Thursday, March 31, 2005

Far From Perfect, But A Really Exciting Win

A 2-0 win over Guatemala for the USA on home soil in a World Cup Qualifyier is good enough, but I wanna know why it wasn't 10-0. I'm not kidding about this, and anyone who saw the game knows exactly what I'm talking about. At half time I'm sure the Chipanes coach, "El Peenapal", got down on his boney knees and praised every god whose name he could think of, that the USA did not know how to shoot a soccer ball directly at a goal.
Of course Eddie Johnson, the Grown Ass Man, scored. It's now some kind of Federal Mandate, passed by both the House and Senate (the bill was co-authored by Barney Frank and the frozen carcass of Strom Thurmond, in one of the weirdest political combos of all time) that EJ the GAM must score in every game he plays for the USA.
8 goals in his first 8 games as a USA International! The league turned down $6 million from Benefica for him a couple months ago, and I am now guessing that his price goes up a million every time he scores.
Corey Gibbs got the start, thankfully. He was virtually anonymous out there, which for a central back is a great thing.
So did Brian Ching, who was so horrible at finishing that I seriously hope he was savagely beaten to within an inch of his "Big Kahuna" life by his teammates out by the stinky dumpsters behind the team hotel in a post match blood frenzy of orgiastic delight.
And Steve Ralston was the third change to the lineup from Sunday. He was awesome on the right wing. It's really too bad he isn't 10 years younger, cuz Coach Arena has really given him the chance to become a serious threat out there. It's also too bad he isn't a gorgeous woman, cuz if he was I would propose via email right now. To top that all off, he scored the second goal beautifully.
His counterpart on the left wing, Eddie Lewis, was my Man Of The Match. The dude was unstoppable. How many crosses did he put into the box (right on the money too) that his squadron buddies botched! I am gonna say 10! Outrageous performance by Lewis!
And if Lewis and Ralston weren't making enough great passes in to scoring positions, then it was right back Steve Cherundolo doing the same thing. Those three are deadly accurate passers of the ball, and I love them all.
Kasey Keller only had to make one save and it was quality.
The only really disappointing part of the night was the damn Guatemalans. I thought they would bring more. El Pescadito Ruiz spent half the game laying on the ground after Gibbs and Onyewu toyed with him. Their best chance to score came from El Pando Ramirez on his fantastic free kick from about 25 yards out that narrowly missed the top right corner. And their team defense literally did not exsist.
(FYI: Ramirez will be suiting up for LA starting this Saturday, and I am convinced that he will be getting more than his fair share of Goal Of The Week nominations.)
All in all it was a really good win, that should have been a vicious thrashing!

And in maybe the best news of the whole night, Mexico could only manage a 1-1 draw with Panama, and Costa Rica did even worse with a 0-0 draw with Trinidad & Tobago!

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