So I happened to be in a mexican restaurant yesterday when this was going on and the crowd was decidedly pro-Mexico which was made all the worse as the US pretty much got beat down.

But, I was asking some people there about this tournament and couldn't get a straight answer. Who is this tournament for? I think I read that ZERO of the US players that played in the Confederation Cup final played yesterday? Who were these players? Was this some sort of B-team match? Why even drape these teams in the flag?

I guess I just don't get the way soccer is structured? I mean, right now, the Gold Cup has been going on, as well as MLS here, the Champions league, and the World Football Challenge as well. It just seems that the only time you really see teams at full strength is for the World Cup.


Guess I just didn't see what the point of that game was yesterday when it's not even close to our best team. I think a lot this confusion is another reason why soccer can't get a foothold the way it wants to here and I consider myself a pretty astute sports fan.

i'm with you.

It is for the CONCACAF region, which is North and Central America.
The game was essentially meaningless, except for Mexican pride, since they hadn't beat Americans on American soil this decade.
It was definitely a match between B team squads, you could argue that the USA was even using a C or D Level squad since even Freddie Adu and a few other young stars sat out this one.

Thanks.

Seems pretty pointless for anyone other than hardcore soccer fanatics.

I mean, sounds like it was something akin to the joke that is the World Baseball Classic. You can drape it in the American flag but it doesn't even remotely represent the best we have.

is the Champions league the most important club team related event?

Yeah, we rolled out a bunch of guys who basically have maybe a slightly better than zero chance to make our World Cup team or even less in some cases, but it was still embarrassing to get destroyed like that in the second half, pretty pathetic.

I guess but I don't really know which is kind of my reason for the thread.

I really want to like the sport and I was pretty riveted when the US did so well in the Confederation Cup (also, where does THAT tourney fall among world tourneys?). But, I sit down yesterday and start looking for Landon Donovan, Altidore, and Tim Howard and I don't recognize anyone.

How am I supposed to follow the team?

Confed cup is just a practice for the country hosting the world cup the following year. None of the cups mean anything In our usual sense of "winning" something.

Basically all the regional confederations want their own show piece competitions but since the ideal spots in the calender are taken by the 'big' international competitions (European Championships, World Cups) they struggle to find a window in the time table in which they can attract players without a) being over shadowed by the bigger competitions or b) enduring the wrath of the club sides.

The international associations have to tread lightly since the the club sides effectively loan them their players. With the new European season approaching most clubs will be fairly unhappy about their players playing in an international tournament, due to obvious factors like the risk of injury and the disturbance to their pre-season preparation.

Therefore most international associations play safe and in order not to irritate the clubs and not cause any problems for the release of players for the bigger tournaments, they generally pick home based or second tier players to take part in the lesser competitions.

Many clubs, and in particular the big European clubs who are spending tens of millions in transfer fees and wages on individual players really begrudge letting players leave to play for their international sides and would be quite happy to see international football abolished.

Therefore by only calling up 'star players' for top tournaments they keep the clubs, if still grumbling, slightly happier.

Yeah, Champions League is the top club competition. Best of the best play in it pretty much.

Soccer can get to be a pain to follow if you're just a casual fan because of all the leagues and tournaments and everything that go on at once. Like in Europe each country has it's league and then some sort of national tournament the teams play in. Then, the top teams qualify to play in the Champion's League agaisnt clubs from all the countries, then the next tier of teams down from that play in what has just been renamed the Europa League, which is a similar competition but just a level down.

Then, you've got all the international stuff. Gold Cup is our regional tournament, similar to the Euros in Europe or the Copa America in South America. The winner qualifies for the Confederation Cup every other time (because Confed is every 4 I believe and Gold Cup every 2). Since this was a non-qualifying year, nothing at stake except bragging rights. The Confed Cup you get mixed opinions on, it is a more recent tournament that many of the bigger soccer countries see as an annoyance, although the last couple they have taken more seriously than at first when some countries just declined or sent back-up teams.

The US players were all missing because they just played in the Confed Cup and they all have regular club commitments, mostly in Europe and had to go back and get their pre-seasons started with the people who actually pay their checks and all that. Technically since it is our region's championship, we could force clubs to release our player to participate, but since they already played one tournament this summer, they got off the hook so as not to piss off their clubs or wear them out even more.

