Good evening folks. The New England Revolution puts its unbeaten SuperLiga record on the line tonight against Mexican champions Atlante in the SuperLiga semifinal at Gillette Stadium. The winner of tonight’s match (8pm, Telefutura) takes on the Houston Dynamo in the second-annual SuperLiga final.
New England has looked sharp in SuperLiga play but will have to beat Atlante without its best defender, U.S. Olympic team defender Michael Parkhurst.
If you don’t have Telefutura, you can watch the game online at http://www.superliga2008.com/videoaudio/
If you will be watching tonight’s game, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below. I will be watching and commenting but won’t be doing a full running commentary.
Enjoy the match.
I’m not positive but I think each semifinal team gets some small purse, so why not the tourney organizers hand out fines and take it from the whole team’s winnings? That way they all suffer for some disrespectful behavior on their teamates’ behalf. The TV ratings already paid off handsomely in Mexico news coverage with the brawl, so I’m sure they’re fine with it…
@silent e – Just for your reference, I’m a San Jose Dynamo fan, so I wasn’t dissing them. Not saying that I agree that Pachuca played better, but they were not dominated throughout the game, so psycologically they can say to themselves that they played better and move on – Atlante can’t even say that to themselves and that’s why they acted out like that.
Let’s compare this to dating – MLS teams are the average looking girl that isn’t ugly but isn’t cute either. Pachuca got rejected, but they were spinning some respectable game. Atlante got pimp slapped. Who do you think will feel better?
Actually Alex, I was going to mention that your plan was the same thinking that led to the housing/mortgage mess :), but Scott beat me to it.
Scott,
thanks i never knew anybody paid attention to what I write . I got so upset that I got it backwards. Actually the Mexican coaches are the ones that play “short”. On the other hand they don’t have many tall choices.
Alex
@alex:
“I would like to buy all Mexican players, mexican teams, and the Mexican national team for what they think that they are worth and sell them for wht they are really work.”
Alex, do you work in the financial industry? Unless you’re a short seller, I think you’ve got it backwards.
I would like to buy all Mexican players, mexican teams, and the Mexican national team for what they think that they are worth and sell them for wht they are really work. I have never in my life seen people try so hard to be so unsuccesful.They all need a huge reality check.
Joe Quake: did you really watch the whole Pachuca-Dynamo game? Really? Pachuca can comfort themselves by saying they played better? They did, from minutes 45-60. Minutes 61-75 were even, and the rest of the game was Houston’s. Cold comfort for Pachuca. Yes, a legitimate goal was disallowed but that stuff happens all the time. You know the saying, you have to be so good the referee doesn’t matter.
Isaac: did you have a bad experience with Dish? Maybe you ought to fact check before you post. Dish does have Setanta sports (ch 406). Why do you think they previewed it last summer, to take it away? No, it was to get you hooked and then charge you for it. Like any good dealer, the first time’s free :). I agree it’s too expensive, but I believe that is the fault of Setanta, not Dish (it’s the same price on DirecTV). They also have GolTV (ch 407) and FSC (ch 149), both available as part of standard packages. Are there other soccer channels I should be getting?
I’m no whore for dish, though. I am pretty annoyed that they cancelled their VoomHD programming without so much as a notice for those of us who loved those channels. By the way, Joe D, World Sport with its excellent coverage of La Liga is part of Voom, so that’s gone now.
BFBS: Really? “the biggest rivalry in North America”? Two chippy games (1 a friendly) are going to wipe out the history of CD Guadalajara-Club America? Any of the passionate local clasicos in Mexico? Even semi-manufactured MLS rivalries such as Dynamo-FCD, LA-SJ, Fire-FCD, RSL-Rapids, or DC-NY are more serious than that. I admit to being intrigued by the likely meeting of NE and Atlante in the Champions League but let’s keep it in perspective.
Wow, what a mess after the game. The Atlante players were clearly pissed off and I hope CONCACAF comes down on them for losing their cool.
Not sure if the ref was bought but it seemed NE was to win that game. The disallowed goal for non-existent off side was the first indication. Second was Laurentowitz’s ball handling in the box that went unpunished.
So when MLS is in preseason the Mexican teams are better. When the Mexican teams are in preseason the MLS teams win. However, as an MLS fan since ’96 I have to say we ‘aint’ good enough yet. To me it seems the Mexican teams still have the better players who connect better with passes and in finishing. We have good defense and very athletic players. In time we will fix those problems. For now, we can take those wins any way we can.
