Club World Cup 2011: Damage Control (Plus, Midweek Potpourri)
Posted on December 13, 2011 11:31 pm
Remember what I said last week about Monterrey having a shot at international glory? Unfortunately, the rayados took the first step on the global stage and fell flat on their faces.
Before we get into how they let their league, country and region down, let us remember a couple of things: first, they did not actually lose the game. Monterrey and Kashiwa Reysol tied 1-1 after extra time, and only a couple of failed penalty kicks by Luis Perez and Jonathan Orozco prevented the Mexicans from moving on. And considering the difference in rhythm – Monterrey had not played an official game since the end of the Apertura regular season, while Kashiwa rode their domestic championship form straight into the Club World Cup – it is impressive that Monterrey kept up with them and never looked overwhelmed.
Having said that, Humberto Suazo had two chances to put Monterrey ahead early in the game and wasted them both. He did not miss any open net, but one expects a striker of his calibre to put away those opportunities. As for the rest of the team, once again they looked a pale imitation of the side that won the last CONCACAF Champions League, struggling to build up any sort of attack from the midfield and leaving Suazo and Cesar Delgado stranded on top. Fortunately, an incredible goal from Kashiwa’s Leandro Domingues slapped Monterrey back into consciousness, and Suazo put away a cross from Delgado to even the score. He apparently hit the “Snooze” button, as well: Monterrey returned to their lackadaisical style of play, challenging Kashiwa more than Auckland City did without ever truly threatening to score the winning goal.
When the match went to penalties, captain Perez (Monterrey’s go-to PK taker) stepped up first, but had his misplaced effort blocked by Kashiwa’s keeper. Then, Jonathan Orozco made the bizarre decision to insert himself in the lineup at third – I don’t know if he normally takes penalties in shootouts, but I would generally prefer to let attacking players (e.g. Aldo de Nigris) step up before the goalie – and his shot hit the post. He did make amends by stopping a Kashiwa penalty, but Monterrey could not overcome the deficit and crashed out.
While Kashiwa’s dream run continues on to the semifinals (5:30 a.m. against Santos FC, all times EST), Monterrey have one more opportunity to save face before heading back home to inevitable ridicule…or even worse, the ignominy of cleaning up after Tigres’ trophy celebrations. Hopefully the chance to at least beat a fellow continental champion and earn $500,000 extra is enough to motivate Monterrey in the Fifth-Place Match.
Wednesday, December 14:
CF Monterrey (CONCACAF/Mexico) vs. Espérance Sportive de Tunis (CAF/Tunisia), 2:30 a.m.
Once again, Monterrey’s inexperience at this level makes it hard to handicap this game. Mexican clubs in general have a horrible record against African teams in the Club World Cup, with Pachuca’s 4-2 victory over Al Ahly of Egypt in 2008 the only exception. The tuzos are also the only Mexican club with experience against Tunisian opposition: back in 2007, they faced off against Esperance’s archrival, Etoile Sportive du Sahel. The goalkeeper for ESS put on the shakiest performance I have ever seen, routinely fumbling easy shots that came straight at him. Pachuca could not get the ball in the back of the net, however, and just when they started mentally preparing themselves for extra time, a late sucker-punch from ESS sealed a surprising 1-0 win. Hopefully Monterrey will be better prepared on this occasion; although it does bear mentioning that if they needed extra games in November to keep up their rhythm, they could easily have scheduled a friendly or two to stay fresh. And hopefully all the action remains on the field: according to Mediotiempo’s Maria Elena Partida, Esperance ultras started a couple of fights with Monterrey fans in Toyota Stadium on Sunday.
Speaking of shameful incidents, the Guatemalan Apertura will end with a rematch of the 2011 Clausura final that featured Municipal fans tossing explosives onto the field, Comunicaciones fans preventing their own team’s post-game celebration by rushing the field and blatant attacks by Comunicaciones ultras against rival supporters on the opposite side. The two Guatemala City clubs will face each other in the first leg of the Apertura Final on Thursday at 9:00 p.m. in the Estadio Mateo Flores – with improved, stricter security measures and more personnel at the stadium, if any lessons have been learned from last tournament’s debacle.
Finally, this has nothing to do with my area of expertise, but this piece of trivia was too good to pass up. Can you guess which US President has a club in Paraguay named after him? Click here to find out the answer, but if you want to guess, here is a hint: the club (among many other things) bears his name because of an 1878 arbitration of a Paraguay-Argentina land dispute, in which this president let Paraguay keep the Chaco region.
Let me start out with saying I appreciate your hard work and knowledge of our football here in Mexico
That being said, I hate to be the a-hole comment guy, but I can assure you Rayados DID NOT let their league, let alone country down. Only a handful of fans who were dumb enough to wake up at 4:00am to watch this over-glorified friendly. I am a hardcore rayados fan with season tickets, and I can speak for myself and a bunch of us, that we really didn’t care too much for this tourney. I would at any day trade a million club world cup trophies for one FMF championship. Hell, I’d even take a copa libertadores cup over this.
