^Was absolutely painful to watch. Classic rusty side can't finish...they were the better side for almost the entire game until the red card. And they will likely be bounced. Brutal. My watch showed that Columbus is legit and will be a threat in the league. MLS in (likely) danger of having no teams in the semis. Looks like LigaMX took their losses in Leagues Cup pretty darn seriously (and the futility against the National Team probably plays in here too). You guys see Monterrey complained to the refs on MLS bias? I don't have enough eyerolls.
The rust is an issue along with MLS teams being offensively minded when it comes to their rosters. There is no clear balance with most team that are top-heavy. That needs to be adjustrd if we are going to enter into international competitions and tournaments. But yeah, we started this CCC when MLS teams had hardly 3 match days while MX teams had like 9 or 10 (I forgot.) The Crew did themselves no favor also by sitting Cucho who is their best striker with 4 goals and 1 assist so far. Coach Wilfried has been asked repeatedly but they wont say what happened with Hernandez. He has had a suspension in the past for calling player "p#&0" which is a gay slur but very common word used in latin-american countries and he did that back in '22 when maybe he wasn't aware of the US culture regarding things like that. I am not suggesting that's what he did this time. But breaking off the tip of your spear going into battle is no conducive to good results.
CCC disciples, tomorrow the bloodshed continues: Tigres UANL hosts our champion Columbus Crew, tied 1-1, GO CREW! Club America receive New England Revolution for the kill, America up 4-nil
Wednesday CCC quarters wrap up: Pachuca hosts Herediano, 5-0 Pachuca leading far and away Monterrey host Inter Miami, Monterrey leading 2-1 Should be interesting to watch Miami who will most likely start Messi as he saw action in MLS this past weekend. Add to that some little hurt feelings as Monterrey staff said some off color comments to the press after a run-in after first leg in locker room. “Monterrey coach calls Messi a dwarf, Martino dumb Audio has now come out from Monterrey assistant coach Nico Sanchez. The coach went into detail on the altercation and how it stemmed from Messi and Martino taking offense to the referees on the night. “When I’m at the door to the locker room I see Messi three meters from where I am,” Sanchez said. “I approach him to ask for a photo, his security, in good spirits, stops me, and I notice Messi is heated. Right then, the referees were coming in, and Messi gets in their face and tells them off. And next to him was Tata Martino. Both were very out of pocket. If we did that, they’d send us to hell.” “Officials from Concacaf were there and I told them, if we were to do that, they’d kick us all out. When I said that, Tata Martino who was going into the locker room turned around and started yelling at me, and Messi appeared and wanted to eat me alive! His security approached but didn’t do anything because I didn’t react. The dwarf was possessed, he had the face of the devil. He put his fist next to my face and said, ‘Who do you think you are?’ But because I didn’t look at him, I was looking away, I never answered back, it made things worse. Sanchez is alleging to the fact that if Monterrey and its coaching staff or players harangued the officials after the game CONCACAF would not hesitate to stomp the Mexican side. The assistant coach said as much to CONCACAF officials in the tunnel area where this all happened. That is when Martino and Messi overheard Sanchez’s comments, and the coach went into detail on the emotions of the two Argentines. “And Tata Martino, what a poor dummy, I had him in front of me telling me, ‘Fool, you going to cry? Fool you going to cry?’ What a dummy!”
I don't have a problem with Messi and Tata's anger at the officials - they are competitive, and we don't know what triggered that reaction. But if Tata actually said that to the Monterrey coach then he is a first-class a-hole bully. But when you only hear one side, who knows?
