International Soccer update

[andrewjackson]

First a little background. CONCACAF is the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football. It is the regional authority for soccer in our part of the world. National teams qualify for the World Cup through CONCACAF and the confederation also runs some club competitions.

Right now there are two CONCACAF competitions going on for men's soccer; the CONCACAF Champions' League and World Cup qualifying. The Champions' League brings together the top club teams from across the confederation for a tournament that is played with mid-week games during the regular season. It is modeled on the European UEFA Champions' League which is hugely popular around the world.

The group stage of the CONCACAF Champions' League is going on right now. Houston is in a group with UNAM Pumas of Mexico, Firpo of El Salvador, and San Francisco FC of Panama. Those teams play each other twice (home and away) over the next few weeks and the top two teams from the group advance to the next round which will take place next spring. DC United is also in the tournament from the U.S. along with the Montreal Impact from Canada and the Puerto Rico Islanders plus 9 other teams mostly from Mexico and Central America.

Last night the Houston Dynamo got a historic result in the CCL. 13 times in the past Major League Soccer teams had went down to Mexico to play games in various competitions and 13 times the Mexican club teams had won. But not last night. Houston tied UNAM Pumas 4-4 at University Olympic stadium in Mexico City. OK, it's a tie, not a win but no team had ever even done that in the past.

Both teams played a lot of reserve players since both have league games this Saturday. Pumas is in 3rd place in the Mexican Premier Division and Houston is currently in 1st in the Western Conference of MLS but neither team has much breathing room.

Houston started off the game by scoring two goals in the first 16 minutes but Pumas came right back and tied up the game. Houston got one more goal but Pumas scored two more to lead 4-3 at halftime. That's right. 7 goals in the first half! It was a very fast paced game with both teams doing just non-stop attacking. We didn't figure that we could keep up that pace especially at the high altitude of Mexico City. Lots of worry among Dynamo fans that we wouldn't be able to come back. But about 5 minutes into the 2nd half Houston scored again to tie the game 4-4 and then held on to get the tie!

Just a tie but a big deal in soccer. That puts the Dynamo in 2nd place in our group after 2 of the 6 games have been played. We'll face San Francisco next Tuesday here in Houston after tying them in Panama last week. Then on October 22 we get the return match in Houston against Pumas. It should be interesting. The Firpo games are in El Salvador on October 28 and then a re-scheduled game due to Hurricane Ike in Houston on November 26.

Let's Go, Dynamo!

[andrewjackson]

The other CONCACAF competition going on is World Cup qualifying for 2010. CONCACAF gets 3.5 teams into the World Cup. The ".5" means that the 4th place team from CONCACAF goes into a playoff with the 5th place team from South America.

There are 35 national teams in CONCACAF that try to get to the World Cup. We have four rounds of competitions to narrow that down to the 3.5 winners. So far the first two rounds have narrowed the field to 12 teams. Those 12 were divided into three groups of four teams each who then play a round-robin home and away. The top two from each group advance to the final group of 6 next year.

After three games played in round three the U.S. has three wins in Group 1 and is almost guaranteed advancement to the final Hex. Mexico is leading Group 2 also with three wins. Canada is in that group and has just about been eliminated. They only have 1 tie in the three games and still have to travel to Honduras and Jamaica. Their only home game left is against Mexico. Costa Rica is leading Group 3 with three wins.

Those three; USA, Mexico, and Costa Rica are the most likely to get to the World Cup but you never know what will happen in the final round. And that 4th place spot is wide open.

[silverscreenselect]

After three games played in round three the U.S. has three wins in Group 1 and is almost guaranteed advancement to the final Hex. Mexico is leading Group 2 also with three wins. Canada is in that group and has just about been eliminated. They only have 1 tie in the three games and still have to travel to Honduras and Jamaica. Their only home game left is against Mexico. Costa Rica is leading Group 3 with three wins.

If I recall, the US played two of its first three games on the road, with only Trinidad (probably the toughest team in its group) at home. Mexico has played all three of its games at home, so the US record is more impressive than that of Mexico (which recently changed its coach).

[andrewjackson]

After three games played in round three the U.S. has three wins in Group 1 and is almost guaranteed advancement to the final Hex. Mexico is leading Group 2 also with three wins. Canada is in that group and has just about been eliminated. They only have 1 tie in the three games and still have to travel to Honduras and Jamaica. Their only home game left is against Mexico. Costa Rica is leading Group 3 with three wins.

If I recall, the US played two of its first three games on the road, with only Trinidad (probably the toughest team in its group) at home. Mexico has played all three of its games at home, so the US record is more impressive than that of Mexico (which recently changed its coach).

You are correct about the home and road games so far. I don't know if I'd compare the U.S. and Mexico much based on that but the nice thing is that it doesn't really matter. We will both advance and then in Hex it makes no difference who comes in 1st or 2nd as long as you are in the top three.

Canada is the team in real trouble. I thought they had a good chance to get to the final six but they are just about dead. If they don't win at Honduras on October 11 they will be eliminated. Houston Dynamo fans follow Canada closely because we have two Canadian national team members on our team; Dwayne DeRosario and Pat Onstad. We have kind of mixed feelings about this. We want our players to do well but it also causes problems for us when they are off playing for Canada rather than for the Dynamo. There will be some relief around here if Canada is eliminated because that means those guys will be available for more Houston games.