The USA-Egypt friendly scheduled for Feb. 9th in Cairo has been canceled. The unstable situation in Egypt brought on by political unrest has led to the cancellation of the friendly.
“We were excited about the opportunity to play against Egypt, but due to the current situation all parties agreed it was best to cancel the match,” said U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati. “We appreciate the efforts of the Egyptian Football Association and the U.S. State Department as we worked through this situation.”
The United States will return to action in March with matches against Argentina, on March 26th in New Jersey, and Paraguay, on March 29th in Nashville, Tennessee.
The cancellation will hardly come as a surprise considering the political situation in Egypt, which would have even made moving the match a questionable option. The timing of the events in Egypt also made finding a new opponent impossible for a U.S. national team that hasn't fielded its full squad since October.
What do you think of this development? Inevitable? Wish the teams could have found somewhere else to play? Understandable given the unsettled situation in Egypt?
Share your thoughts below.
Can we really not find a European team or another African team to take Egypt’s place on short notice?
At the Cup festivities Garber said MLS was going to revise the playoff format (beyond adding the two extra teams) to something less screwy—you know, so we don’t have Western Conference teams representing the Eastern Conference in the final?
Unless I missed it, that announcement hasn’t been made yet. That would be the most likely topic I can think of, unless there’s a surprise DP signing or he’s ready to make some statement about the 20th team. Or one of the stragglers finally signed a jersey sponsor or made progress on a stadium location.
I could be completely off-base; just my two cents on Sunil’s job performance in general.
Ives – I don’t know for sure whether he did or didn’t work the phones in a timely manner, but based on his track record, I just don’t get the impression that he’s on top of things. He seems to be “surprised” by events far too often, and I view him as incompetent and reactive.
I’m not blaming him for the cancellation, which was inevitable, I just doubt that he picked this situation to begin a proactive approach to his job.
Cancelling the match was understandable. I hope the USA can reschedule a match and convince the other federation to donate all proceeds from the match to families that lost someone during the current situation in Egypt.
he was the pick before the WC, now (imho) it’s Pearce or the young kid from the Chile friendly whose name I can’t remember and don’t feel like looking up…
A match against Catalonia would be awesome.
They haven’t had any problems in Egypt (at least for foreigners) in like 30 years. Do you want to write in the contracts, “if you have a revolution we reserve the right to reschedule with a country not having a revolution”.
I think anyone who doesn’t understand the situation may want to do some introspection and put things in proper perspective. It’s a game, not a revolution despite what Nike would like you to believe.
I am really disappointed. Was looking forward to the match since it was announced.
Maybe US Soccer should have backup plans for some of the friendlies, if they are going to schedule them in the Mideast or Africa. I mean you could schedule Israel which is a good team, but you’d want contigency plans.
Don Garber is gettin’ plugs!
As soon as the protests started last week, Sunil should have been calling potential backup opponents while simultaneously monitoring the situation in Egypt. Totally understandable that this was cancelled, but something tells me Sunil was not proactive and probably made a last minute scramble for a replacement before announcing this cancellation.
I don’t think it would be a terrible idea for Bob to do a minicamp in Europe just to let our guys practice for a few days together.
(SBI-And you know he didn’t do that because? The unrest in Egypt came out of nowhere and came at an awful time for the friendly. Blame game is pretty silly at this point.)
oops my bad. No way at this late date..sorry!
LB on SBI Team would clearly be Edgar Castillo.
understandable
3/9? The game was set for 2/9…so it’s more like 9 days to pull a replacement and stadium location and flights and visas and, etc….off….
The date is 2/9, not 3/9…so they only have 9 days. They should have acted sooner to have had a chance in rescheduling.
Speaking of scheduling…has anyone seen a date for the Gold Cup draw? I keep hearing ‘ealy february’…any exact date?
Ha, nice. And they better play a 3-5-2!
Was looking forward to it and hoping that as a sign of solidarity between our nations we could have played at a different site.
