immigration and customs officials prepared for the team’s late and therefore unexpected arrival.
It was the only hitch in an otherwise perfect beginning to World Cup qualifying for Coach Bruce Arena’s squad, a 2-1 winner over Trinidad and Tobago in its opening final-round match.
Mexico too got off to a flying start -- an even more impressive one, in fact -- with a 2-1 victory on the road against Costa Rica. “The result wasn’t just fair, it was magnificent,” Mexico Coach Ricardo Lavolpe was quoted as saying.
He was correct.
Unless there are some surprises lurking in the weeds, the race for a place in the Germany 2006 field could be all over, albeit not mathematically, as early as the end of March.
There were six teams in the hunt when the 30-game, 10-month final round of regional qualifying began last week -- Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S.
The top three will go to Germany, and the fourth-place finisher will go into a playoff with an Asian team.
After only three games, however, two teams are in trouble.
The failure by Panama and Trinidad and Tobago to win their home openers leaves them facing some bleak possibilities when the next two rounds of matches are played in the last week of March.
Panama, which was held to a 0-0 tie by Guatemala, has to travel to Costa Rica, which was stung by the Mexico reversal and is intent on redeeming itself. A Panama loss on March 26 is likely. The Canaleros then play at home March 30, but against Mexico, meaning another loss is probable.
If Panama drops eight of its possible first nine points, it could be in a position from which recovery is impossible.
The same goes for Trinidad and Tobago. Having lost at home to the U.S., the Soca Warriors go to Guatemala for a March 26 game fraught with problems, not the least of which is Galaxy striker Carlos Ruiz.
They then play March 30 at home in Port-of-Spain, but against a probably resurgent Costa Rica. Trinidad and Tobago too could be looking at only one point after three games.
Costa Rica, Mexico and the U.S. qualified from the region for Korea/Japan 2002, and it seems likely that the same three countries will qualify this time. Certainly, Mexico has so far done exactly what Lavolpe wanted.
“My intention is to qualify as quickly as possible, in other words, two or three games before the end,” he said this month. “I don’t want to end up in the last round of matches waiting for other results.
“I want Mexico to play our game, to go out onto the pitch and look for the result, not wait for the result. Mexico has to understand that we’re going to be the team to beat.”
All of which makes the next U.S. match even more intriguing. The Americans play Mexico at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on March 27, and go into that encounter unbeaten in their last 30 games against North and Central American and Caribbean (CONCACAF) competition.
Arena will prepare for the high-octane affair with a week to 10 days of training at the Home Depot Center, starting Feb. 28, followed by high-altitude training and warmup matches in Colorado and possibly New Mexico.
There also are rumors of a match in the Los Angeles area during the first stint, possibly against Argentina, which is scheduled to play Mexico at the Coliseum on March 9 if plans can be finalized. As yet, there has been no confirmation of either match by U.S. Soccer.
The U.S. will fly from Mexico City straight to Birmingham, Ala., for a March 30 qualifying game against Guatemala, in which not one but possibly two Galaxy players could be among the opposition.
The Galaxy, which so far this off-season has been shedding players, this week is expected to announce the acquisitions of Costa Rica national team defender Michael Umana and Guatemala midfielder Guillermo Ramirez.
Having Ramirez in the lineup could help Ruiz rediscover the goal-scoring touch that went astray under Coach Steve Sampson late last season.
But welcome as Umana and Ramirez will be, they do present Sampson with another problem.
They, along with Ruiz, will be taking frequent time away from the Galaxy to be with their national teams for qualifying -- as will U.S. defender Chris Albright and, if he regains his national team place, U.S. defender Danny Califf.
Because Costa Rica and Guatemala appear to be battling for third and fourth place in the qualifying group and one will go into the two-match Asian playoff, the absence of at least one or two of the Galaxy players is going to extend all the way into November, when Major League Soccer’s own playoffs will be underway.
That, of course, assumes that MLS can gets its schedule organized and released, something that it has so far failed to do even though the 2005 season starts April 2.
