Did You Know That There Is A Gold Cup Tournament Going On In Soccer Right Now?
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Soccer — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Well, if you didn't, you do now. And the United States is doing very well in it--with very salutary results for the American team:
The United States men's soccer team, fresh off three straight first-round shutout victories in the Concacaf Gold Cup, is riding an eight-game unbeaten streak under the team's new coach, Bob Bradley.
Though the Americans have not faced the same international competition they did last summer at the World Cup, FIFA has taken notice. The United States moved up 13 places to No. 16 in the monthly ranking of the world's soccer teams.
The U.S. team, on the heels of its first-round elimination from last summer's World Cup in Germany, had plummeted to No. 31 in the FIFA rankings last November after rising to an eye-popping No. 4 in April 2006, only two months before the start of the World Cup. Bruce Arena, the United States national team coach at the time, scoffed at the lofty status bestowed on his team by FIFA, but was concerned that it artificially raised expectations before the World Cup.
Let's not artificially raise expectations again, but this is good news for the American team and hopefully will turn more people on to American soccer.
Meanwhile: Go USA! Bring back that Gold Cup!
A little bit on Univision or Telemundo, whichever of those Spanish stations is carrying the games. Since my Spanish experience is limited to a few years in high school, I don't really catch more than the occasional "cabeza" or "pelota."
However it's worth watching because a) summer reruns are boring, b) the NBA finals are really boring, c) when the announcer yells "GOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL" it's hilarious, and d) America is kicking some serious tail while Mexico looks like garbage.
I think the quarterfinal game is Saturday at 4 PM, and we're taking on Panama up at Gillette Stadium. It'll be on Univision and Fox Soccer Channel.
One further note, I am pretty sure the winner of this tournament gets entry into the Confederations Cup, which is played among regional champions from around the world in South Africa in 2009 as a lead in to the next World Cup. It'd give the USMNT a nice bit of experience heading into the World Cup. So this tourney has a little more significance than just beating Mexico and the CONCACAF minnows.