This really Stinks !!!
Like many… I was looking forward to see the A team playing against Egypt. Now I can only hope that the US Federation can negotiate another rival for that date. It seems highly unlikely but… we can only… HOPE !!!
Come on Gulati… if you can pull off another rival ( at this point doesnt matter much the quality of the opponent) you will be forgiven for failing to land the WC2022 (Yeah Right JK but seriously try to make something happen)
A FIFA friendly date. You can see the schedule on the FIFA website.
it’s not really a “camp” just a couple of days of practice and then gameday. Players head back to their clubs after the game, so it’s not really worth bringing them in for a ocuple days practice if there’s no one to play.
Off topic…
but does anyone know what the MLS announcement for tomorrow might be? any ideas or speculation?
by wat of Eurosport:
Reading have signed Canada Under-20 captain Ethan Gage and American youngster Erik Opsahl.
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/31012011/63/double-swoop-royals.html
Egads!!Another American midfielder in Europe!
With a very important tournament on the horizon, I think that letting an international friendly date go, is a big mistake. I realize the implications of signing a “worthy” opponent at such a late date is improbable, but with about 40 days til 3/9, not impossible. I think that the USSF should realize this and that FIFA, due to the circumstances, should be able to waive some of paperwork/scheduling deadlines to make it work for the US.
I am sure that the US could dig up an opponent in Europe/Mid East at his short a date, or perhaps reschedule with another country that already has a friendly.
With a whole bunch of new players, both in the US and Europe, to evaluate before the Gold Cup and WC qualifying, it is imprudent to let a date go without trying.
still gonna have a camp or is there just nothing whatsoever?
Wasnt going to get to see it on tv anyhow so dosent bother me. Dont have ESPN 3 either so I was screwed. It was like I wasnt going to be able to see it.
Love it. that would be tight one, but I give the WC starters the slight edge cause they have our three best players: dempsey, donovan and Howard.
Dang it, they better turn into a democracy after this.
Is Feb 9th a Fifa date?
actually a great idea!
Adu is first sub off the bench for the reader’s team…
bummer.
This is sad! I hope the USMNT can pick up a game quickly. I was really looking foward of seeing Jones and Donovan playing together.
It’s understandable given the unrest in the country but it’s a shame we could not show our support for Egypt by hosting the match in the USA. It would be a great way to show our support and goodwill toward the Egyptian people at such a pivotal point in their nation’s history. Offering them the opportunity to express themselves through the beautiful game would have been a wonderful gesture but I imagine the decision was made by both federations, not just the USA.
I agree even an intrasquad game would have been great. Jozy vs Omar Gonzalez, Spector vs Juan Agudelo (on the other team). Would have been fun.
Bradley should trot out the World Cup starters against the all SBI readers’ team:
Howard
Dolo-Gooch-Demerit-Boca
Dempsey-Bradley-Clark-Donovan
Altidore-Findley
vs
Guzan
Lichaj-Ream-Gonzo-Anyone but Bornstein
Holden-Edu-Jones-Torres
Bunbury-Agudelo
Gotta admit, it would be interesting…
well this sucks
Hell even an intra squad game would work.
I imagine it would have been difficult (or impossible) for the domestic based Egyptian players to leave the country.
It’s a big bummer, would have been a good match.
Maybe because a lot of the Egyptian players are stuck in Egypt.
aaaaah. can we get a game against someone else on that date? I know the big countries are booked, but I’ll take a minnow. French Guyana? Tierra del Fuego? Mexico?
Well, there goes some valuable experience for some players.
id have split my vote for inevitable and understandable given the unsettled situation in Egypt.
i don’t see why it would be so hard to just play somewhere in Europe or elsewhere in Northern Africa
usa egypt FAIL
wish they could have found a replacement, isn’t Venezuela in town against Mex? maybe a few days later or something…oh well.
Another reason to keep the revolution going. Down with Mubarak.