To the credit of the first Mexican soccer broadcasters I’ve ever seen criticize Mexican players and teams for their conduct vs the USA or MLS, in last night’s ‘Futbol Picante’ (a Mexican roundtable discussion on the day’s events broadcast on ESPN Deportes), they discussed the match thouroughly. So I decided to watch for once. To my surprise, they SOUNDLY criticized Pachuca and Atlante for their antics, as well as mentioning what we all know already, that this type of behavior is absolutely nothing new with Mexican teams in general. They went on to implore Mexican teams to learn not only how to win, but how to lose. They gave NE and Houston full credit and praised their play. They also questioned the importance of Mexican teams participating in the tournament to begin with, lamented the quality (or general lack thereof) of the reffing in CONCACAF, blamed the inability to lose properly on Atlante and Pachuca proper, on ref inability to control the game, and insightfully, on the fact that should they act up & fight or foul away, there are no consequences of importance for the players and the teams, so they do what they want anyways. Most of all, they lamented over and over again leaving the US not only without a trophy, but without their sporting dignity. I was shocked.
Now I don’t know what that discussion is like normally. And I know one of the roundtable members seemed to blame the flare-ups solely on the ref. But he got shot down quickly.
For the first time I can remember, I heard Mexican announcers telling it just like it was, no bias. Kudos to them.
lost in the post-game chaos is the fact that besides Joesph, some Revs played very well. Dube destroyed the man that was marking him several times, and Igwe looks like he could be quite good.
These teams have played twice (previous time was a friendly @Atlante) and there was a flurry of cards each time. A team from Cancun and a team from New England: the biggest rivalry in North America?
woops, also forgot to mention that you can get ESPN Deportes on DISH Network as well…
@ Isaac & IrisHapple21
Ok, you are both ridiculously incorrect with your stance on DISH Network and having no soccer channels. Both DirecTV and DISH Network have the SAME EXACT SOCCER CHANNELS!!!
I have DISH Network and it includes: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ABC, Gol TV, FSC, Galavision, Telefutura, Telemundo, Univision, the option to subscribe to the MLS Package, the option to get all regional local sports channels (like MSG, NESN, etc), the option to subscribe to Setanta Sports (for the same price as DirecTV charges), World Sport HD (if you have HD programming), and many many foreign language channels that you can subscribe to that show soccer like RAI (which DirecTV does NOT carry).
So I am really curious where this idea of DISH Network not having enough channels that show soccer comes from when they actually have more than DirecTV!
@Carlos
Card accumulation gets wiped after the group stage so the only Revs player to miss next Tuesday’s match will be Heaps.
Get ready for 8,000 of us crazy fans in New England! God I hate your stadium.
New England dominated the first half, Atlante came out in the second with a much tighter marking and physical play,although not dirty, until the last 10 minutes when it just became a mess. Even when Atlante was more forceful, though, they really didn’t create that much. So yeah, NE was really, really good last night.
Someone may have mentioned this already, but I didn’t see it. Atlante was clearly outplayed last night, so even with the bad call, they probably should have lost. At least Pachuca could comfort themselves by saying that they played better, but Atlante can’t pull that card. My guess is that is why they were so upset – they respected the tournament but not MLS clubs, so they feel like crap when they lose that badly.
I don’t think you can knock Chris Albright. What did he do? It looked as if he was attacked.
@ starks (10:13 pm)
“Whether its ken griffey jr miming the slicing of someone’s throat”
I’d be very curious to hear when/where this happened. I can’t imagine him doing this.
isaac: You are right about Dish Network and soccer. I bought a subscription to DirecTV because Dish Network didn’t offer any decent soccer action.
Just got back from the game as well… all of the ruckus really began in the second half when a Revs player was clearly down and injured. Atlante had possession and most of the players had stopped their runs/coverage etc. thinking the Atlante player was going to respectfully knock the ball out of bounds. He didn’t, and instead carried the ball quite a length down the field. The Revs had to desperately recover to avoid an in-the-box goal scoring opportunity.
That Atlante player showed deliberate disrespect for the game and for the Revs. It’s not the excuse for the ensuing behavior, but it surely sparked it.
Now that Heaps has a red, what on earth are the Revs going to do without him and Parkhurst against Houston?? Igwe – Larentowicz – Albright?
On a positive note, the fans that I observed during and after the game were seemingly respectful of one another. It felt like we had just watched a playground fight. It seemed as though the players had a true disliking for one another but it wasn’t more than that (nationalism stuff). After all, a number of the Revs starting line-up aren’t from the U.S…
I’m not a Revs fan, but I don’t understand the complaints about the refereeing. Yes, I know there were mistakes in the tournament; there are always mistakes. Tonight, the center ref missed a handball in the box against the Revs; like none of us have ever screamed at a referee for missing that, upset that we should have been awarded a PK? It happens — refs don’t see everything. But as for the cards, every card I saw tonight was 100% deserved, on both sides.
