photo by John Todd/ISIphotos.com
If you're a U.S. national team fan who needs a soccer fix to hold you over until Saturday's highly anticipated match against England, you're in luck.
ESPN Classic will air five historic World Cup matches today starting at 2:30pm, including the 2002 Round of 16 match between the United States and Mexico. Also being shown are two of England's more known World Cup losses, one of which is the 1998 loss to Argentina where David Beckham was sent off.
Here's today's line-up:
2:30pm- United States vs. Mexico (Round of 16, 2002)
4:30pm- United States vs. Portugal (Group stage, 2002)
6:30pm- England vs. Argentina (Round of 16, 1998)
8:30pm- United States vs. Colombia (Group stage, 1994)
10:30pm- England vs. Argentina (Quarterfinals, 1986)
What do you think of the matches being shown today? Will you be tuning in? Which match do you feel is most memorable?
Share your thoughts below.
it was Andres Escobar, a defender, who made an own goal
+1
Yes, and this one too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk-kXwjASEE
Is that England-Argentina ’86 game the Hand of God game?
Love it. I was at the Mexico and Portugal games. Talk about thrilling. Going to have to Tivo them and see if I can find myself in the stands.
If I saw someone rocking an O’Brien #5 from 02, I would literally buy them lunch, and insist that I got a picture. Then I would write about it on SBI because I like sharing.
I think all the matches where great! Though i think the most memorable one for me was the Argentina vs England quarter finals in 1986. The famous hand of god. That match where one of the greatest players that has ever played the game, Diego Armando Maradona scored two goals. Still today people talk about it as one of the most memorable World Cup moments. Besides the hand goal the other goal where he gets it from the half and takes it all the way by himself and scores was amazing still have that image in head.
These are great games, but I kinda feel ESPN Classic should have done better here. All they ever really show is 1970s bowling and the same old boxing bouts over and over. In the last couple of weeks, they could have shown all the televised finals, as well as a selection of other games (say, Italy-Brazil from 1982.) Compared to what they could have done, this is really weak tea.
Arena’s use of Reyna as a right wing-back against Mexico in 2002 was one of the most brilliant tactical moves I’ve seen in international football. It directly led to the first goal and caused Aguirre to use a first half substitute to try and answer it. As you watch it tonight remember that we hadn’t used anything like this formation throughout 2002. Amazing
really right back? why can’t I remember that at all. Did he get up the field much? I need to rewatch for sure!
All are great games! I wish I was not at work to watch those USA matches especially! I was at the USA/Colombia match (my first World Cup match) and I was at the USA/Portugal match! (Greatest USA match I have seen live)…
While searching for ESPN Classic on my guide, I found the channel for Fox Soccer Plus listed. My girlfriend will be so pleased.
That’s right Fox, you can’t the good EPL games from me next season.
We lost 1-0 against Italy. But I remember one of the guys was had an almost goal that was cleared off the line. Ramos or Waldo?
Nobody wants to see how useless we were in 1990? Well the 1-1 draw with Italy was memorable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYFl6oOad3E
On YouTube.
It is what it is. B&W film, with the most frustrating goal footage ever (a closeup of the ball hitting the net, with no players)! At least they show the English GK reacting.
I also have DISH and noticed it was removed too some time ago without any notice! F*ck DISH !!! They took Gol TV and didn’t give us anything in return!
Reyna played right back. One of Bruce’s many creative lineups in the tournament.
Agreed. I may be staying up past my bedtime tonight. Or maybe the DVR will be staying up past my bedtime. 🙂
Yep.
Any videos from the 1950 game against England?
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about LD. I had forgotten Donovan had that much hair on the top of his head once. While I knew he was receding somewhat I also thought he may have also just had an unfortunately high hairline outside of just natural balding. That actually does happen. I knew a guy in high school with a hairline almost as high as Donovan’s current one and he had always had that growing up. In that guy’s case when I saw him at our 10 year high school reunion he still had the same hairline.
Hopefully his game won’t start receding as fast as his hair. 😉
Check the link I put in a couple of posts ago. The site has 14 games and is supposed to be putting all of the US world cup games up soon. He only has a few more to put up. He doesn’t have the Austria game from 1990, the Poland game from 2002, and I think a couple of the 2006. Hopefully they will all be up soon.
http://watchsocceronline.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-06-08T11%3A36%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=5
Is the 1994 US-Colombia game the one that got the Colombian player (was it the GK?) shot for a mistake?
“Which match do you feel is most memorable?”
Gee, maybe it’s the game with both the Goal of the Century AND one of the most infamous goals of all time, the Hand of God?
I suspect this link is going to substantially reduce my productivity today.
wow awesome
does anyone know of an online database of old games? like somewhere to watch/download games from 94/98/02/06 or anything like that… thanks all
I believe we were in a 3-5-2 with Reyna wide right and LD somewhat advanced in mf…memory hazy though.
Looks like I’m going to have to break out my 2002 #5 O’Brien jersey today.
Check out 14 usa World Cup games at this site:
http://watchsocceronline.blogspot.com/2010/06/usa-world-cup-history-part-14-usa-vs.html
I’m assuming o’brien and renya were central mids, with berhalter and tony in the back out wide.
God I forgot how awful those 2002 kits were. Look forward to the 94 match. I know my Colombian wife won’t 🙂
Landycakes looks so young in that photo…
still had his hair
did Pablo start at center back for the mexico game (the picture above)?
How can there be a doubt? The US win vs. Mexico in 2002 is the best of this bunch and is only bettered byt the 1950 win over England. So far. Let’s see what happens Saturday! Go USA!!
I watched it on YanksAbroad Video Highlights, it made me want to cry 🙁
Agreed. I was 9 at the time, and a thunderstorm knocked out our power during the game.
I see that game all the time on vid.;and one day,the ref will call the handball.
That would be GREAT. If, you know, Cablevision hadn’t just switched ESPN Classic to a digital sports tier that I don’t subscribe to.
So I went downstairs to record all of these games and found out that ESPN Classic has been removed from my satellite package (DISH)! Now I have nothing to do today.
Read my preview here:
http://tinyurl.com/wcpreview
I’m just glad they’re not showing the 2002 game against Germany. I don’t think I could take that again.
Italy-Germany from 2006 will be on at Noon EST according to my guide…
Set these to record last week.
Looking forward to filling some holes in my US game DVD collection.
I was really hoping they would do this. I know what I am doing after work. Gonna need some beer.
Thatis pretty cool. They had most of those games on demand for awhile but most are no there anymore. I watched the USA vs. Mexico match about a month ago.
Showing England losses? That is awesome 🙂
I’m excited for USA-Colombia, since I was a child when that was played and couldn’t sit through a full soccer game because I had no attention span (though I handled baseball fine). The first World Cup I paid attention to was, unfortunately, 1998. Watching the Mexico and Portugal games from 2002 will be nice; I’m glad they didn’t put the Germany game so I won’t feel the need to jump off a cliff/punch a puppy again.
Jumped the goose – the 1986 is the England game, I thought it read USA too : (
Love it! 1986? Never seen that one and can’t wait too!