"When you lose doing what we did, you can't be sad," Mexico coach Hugo Sanchez said. "It bothers me, sure. But when you look at how we did in the tournament, we got a lot better and we deserved a better result. Sometimes the team that plays better doesn't always win." How many times are we going to hear that from the Mexicans after we beat them? Every time...
Even then, we had our fair share of chances and they got saved by some great stops from Oswaldo Sanchez. Overall though, a typical Hugo Sanchez load of crap.
Yes, and if we had finished better we could have beat them 3-1 or 4-1 in the last 40 minutes. Every time we beat Mexico it's the same old excuses from Mexico. You know, Mexico is probably the better team. But that doesn't mean much if they can't get results.
Honestly I couldn't care less what Mexico thinks or what they say about their losses after the fact. Obviously, I would prefer it if we could have a better relationship with them and they respected us more, but really it doesn't even matter. We had the way more scoring chances in this game than they did (I can recall two woodwork hits and 2 or 3 times that dempsey got saved at point blank range and I know there was even more than just those). As far as posession goes, they had the brunt i think, but we looked more creative and better at stringing together pretty passes that led to chances. So to say they played better i believe is just wrong - both teams put out a valient effort and created a fantastic match to watch, but USA created more close chances and thus had 2 goals to their 1. And ultimately the point is WE are the kings of CONCACAF now and we need to move on from our region and prove more to the world. We have cemented our dominance here for a few years now, we must keep moving forward and eventually the respect will come, not that it even really matters I don't care about being respected, just about winning matches and tourneys.
I watched Univision after the game and fans were writing in complaining about the refereeing and that the US did not deserve to win. HOWEVER, the announcers and reporters all quickly disagreed with those sentiments and went on to say that the US has a great team with great players and they deserved to win because they outscored Mexico. I was very pleasantly surprised! At least some people recognize it for what it is. A passionate contest between two good teams and the US has dominated Mexico over the last decade. Nice to hear that from some more level-headed opposing fans. They did go on to say that the US team is Everyone's team.
The ref!!!! The field!!!! We were focused on shopping!!! Jet-lag b/c we have sooooo many Euro stars, who -- by the way -- lead their teams to championships... 'cuz you need a Mexican't to win a championship!!!! Another day, another excuse. Having said that, I will say that the overall tenor of this round is FINALLY laced w/ a much higher level of respect. It seems that most ppl on the street (I haven't dared venture over to the Mexican't boards) are rightfully proud of their team b/c they played well and the US is a solid team. Honestly, Mexico has nothing to be ashamed of. The players should just know that they let the pk get them down. Their reaction to the pk -- i.e.... nothing but bowing their heads in frustration -- was the main problem. But hey. We know that all too well given our experience last summer against Ghana.
Both teams played well enough to win, but there's no way Mexico outplayed the US. Both sides had scoring chances, but I felt that the US had a few more quality ones, including two wide open nets where the posts were hit, two point blank shots from Dempsey, and one from Beasley. On most days, at least one of those goes in, and maybe even 2 or 3. Mexico's best chance was the point blank shot late in the game that was put over the crossbar. Other than that, they had good chances, but not too many as good as the ones I described above. Our defense converged on a few other good chances in the box.
I went to the stadium. It was great even though we lost. The streets were crazy. After the game i was walking back to were me and my friends parked. And a bus full of US fans came by us with flags. They started chanting and we chanted back at them. The cops taught we were arguing, but then they noticed we were just playing around. The very first goal i taught "Man we could finally beat them". But then came the penalty and then that great volley. In the last 5 minutes of the game bofo had a good chance to score but Howard blocked it The stadium was great only complain i have is the bathrooms. Only one person could go in at a time, they didn't have those big bathrooms. At halftime when i went to sue the bathroom there was a line of about 20 people. It took the whole 15 mins of the halftime for me to be able to use the bathroom.
and the awesome block by Howard that saved the game at the end... I could'nt believe it, great reflexes.
"They deserve to the No. 1 team in CONCACAF," Mexican striker Cuauhtemoc Blanco said. "They played well, but we had a number of chances. We just didn't take advantage of our opportunities." nice to hear
Of course there was probably no line at the womens rest rooms, as there are twice as many and only half as many users. I feel your pain!
I think it was actually a pretty even match. But, if I had to say who "played" better, ignoring the goals, I would probably say Mexico.
Yeah when FIFA 07 does that to me I usually wind up in broken controller peril. But I guess seeing Feilhaber score in a "no way in hell" way and then seeing Howard make a "no way in hell" save, I should be more tolerant of the game; it's closer to real life than I give it credit for. Mexico needs to make an adjustment and stop bombing everyone forward with Beasley and Donovan (and Mapp and Eddie Johnson and Altidore) on the field. We're going to continue to nail them on the break and they have to respect our attack a little more. Their defense is what let them down today, they gave us a ton of chances by leaving their backs exposed.
You should've seen how excited i was. But oh well, i guess we have to wait until Copa America. I'm tired of loosing.
Interesting turn of events: earlier in the tourney we were outplaying our opponents, only to let up in the last 20-25 minutes. This time we went into over-drive for most of the 2nd half. This was the best US-Mex match in a very long time -- maybe in 10 years. The WC qualifier back in Foxboro in '97 was a wild match that ended in a 2-2 draw. If Beas had tapped in that excellent cross from Landon, Sanchez would have had less to say. 3-1 would speak for itself.