The referee for this match was Carlos Alberto Batres Gonzalez — generally considered to be the best referee in CONCACAF. I know that seems like damning with faint praise, but the point is that it’s absurd to suggest that with some different refs from CONCACAF in there, the refereeing would have been better.
Man, I love me some Superliga. This stuff is so exciting, I look forward to these games waaaay more than any MLS Matchup. There is just so much more on the line and it shows in the play. Plus, you have the country rivalry…what else could you ask for?
Shalrie was so impressive out there, especially his poise. Studly. I’m basically an MLS neutral, but NE really showed me something out there tonight. I used to think they were boring.
Does almost every MLS game end up in a scrum around the referee? No
Does almost every Mexican League game end up in a scrum around the referee? Yes
Enough said.
There was a lot of chippy stuff in the game. A few times with people squaring up in each others’ faces (e.g., after the play-on when Joseph was down, after the ball out of bounds on an injury restart, a few times in the box and after fouls). A few taunts and a fair amount of mouthiness. (Heaps, whose effort I love, loves to talk. I’m not passing any judgment good or bad on just him talking, but it did seem to get on a couple Atlante players’ nerves.) There were a few players who got into it more often than others. Heck, seeing their keeper down in Matt Reis’ face after the Revs were on Arreola for playing on was, um, interesting.
While I won’t defend the Atlante players or staff, I will say, never ever trust Brad Feldman.
The refereeing was shockingly bad and almost uniformly anti-Mexican throughout this whole tournament. I think the Atlante GK has a decent point.
I was listening to the end of the game on the radio on my way home from the pathetic red sox game. It seemed like Feldman (revs announcer) was taking any chance he could get to say how classless Atlante was throughout the whole game because of the bad fouls and then the fight. He also made it sound like Atlante got some good licks in. Was the whole game that chippy or just the end? Does anyone know where to find a video of the fight?
Well played, Neal.
Im sorry I chose to go bowling instead of watching this, but still, once is an accident, twice is a trend. We’ll wait for the final to see if we can make it three for a, oh, right, my b.
A bit of advice for all of you : DONT GET DISH NETWORK. 500 channels and they cant show one decent soccer channel. not even Setanta sports. all we have is ESPN, ESPN2, and, occasionally, ABC. They previewed Setanta sports for about 7 weeks last summer. heh not anymore.
Folks, let’s be civil. There were positive spirited moments tonight. When one Atlante player kicked an injury ball-return out for a throw in a bad spot (and got pretty chewed out for it by Heaps), another Atlante player immediately volunteered to direct the throw-in back to Reis, and did so. Others shook hands afterwards, at least until the melee.
None of the good things excuse the bad ones, but they also mean that it’s not 100% one way or the other. Heck, someone suggesting he got bought off doesn’t mean that he did, but neither did he do a great job reffing the game.
Once may be a fluke, but twice (in consecutive nights no less) is a disturbing trend.
Maybe Mexico can get a little retribution against the US in the Olympics…oh, wait, never mind…
F- all FMF teams!
I love SuperLiga games. They’re always really competitive and full of strong teams and skilled players. These Mexican teams are real sore losers however, no class.
Mig22 – Atlante has not had the better of the play, no way. I’m impressed how the Revs keep possession against possession-obsessed Mexican teams. Atlante couldn’t create any good chances. Shalrie continues to simply dominate games. And after watching us miss chance after chance tonight – aren’t you fellow Revs fans looking forward to Taylor’s return? I think the forwards have done well in his absence but they’ve had a tough time physically against these Mexican teams.
I hope Cobi Jones wasn’t watching that game, because he’d be having some bad flashbacks. He’s probably still sore from the kicking the Mexicans gave him in Korea.
It always cracks me up when I hear accusations of corruption and bought referees in American soccer. When somebody says that they either are just saying crap to say something or they are revealing a complete lack of knowledge of the place of soccer in this country.
Nobody in America cares enough about soccer to buy a referee. Get it through your thick skulls.
Julio – That’s a real quote? Someone suggested the refs could be bought?
Just got back from the game. There were at least two reds after the game, one to Heaps (who hadn’t actually touched anyone when the red was pulled on him), and one I think to the Atlante keeper (as noted above). Heaps was mouthing off pretty good, still obviously steamed. An Atlante player had mock(?) threatened him with an elbow, but Heaps went by him, appeared to say something to the ref, and got a straight red. The red to the Atlante keeper was pretty much right after that I think.
In the scrum afterwards, there was definitely some pushing and shoving, and it certainly appeared that someone took a swing at Allbright, and I think connected, actually, the way Allbright came out of it. Someone might have gone after Khano pretty good, too, but I didn’t see a swing. A couple of the other guys were definitely in some pushing and shoving, but most of it wasn’t very clear (too many people).
