The bad - the US got it's clock cleaned by Mexico 4-0. No Olympics for us. The good - Marshall, Buddle, Wingert, and Martino will all be available to us this summer (with the exception of Martino and Buddle missing games for WCQs).
i would rather the crew win the mls cup then the us do anything in the olympics. so although i wanted them to win, this is good stuff indeed for our summer.
Just my opinion, but I've always seen the Olympics as an afterthought in this sport. Wiith the WC and all the international youth tourneys it has never been a big deal. Good for the Crew - fewer ridiculous "amateur" distractions. I'm sure the players would have enjoyed it though... Martino et. al. need to play in the real deal - not some made for TV kinda,sorta youth deal at the expense of their teams.
We'll have Testo,Martino and Buddle for the summer which is good but I'm not too confident in Marshall and Wingert now. They were owned 3 out of the 4 games so I just can't see them stepping in and helping us out right away. We better get use to seeing Fraser and Clark rome the middle of the backline for most of the season.
I;m glad I'm not the only one having trouble getting all worked up over this. I know the players really wanted to participate in an Olympics (who wouldn't) and I'm sorry for them, but for me, I'd rather they were playing with the Crew.
Well, the counterpoint is that more Americans pay attention to the Olympics than the World Cup - and Olympic success (measured in a medal) would bring a bit of attention to American soccer and perhaps MLS. Yeah, it's a U23 tournament, and it doesn't really mean much, but Joe Sixpack doesn't know that. It seemed to me - not that you can know much of anything via the MatchTracker - that Borchers was the problem in central defense during qualifying. I guess we'll find out in 6 weeks.
I kept on comparing it to a JV game. It would have been nice to win, but I'll settle for the Crew having their players and for the US beating Mexico when it matters. Besides that their is a lesson learned, never trust the national team to a DC United midfielder.
But it's not like they were going to put much of it on TV anyway. Not when they can run wall-to-wall voyeuristic pedophelia ("womens" (ie. baby girls) gymnastics) and the quarterfinals of the Men's 4 X 400 Team Medley until you want to rip your eyeballs out of your skull. The most soccer was ever going to get, up to a Gold Medal game, was a 30 second blurb on the midnight Greg Gumbell trying to look sober wrapup show. I saw a couple clips on ESPN News this morning, and both of them featured Borchers ballwatching and letting his mark get goalside of him for an easy goal.
Over on the DC boards, there's athread called "DC U23 vs. Mexico", since there were five Scum players on the team. I'm sure I've been flamed like a Japanese pillbox, but I couldn't resist pointing out that while they had five guys there, the Crew had two starters (Marshall and Wingert) to their one (Convey). And although Eskandarian came on in the second half, if Buddle hadn't been sent home imjured Esky wouldn't have gotten on since the first forward off the bench would have been Eddie Johnson. Further, if Martino had been available we probably would have had FOUR starters to their one, in addition to having five overall (Testo) The only place they would have outnumbered us would have been the bench.
That defense gave up 10 goals...I would assume however that Marshall and Wingert's affiliation to the Crew means that they were all world class.
Let's give Mexico credit. They beat us. Let's root for Mexico and Costa Rica to do well since they represent CONCACAF and we need to show the Eurosnobs that this part of the world plays pretty darn good soccer.
Honestly, since the US failed to qualify, I doubt I'll pay much attention to the Olympic soccer tournament. I'm sure I'll catch the scores and stuff, but my interest is slightly above that of who won the latest PBA stop.
Haha! Well, if they weren't World Class, we can all be assured that they were at least Massive!! Also, piss on Mexico AND the Ticos.
Cheer for Mexico? That's like cheering for the Scum. *#*#*#*#*#*# no i won't do that. off to a side note (and i'll just say i didn't see any olympic games) but it seems that convey just disappears in big games. i mean he showed well against Panama and Canada, but apparently our midfield couldn't complete simple passes v Mexico, and who was the maestro? and not to mention his very flaky and shaky performances at times in a US kit. and DC pudwhackers lurking here: don't even reply. this is a preemptive: "Piss off!!"