Dude, twitter was rocking with fans of your team the entire night of the game, causing TTs. It was huge. Not to mention the sendoff and 100s of fans who traveled to Japan.
You sound like a sore loser. Don’t be, they have an excellent chance of returning to Japan next year. It will be interesting to watch.
The only reason some Rayados fans even showed a remorse of interest was because all the bragging the Tigres fans were making in the city. Do you know how it feels to have your cross-town rivals having the tournament of their existence when your own was pure failure? It sucks and depressing. When you failed to qualify for playoffs and your arch-rivals are winning the domestic championship, it obviously forces people to look up to other means of happiness.
With all honesty I don’t care for this tournament. Maybe some people do, but I think it is just a bunch of money grabbing over glorified friendly’s. I’ll give you two reasons.
1) The true world club champions are Uefa’s champion’s league winners. This tournament carries the best players and competition in the world. No team from Canada down to Argentina would survive if placed in this tournament. Do you honestly think Barcelona, the current UEFA champions will be playing 100% for the club world cup this year? To them this is a meaningless match. Back in the early days when it was the intercontinental match between South American and Europe it was more even and meaningful, but lets face it, European team budget and talent blows us out of the water. Even South Americans have to admit to this. Obviously it is because they have more money, but then again money control the sport.
2) The only international tournament I care for is Copa Libertadores. I respect every single South American rival and love their passion for the game. Despite it not being in our confederation I honestly wish Mexican teams and fans would give it their 100% in this. I would take the Libertadores trophy over the CONCACAF league and club world cup any day.
I might sound like a bitch but I speak my mind. My order of preference will always be our domestic league first followed by libertadores. Even if we would’ve of won this tourney, I still would’ve preferred a 5th star.
1) Barca are taking this damn seriously. Check out all the articles concerning the CWC on their site: http://www.fcbarcelona.com
I understand that the UEFACL is the toughest continental competition to win, but if they get isolated, the rest of the world football is doomed. It’ll be like baseball or basketball where no one is close to the NBA or MLB. Then the UEFA champs will start to be called world champs like usa sports does it. We don’t want that. Officially, this is how the world championship is decided. If Europe is so good, they should win it no problem. Until the CWC is cancelled, and the UEFA champ is officially declared world champ, we in the rest of the world should strive to win this title. Backing off just gives Europe more power, and we know they already have a ton.
2)You’re right, the CCL is ruined by the dinky usa teams involved. But as I said, the CWC has to be important for our football to stay relevant. I don’t want the Mex League to stay minor forever with no hope for advancement. Baseball and hoops leagues worldwide have no hope because they don’t have a true world championship. I don’t want that to happen to Mex.
I hope you embrace the CWC, because without it, the Mex league will weaken. CCL dominance is good advertising for our league. CWC appearances is good advertising. Every dollar counts. I want us to finally catch Brasil or Arg, and a CWC will help a lot, as opposed to only Lib opportunities.
LOL another overrated Mexican club is slapped back to reality and of course as always from Mexico their fans do not care. Of course if they would have one this tourney nobody would be able to shut them up about it.
LOL another overrated Barcelona team was slapped back to reality by a superior Chivas squad and of course as always from the World their fans do not care. Of course if Barcelona had destroyed Chivas nobody would be able to shut them up about it.
Get of our koks marikita
Mexicans just can’t keep up with this competition.
“Kashiwa rode their domestic championship form straight into the Club World Cup – it is impressive that Monterrey kept up with them and never looked overwhelmed.”
Is it really that “impressive” that they did not look “overwhelmed” by the Korean champions? I thought the standards for Mexican football were surely higher than that.
First, Kashiwa Reysol are a Japanese side. And keeping in mind that an off-beat Monterrey has been beaten twice by the Houston Dynamo (in 2009 and just this year), my point is that they did well not to succumb to Kashiwa’s superior form.
Re: Kashiwa Reysol – In the immortal words of Rick Perry, “oops”
Otherwise, I guess I just have issue with your use of the word “overwhelmed”. To me that means completely out of one’s league. When Seattle gave up 6 second half goals vs Man Utd, they were “overwhelmed”. I don’t see how that word can apply to a Mexican team playing a Kor…Japanese team, regardless of where those team are in their domestic schedules.
Just like the MLS spazzos have their demands for league changes… we want some changes in the FMF setup.. namely going to a single year long season with playoffs instead of two short seasons both with playoffs.
In my heart I believe the Mexican league is handily superior to the J-League & every African league but saying so without competitive proof would make me sound like some MLS retard…. hopefully Televisa has the courage to improve the league setup.
Monterrey with 5th place smh.
Monterrey have still way outperformed MLS squads at the Club World Cup… not even close.
Hopefully we see more exposure of this tournament now that the Santos-Barca matchup is set.
And did anyone see the goalie for Al-Sadd in the semis vs Barca? that was horrific. I’m not going to say that the Qatari’s paid him to throw the game but my god that was pathetic.
Barcelona and Santos will be the game of the year possibly many years, hopefully everyone will get to watch it.
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