It also appeared to me that the refs mostly stayed out of the scrum as it continued. Security eventually went in there, and there was plenty of waving and shouting, as well as a lovely upraised finger gesture from the back of the pack (if that went on camera, the league won’t be happy, but it’s a pretty minor offense in the grand scheme).
Lots of off-the-ball stuff, too. A face-patting from their keeper on Doug Warren (Revs backup keeper), taunting Cristman with the ball before Cristman’s silly yellow, etc. The shoulder shot right at the end of the game was BS: no attempt to play the ball at all, but ah, well.
Sorry for the long post.
And now, Houston-NE in the final. ‘Cause we’ve never seen those two teams play in a final before…
Heaps will miss the final due to the red card, but will Albright, Igwe or Nyassi have to sit out due to yellow card accumulation? I don’t know what their status was at the start of the match.
I’m with Mig. Let’s not blow this out of proportion and make generalizations. Some of the Atlante players were shaking hands with Shalrie after the match.
Yes, it is poor sportsmanship, but it shows the passion of the sport and the pride players have.
I really like the SuperLiga and hope it continues.
I don’t like the whole retaliation carding business. If you start something, then the guy you attacked should get to have his shot at you without any punishment; it’s unfair otherwise and it leads to people instigating to get the other person thrown out of the next match with practically no consequence because they have lost the match. That Mexican keeper should have been punched right in the face and bloodied for being such a despicable sore loser. In addition the Atlante bodyguard should have gotten pistol whipped by police or security because he was a big SOB and tried to pop a couple of NE players.
When players pull the crap that the 6 or 7 Atlante players did, they don’t deserve protection and there shouldn’t be a punishment for retaliation because retaliation in this case was well deserved. If you have no honor, you don’t deserve protection. Those guys acted like weasels, very low class.
Where was stadium security and the police, why doesn’t NE have its own bodyguards like Atlante does?
In addition the whole race card defense is ridiculous. Some Mexicans are racist and some Americans are racist; you never can tell. Most people have some sort of bias that they have learned while growing up, some people get over it and others build on it. One of the people who did seem pretty racist was the Atlante goalkeeper, although maybe he was just pissed about the refereeing and decided to take a crack at America and Americans generally. Although I have to say that Mexico seems to have more pervasive corruption problems throughout society than the US, Bush Administration aside. I suspect it is easier to fix a match in Mexico than it is in the US, but who really knows.
anyone know where i can get a mexican diving team shirt?
SuperLiga is a great tournament, but it’s so obvious what these Mexican teams are going to do when eliminated. Last night I kept the game on even at 2-0 bc I knew it was going to be a brawl. And tonight the same. If it’s that obvious, why wouldn’t the stadiums have twenty cops on the field immediately after the game? Houston had two, and NE had none. I’d love to see some of the poor losers in cuffs.
Atlante’s goalkeeper is astoundingly ugly
The way that atl was playing made it nearly impossible for the referee to allow the game to have any flow. When there are fouls on every play and dead ball (and bitching), any ref will lose control.
Sorry for the double post. It didn’t come up at first
I’m so disappointed in Mexican soccer for all that. And Atlante’s goalkeeper, Federico Vilar, is Argentinian by the way…I think his parents are Italian. An Argentinian talking about impropriety in a country’s soccer league? Hmmmm
From his WIKI page:
About
“Federico is well known for his incredible reflexes and has established himself as one of Mexico’s best goalkeepers, Vilar also possess a deadly striking ability and has managed to score goals from the free kick distance. His charisma and leadership ability has also earned him the title of team captain. He is known to be an avid homosexual. When his team loses a game, he spitefully picks fights with the players of the opposing team, out of an apparent belief that he is entitled to win, as in the July 30 Superliga Semifinal match against New England Revolution. Psychologically, Vilar is thought to be seriously unstable.”
LMAO
Although I don’t agree with some of the calls for violence as retribution, I have to say that something needs to be done to prevent the situation we had tonight.
One team has no fear of red cards at the end of the match and is actively looking for conflict. The other team has to stand there and get slapped…not injured but certainly insulted.
Also, predictable that Heaps would get the red card. He was looking for trouble earlier in the match.
So disappointed in Mexican soccer for all this behavior. And that goalkeeper is Argentinian by the way, I think his parents are Italian. An Argentinian talking about impropriety in soccer in a country? Hmmmm
lol
please check out Federico Vilar wiki page
It’s a shame that the final will be in front of 9k in New England instead of in front of 20k fans in Houston…
Expect a Nicol bunkerball game after the first 20 mins prove ineffective for either side’s offense.
But the end of that one.. Atlante (esp. Vilar) was out of control.