Columbus, Ohio, soccer fans rolled over and burned the city’s garbage can in celebration after the Crew won its first Major League Soccer title 3-1 over Red Bull New York on Sunday in Carson, Calif.
It’s the first pro sports title for the city. Forgive them for getting a little excited.
The Crew was the other team on Sunday that never made a final in league history. ESPN had promoted the game as New York’s first MLS Cup appearance. But then again it’s not the first time ESPN has overlooked the small-market team in any sport.
It was not a bad final. New York, the eighth and lowest seed in the playoffs, with a goalkeeper who played his first pro game about a month ago, made a game of it against the top seed.
Forget Beckham. Turns out, young soccer players should be learning to bend it like Schelotto. Guillermo Barros Schelotto assisted on all three goals to earn the game’s MVP award. Schelotto had 19 assists during the season.
World Cup qualifying: Americans should give Mexico another cold reception
The U.S. soccer team faced two draws that determined the bulk of their competitive schedule for 2009.
The first was good. They open the final round of CONCACAF qualifying at home against Mexico on Feb. 11.
That means the U.S. gets to make the Mexicans play in a cold-weather city, which they hate and will probably throw in the towell. The U.S.-Mexico home qualifier likely will be played in Columbus for the third time in a row.
The second draw wasn’t so good. The Americans got the tougher group in next summer’s Confederations Cup in South Africa — the dress rehearsal for the 2010 World Cup.
The U.S. will play World Cup champion Italy, Brazil and Egypt.
The other group consists of Spain, South Africa, Iraq and New Zealand. Two of those three teams won’t even qualify for the World Cup, and South Africa likely wouldn’t, except they are the home team.
It’s good for the Americans to play tough opponents, but it will be difficult to make the top two and advance to the semifinals from that group.
Catania takes it off
Italian Serie A club Catania gained world-wide attention for having a player drop his shorts in order to screen the goalkeeper on a free kick.
The ploy worked, as Catania scored on the play during a 3-2 victory over Torino.
Coach Walter Zenga devised the plan and players said he had them work on it in practice.
That might be more information about Catania’s practices than we need to know.
Zenga coached the New England Revolution in 1999, and thankfully did not experiment with the shorts-dropping maneuver.
This play should be cautioned by the referee, for two reasons: removing a piece of the uniform, or trickery (unsporting behavior).