The Rose Bowl in Pasadena will host the CONCACAF Gold Cup playoff between Mexico and the United States to determine which team will travel to Russia for the Confederations Cup in 2017. USA manager Jurgen Klinsmann will look to erase the memory of his team’s failure over the summer at the Gold Cup while remaining undefeated against Mexico.
Europe is populated with incredible Latin American footballers like Lionel Messi, Edinson Cavani, Neymar, Luis Suarez, James Rodriguez, Radamel Falcao and past legends like Diego Maradona, Falcao (the Brazilian one), Diego Forlan and Hugo Sanchez. Rarely do people think about Latin American goalkeepers in Europe, but there's a sizeable population of them.
On the trail of Uruguayan Ladislao Mazurkiewicz and Brazilian Claudio Taffarel, an interesting group of goalkeepers from Latin America shines in European leagues right now.
When we were strapping young youth soccer players, our coaches would tell us not to argue with the ref. They were adamant about this: no arguing with the ref, under any cicumstances. No matter how bad the call was, no matter how wronged we thought we had been, we were not allowed to argue with the ref.
Now, we know why. Our coaches probably thought they were teaching us about sportsmanship or something, but they were really teaching us not to get shot, which, we think, is at least as valuable if, not more.
The prodigal son has returned, and then he left again two months later.
Brazilian club Fluminense announced Monday that they had terminated Dinho's contract at his consent, ending his second homecoming.
Not that they will miss him very much, as far as on the field production is concerned. Ronaldinho couldn't manage to score or assist a goal in nine appearances with Fluminense.
It has been a long road for Ronaldinho. Yet, the two-time FIFA World Player of the Year might be facing one of his toughest ever challenges in his second return to Brazil. The newest trial posed to Ronaldinho is to turn an apathetic Fluminense squad back into a winning club.
For Pete's sake, Neymar, do your taxes.
The Brazilian striker has had assets totalling $47.75 million frozen by a Brazilian court due to tax evasion charges.
Neymar makes about $14 million in salary and $17 million in endorsements. That is enough money for someone to live on even if he pays his taxes.
Mexico tied Argentina Tuesday, 2-2, in a lively match that got more interesting as it went. Mexico took a 2-0 lead into the 85th minute via a Chicharito Hernandez penalty kick and a nice shot from Hector Herrera, but Sergio Aguero and Lionel Messi proved too much for Mexico to contain near the end. Here are our takeaways.
It was mostly positive for Mexico, given they drew with one of the best teams in the world.
They played 85 minutes of solid soccer.
The USMNT's prospects for winning the Confederations Cup playoff next month against Mexico are not looking very good, if the team's form against Brazil Tuesday is any indication. Brazil annihilated the USMNT 4-1 behind two goals from Neymar. This is a result that demands a bit of wild speculation, which we are only too happy to deliver, in the form of positive and negative takeaways from the game.
There were quite a few negatives. Here are three.
Does Jurgen Klinsmann have any idea what he's doing?
Matias Alonso will probably not receive any sympathy from refs in the future after he hurled himself off a stretcher to waste time after "cramping up" in the late stages of Defensor Sporting's 4-3 win over Bolivian side Real Potosi in the Copa Sudamerica.
The term "fish out of water" doesn't really do justice to what Alonso attempts here, but it's the most accurate description we could think of.
It will be interesting to see if this sparks a trend of players flopping out of stretchers like an unsuspecting person being thrown in a pool.