I'm stopping here so as to not write a novel.

But don't all these "meaningless" international matches count for the seeding in the World Cup. And as someone who is around Mexicans lemme tell you that this win was HUGE... god they hate the US team.

Oh... and Go Bhoys...

[img][650:435]http://www.footballpictures.net/data/media/33/celtic_fc.jpg[/img]

confederations cup is just a warm-up tourney for the world cup. in essence it's relatively meaningless, just a tourney consisting of winners from regional play - the winner of the gold cup attends this tourney.

i believe the blowout yesterday plays a bigger factor in the grander scheme than folks here are letting on. the guys are by no means starters or folks who've more than a few caps, but they aren't scrubs either. and since when do we consider adu the benchmark for young, strong players, fightinlib?

champions league IMO is secondary to winning your national league title even though it's pretty much a world series of soccer event.

That clears things up a little...I was wondering if the US could have fielded their best squad for the gold cup if they wanted to and just dominated....

The only game that really mattered between Mexico and US was won by the US in the '02 World Cup... the rest are just friendlies with a cash prize at the end. Cash and pride. But yea, of our existing national team, the only one i see playing with the A squad is Beckerman, other than that the rest of those guys are too young, too inexperienced to play at the top level.

Btw, a rematch of that game, with our REAL squad will take place on August 12th in Mexico City, at a venue in which we've never won and Mexico has only lost once in (to Costa Rica)

Completely agree, although the World Cup qualifier earlier this year was pretty disheartening to the Mexican squad. This game as far I know did not count toward WC qualifying, but the one August 12th does.

I would add that comparing the Euro Championships to the Gold Cup has to be way off base. The Euro's are a huge deal in europe and a nation would never but a B Squad in the Euro's.....ever.

Now see this is what I'm talking about. As a casual fan, I know the history of this series and the intense rivalry and would've loved if both A-squads had played yesterday.

I understand that the US clubs want to have their players healthy but IMO they missed a golden opportunity yet again to help their sport. Most casual US fans still have the Confederation Cup fresh in their minds and having those players play yesterday would've served to even further familiarize casual fans with them, thereby helping the sport here overall.

Then again, they could be just building the hype for the game in Mexico City.

If I'm the head of FIFA I'd want to do anything I could to help fill the gaping hole in the worldwide Soccer market that is the US. Especially since we're less than a year out from South Africa.

Harry, when making a 'Go Bhoys' post you might have selected a picture that didn't have a current Rangers player in it.

Yeah, getting trounced by Mexico is kind of a big deal no matter who's out there. Especially since the US has spent the last decade to finally get a pretty big psychological advantage over Mexico, especially when they play in the US. We had finally reached a point when Mexico and Mexican fans in the US fully expected a loss to the US when they traveled to play here. it has been an unusual experience to see Mexicans who once uniformly predicted nothing but blow outs against the US change to the point where the majority when you talked about it before a game would fully admit they were likely to lose to the US.

This game has likely put a good bit of that to rest for now. And, considering the next time the US plays Mexico it will be in Mexico at Azteca, where the US struggles, we may be looking at two losses in a row to Mexico, pretty much our most heated rivalry. And yes, these games mean a whole lot to the Mexican fans and there is always a bit of trash talk surrounding these games between Mexicans and Americans who often find themselves playing on the same fields all over the US.

Point taken. But still, it's pretty cool, huh? (

for a team that surprisingly wins the national title it's basically a lot of fame and means a lot for their financial situation due to selling more jerseys and stuff.
for bigger teams it's pretty necessary to reach the champions league because that's the game with the money. when a team pays millions for their players they need some more money than you can earn in the national leagues, though the dimensions for that are pretty different in europe.

for example, in spain and GB you can only watch football on pay tv channels, so the monetarian value of football is much higher there. here in germany it's different and a bit odd because you can watch the whole matches on pay tv but every saturday there is this big tv show on one of the public channels with a compete summary of all matches of the week, about 2 hours.

The reason the US didnt play the Gold Cup with their A Squad was because the Confederations Cup pretty much ended within a week of the Gold Cup started. All squads needed to have their rosters announced and prepped. Honestly, this win was a bigger deal to Mexico than it would have been for the US.