Here's some clips from a game my family and I attended in Toronto in 2007. The scorers of two of the goals in that game have been in the news a lot in the past week, neither for good reason. At least nobody got bitten in the 2nd video
Great vids, thanks. Michael was a fiesty sort wasn't he? I remember when we used to talk about him being as red card likely during big games. Haven't seen that side of him for a while. I wonder if when he lost something in terms of his edge when that part of his behavior was overcome? I also think we have to contextualize or discussions a bit when we (by we I mean me) remember one act in one game (albeit a hugely important one) to remember all that Michael has done for our program over the years. Massively important figure for US Soccer, and will be for years to come. I also happen to believe that he's saving his best for Germany.
His last major outburst (well, besides Wynalda, which is understandable with that dick), was off field confrontation of the ref that red carded him vs. Spain at CC 2009. What was it? a 3-5 game suspension from FIFA (served by not going to the Gold Cup).
And more importantly, it kept him off the field for the final against Brazil. Of all the factors leading to our loss to Brazil, I felt that MB's absence was the biggest one.
I just looked that tournament up on Wikipedia out of curiosity--the ref from that Uruguay game is the same guy who worked the US-Germany game today!
Stunning to see how many of those guys never progressed much, if at all, beyond that level. We had such such high hopes for them. Edit: Also the cycle Rongen excluded Subotic from the squad, IIRC. Julian Valentin. Yeah, Julian Valentin.