IMO, Clint is too much of a "cherry picker". He'll take plays off and then play well for a while and then disappear again because he's out of gas. And sometimes he doesn't feel like pushing himself. He's not really a Paul Gascoigne, he's more of a Jeff George.
Well, Jeff George, after being out of football for three years is now going to be the QB for the Bears. If HE can get another chance, I am sure our man Cletus can get a second chance in Europe!
Your memory isn't wrong there - Mathis was on the ESPN Mag cover - at the center of a triumverate with Landon and DaMarcus in the background. And my fave title ever, "Why Not U.S.?" Which pretty much sums up my thinking on any debate on whether we can ever win the big competitions. Plus, the cover, with all three being MLS-based, really highlighted the arrival of MLS as a league developing top American talent.
And both of them said the comment (notice, not plural) was blown way out of proportion. Arena then made very public comments less than a year later about what good shape he was in. Man, I hate it when people dig up old news and exagerrate it for today's effect.
Ah, memories. . . It's funny the things you notice when you look back. Like I notice that DaMarcus is making sure the bling on his wrist gets into the photo.
Wow, if you read the subhead we actually DID do better than Italy, Portugal, France and Argentina! Brings back good memories of Korea 2002!
Some trolling thread, huh? A Jeff George? Seems a bit harsh. Hopefully he does get the chance to play again. Really thought he would but I suppose he's got some more waiting to do.
Erm, we didn't really do better than Italy. The rest, sure. Kinda surprised they didn't mention Brazil in that subheading, myself.
We did better than Italy. Italy got knocked out in the round of 16 by the ref inspired team from South Korea. Spain was the team that got knowkced out in the quarterfinals by the same ref inspired South Korea. Brazil wasn't mentioned because inexplicably those teams were considered more of pre-torunament favorites. France and Argentina I remember were the big two everyone was talking about. Teams we did roughly equally as well as: Spain, England, Senegal Teams who did better than us: Brazil, Germany, Turkey, South Korea Teams we did better than: everyone else.
Re: Some trolling thread, huh? Jeff George had his moments in the sun but overall had a very disappointing career which included being blackballed by the NFL. Mathis is facing similar choices after his falling out at Hanover. There is a lot of "could've -would've - should've" with both players.
Brazil probably wasn't seen as a favorite because they had a rather poor qualifying campaign leading up to the 2002 World Cup- they came in 4th place, just beating out Uruguay for the last automatic spot by a single point. They were behind Argentina, Paraguay, and Ecuador in the standings. They lost 6 matches, suffering losses to Paraguay, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, Argentina, and perhaps biggest of all, a 3-1 loss to Bolivia. So it's not that big a surprise they weren't considered a favorite, because France, Argentina, et al had more successful qualifying campaigns. Between Germany (who had to qualify via playoff against Ukraine if I remember correctly) and Brazil I guess we learned to never count out the big teams just because they're having a bad spell. Sorry to go off topic here. As far as Mathis to RSL goes, when Andy Williams was interviewed on ESPN during the expansion draft I remember him saying the Mathis possibility had been discussed with him but he didn't say he had been promised Mathis was coming. Just said it was an exciting possibility or something like that.
I've got this poster on my wall. I've been a Mathis fan for awhile, and now suffer in silence at his current peccadillos, hoping for a return to form. I suppose it's a sign of how far things have sunk, that I'm currently deriving comfort from the comparison to Jeff George...I was fearing maybe someone would mention Ryan Leaf!