Superliga Semifinals: Familiar Foes

For the fourth time in six­teen months, Hous­ton and Pachuca will face off in the knock out stages of a major inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions. Last year this same staged Pachuca used dogged deter­mi­na­tion and some con­tro­ver­sial offi­ci­at­ing to advance after win­ning a penalty kick shootout. This year, Hous­ton will be with­out lead­ing tour­na­ment goal scorer Stu­art Holden who has departed with the US Olympic Team for China and Patrick Ianni also on the Olympic Team. The Dynamo how­ever have been able to reg­is­ter new sign­ings, Kei Kamara, who recently fea­tured on Sierre Leone’s World Cup qual­i­fy­ing team and Nate Jaqua fresh from scor­ing five goals in ten games in the Aus­trian league for the knock out stages.

Chris­t­ian Jimenez con­tin­ues to play well despite his advanced age for the Tuzos. Bruno Mar­i­oni has had a great tour­na­ment and nobody would fancy Miguel Calero to get beat in a crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in a semi­fi­nal match. Pachuca has been the elite club in North Amer­ica over the past sev­eral years, and while Hous­ton bring a lot to the table, it’s dif­fi­cult to see them break­ing through tonight at Robert­son Stadium.

On another note, detrac­tors of this tour­na­ment should acknowl­edge the “Superliga hang­over” affect which ailed DC United and San­tos in the first com­pet­i­tive matches fol­low­ing uncer­e­mo­ni­ous dis­missals from this tour­na­ment. United was again humil­i­ated at home by Hous­ton last week and it took San­tos Laguna a full half to get accli­mated in its open­ing Aper­tura match this past week­end against Club America.

Back to tonight’s show­down. Houston’s weak­ness at the back will be the deci­sive blow for the MLS Cup cham­pi­ons’ hopes of adding Superliga to their tro­phy case. With Ianni gone, and Eddie Robin­son again show­ing his injury prone self, it’s going to be rough going. A key tonight if Hous­ton is to be suc­cess­ful will be the inten­sity of Rico Clark, mark­ing Gabriel Caballero and Chris­t­ian Jimenez, as well as the wide play of Brad Davis and Cory Ashe. While I’m pick­ing Pachuca, a win for Hous­ton would not shock me.

Pre­dic­tion: Pachuca 2 Hous­ton 1