SORE LOSERS

From Superliga 2008.com

Nobody that I speak with will claim that Superliga has in any­way proven that MLS is some­how on par with the FMF. The gap that exists between the two leagues is still obvi­ous though it appears the gap may be clos­ing quite rapidly. But what this year’s Superliga has demon­strated is the sense of enti­tle­ment Mex­i­can clubs, play­ers and com­men­ta­tors have towards dom­i­nat­ing their Amer­i­can counterparts.

This Superliga has been an unfor­tu­nate event that most of the con­tro­ver­sial calls have gone against FMF sides. But I would argue in the last two CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons Cups the matches between FMF and MLS sides have been high­lighted by offi­cials calls that have gone against the MLS sides. The con­tro­versy that sunk Pachuca Tues­day night was a case of turn­about being fair play after what hap­pened last year at Esta­dio Hidalgo in the Cham­pi­ons Cup.

In that match the Hous­ton play­ers after their defeat did not try and start numer­ous fights after the match or to injure oppos­ing play­ers at the end of the match. What we see is a pat­tern in Mex­i­can Foot­ball: a pat­tern based on the sense of enti­tle­ment instilled by the Mex­i­can media and com­men­ta­tors on Span­ish lan­guage tele­vi­sion here in the United States. The sense of enti­tle­ment states that FMF sides must always beat MLS sides and that every US vic­tory over Mex­ico at the inter­na­tional level is some­how ille­git­i­mate and unworthy.

The behav­ior of the Atlante play­ers at the end of Wednes­day night’s game is clear exam­ple of the bit­ter­ness and anger Mex­i­can play­ers feel when shown up by Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts. The con­tin­ued attempts to injure Shal­rie Joseph, one of the best play­ers per­haps ever pro­duced by the US col­lege sys­tem and our domes­tic league were pathetic but rem­i­nis­cent of the attempt by Osvaldo Sanchez to injure Eddie John­son late in the 2–0 US win over Mex­ico in Phoenix. They were also rem­i­nis­cent of the class­less­ness shown by the Mex­i­can National Team play­ers towards the end of the 2002 World Cup 2nd round match where Cobi Jones and Eddie Lewis were both con­sis­tently abused by rough, unsport­ing play after the sec­ond US goal. When the tables turn on Mex­i­can foot­ballers and their faults are shown, they react like lit­tle spoiled chil­dren whose egos have been bruised and whose self con­cept has been so dam­aged almost out of fear of what the delu­sional media back home will say about them. In a word it is pathetic.

CHICAGO BEATS EVERTON 2–0

Pre-season friend­lies don’t mean a whole lot but nonethe­less this is a nice score­line for MLS. Chris Rolfe and Tomasz Frankowski scored goals for Chicago as Ever­ton played many of its first team play­ers for most of the match.