America 9 - Revolution 2 Revolution give up the ghost playing with their youngsters to a final score of 9-2 against a Club America team that just toyed with them. Columbus Crew win on penalties and eliminate Tigres in their own home turf. It went a little bit like this: The name is Patrick Schulte. Young 22 year old keeper that makes an infantile mistake of trying to dribble past Gignac in front of his goal and pays a bitter price early on to put Crew down 1-0. But the team shakes it off and continues to play very well, slightly outplaying Tigres for much of the match. But Tigres has excellent players and I was sure Tigres had a scoring counter in them at some point but that moment never comes and The Crew hold for 90 minutes. Enter extra time with players dead on their feet on both sides. I was sure Tigres had a winning goal in them but that also, never comes. PK time I was fit to be tied. Gignac starts it off and young Schulte over there, blocks him. Just like that! Rossi makes his goal and we go to bald Pizarro who looks as serious as a heart attack but Schulte plugs that one also followed by a score from Crew Russell Crowe and I am thinking that’s it, they are not coming back from two missed PKs unless Crew chokes and with some of these young players on the field it was a possibility. To make a long story short it comes down to Cucho Hernandez and if he makes his shot, it’s over! It's Cucho, right? But not to be, Cucho hits the post but we still are one pk ahead. Final winning shot slammed in by Arften and El Volcan went dormant for good. Tigres is eliminated at home on PKs and their dream of World Club Championship is DOA. I knew The Crew and Wilfried Nancy would find a way. Good team, good coach and with that combo, anything is possible. Good game!
Oh yeah, and that Revs-v-America score is aggregate. Also forgot to mention it was Diego Rossi who scored the equalizing goal for the Wrew. Or that their goaly, Schulte, kept Crew in the game with a couple very nice saves during regulation making up for that awful initial blunder. Intense match, I was cramping up.
Herediano goes down to 2-1 to Pachuca, 7-1 on agg. Miami as you saw, goes down 3-1 to Monterrey. 5-2 of agg. Inter with Messi was a mess. Completely overwhelmed by the MX side. At no point showing signs of life. Callender's blunder was unfortunate but I am still blown away with this Miami team playing so shitty. Even with Messi and all the starters! Not a single goal in the run of play? Very ugly performance by Inter. Poor Becks had to witness that. Yordi and The Count making asses of themselves just adds to the general embarrasment. Quarters are done. The semis shake out like so: America vs Pachuca Columbus vs Monterrey Columbus has their work cut out for them. Impossible is just an opinion, right? If Monterrey win the tourney, Philadelphia qualifies for the FIFA World Club Championship because Monterrey has already qualified and Leon has also qualified. Philly is third in ranking so it falls to them to go.
Two of the 3 goals Miami gave away were from careless turnovers right in front of the goal. The gk’er mistake was atrocious but the 2nd one was another unforced giraway and almost as bad. You can’t go into Mexico and spot Monterrey 2 goals and expect anything other than disaster.
Just one bad facet of the match for Inter and their keeper. The sloth of ball movement and play buildup was mostly pathetic on the field. It looked like a pre-season effort from Miami.
Miami vs SKC was played at Arrowhead and they hit 72,610 fans, enough for 4th on the all time list. (Note that despite "Messi", Galaxy are still responsible for the top 2, El Trafico last season #1 and Charlotte FC's home opener). Messi did have a really good goal, though, so at least it wasn't a boring 0-0 draw. You want to see the attendance and ratings to get the really good games, not the boring ones.
This list hasn't been updated to reflect #4 yet, but what I love about this list, is Atlanta fans bragging about holding #3-10. Considering they're making July 4th El Trafico @ The Rose Bowl into a yearly thing now, that won't hold for long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer_attendance
Suarez should never have been allowed to play a professional game of football again after the second biting incident, let alone be in a position to bite a third person. Any regular job and you’d be fired on the spot, probably unemployable in your industry and likely subject to criminal and civil prosecution.
I was seriously impressed by Columbus watching their CCC performance. Nancy is a solid coach. Not surprised they extended him.
More impressive when you think they had suspended Cucho for one of those games and the restraints of the salary cap in this league that does not allow for much depth. Unlike the top MX teams.
I know many of you don’t like the attention Miami is getting but they remain a fun team to watch. Messi is healthy and on fire. Yesterday they put a 3-1 beating on a very good Nashville team (I dont care what their record says - Nashville plays some beautiful, intense soccer). The Messi to Busquets goal from a corner kick is as beautiful as it gets - it was literally undefendable. Check it out if you haven’t seen it. Watching an in-form Messi ply his trade in our league is such a privilege. And several other Miami players are not slouches either.