Neither Brazil or Mexico have ever won the Men's Soccer Olympic gold medal before, but one of them will add that prestigious title to their trophy case when they square off in the Olympic Final today.
Brazil reached the semis on the strength of a win over South Korea, while the Mexicans pounced on defensive errors by Japan to book their place in the gold medal match.
In Mexico, Jose Torres leads Pachuca against Edgar Castillo and Club Tijuana in a match that U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann will likely have an eye on.
If you're craving some Serie A action, look no further than the Italian Super Cup, between reigning champion Juventus and Coppa Italia winners Napoli.
If you will be watching today's action, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.
Enjoy the action (Commentary is after the jump):
TODAY'S SOCCER ON TV
8 a.m. - beINSport free web stream - Juventus vs. Napoli
10 a.m. - NBC Sports Network/MSNBC/Telemundo - Brazil vs. Mexico
1:15 p.m. - ESPN3.com - Dinamo Bucarest vs. Barcelona
2 p.m. - ESPN2/ESPN3.com - Real Madrid vs. Celtic
3 p.m. - Univision Deportes, beINSport free web stream - Paris St-Germain vs. Lorient
5:30 p.m. - Univision - America vs. Atlas
5:30 p.m. - GOLTV - Bahia vs. Cruzeiro
7 p.m. - MLS Live/Direct Kick - Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Real Salt Lake
8 p.m. - Telefutura - Pachuca vs. Tijuana
8 p.m. - Univision Deportes - Tigres vs. Queretaro
8:30 p.m. - MLS Live/Direct Kick - Sporting Kansas City vs. D.C. United
9 p.m. - MLS Live/Direct Kick - FC Dallas vs. Colorado Rapids
10 p.m. - Univision Deportes - Monterrey vs. San Luis
10:30 p.m. - MLS Live/Direct Kick - San Jose Earthquakes vs. Seattle Sounders
^^^ THIS
+ 1
“Its only a youth tournament” those words reflect all that is wrong in US soccer, if you embrace the sport EVERY tournament is important and worth to celebrate. Just watch Brazil’s players faces, its not JUST a youth tournament for them neither for mexicans
this has been the worst year and a half for us in the usa vs Mexico rivalry in a long long time
LOL. Rafael just got booed during the medal presentation ceremony. As a Manchester United fan, I am taking some small, strange, sick amount of enjoyment from this – he has done his fair share of doing stupid stuff like that for us in the Prem. Now SAF has to figure out how to get him right for the upcoming season. he is young though, and hopefully this outcome and the backlash he is sure to suffer in Brazil (which will be a tad bit unfair) helps makes him the better player he can become.
Congratulations to Mexico
I hate it but they earned it
Oh boy…for the first time ever the US owned the matchup with Mexico, did it for 2 cycles…and those years are the problem?
bull crap
Yes the development continues to evolve here, but the changes to US soccer development started before Klinsmann arrived, Reyna in charge of that and the soccer academies taking hold because of MLS successes financially.
Frankly, Klinsmann needs to focus on the senior team’s results in WCqualifying and should be judged on those
Hope that goes well!
Let us also keep in perspective that Mexico beat Brazil today (a team worth millions and millions of dollars) with players that all play in the Mexican league.
No matter how you look at it you cannot deny this as a great achievement for their country.
I don’t think we are third in CONCACAF, I believe we are second (though a distant second). Fans might be confusing Honduras’ recent rise as a further drop to us but I attribute that to the Mexican surge effect – it’s so scary it makes everyone look much worse than they really are. LOL
For me Honduras is where we were when we were on top – your golden generation arrives and announces your prowess on the world stage. I hope they don’t fall into the trap we did, which is milk that generation until they are in their early 30s without developing reinforcements in the pipeline to keep your domination intact. Honduras does not appear to have the infrastructure (the leagues and youth development) at the moment to make us no. 3. We do, in fact we are in a position to even vault Mexico and I am convinced we can do this as soon as just before or right after 2014. we just need to get our programs right and going.
The first strike should be the next GC. Mexico’s A team will be coming off the CC (maybe even winning the damned thing…nah, Spain coming off this Olympics is going to have a thing or two to say about that) so that means we will be facing this very team that just won gold today. If we cannot beat those guys with our A team…well, then, perhaps we are no. 3 in CONCACAF.
That we were unable to qualify for….
Congratulations to Mexico. A job well done, and a well-deserved gold medal.
Guys, let’s keep this in perspective. They won a youth tournament.
Now we’ll have to listen to the Mexican fans for the next decade…
On the other hand, they deserved it. At least they played as a team. Every one of Brazil’s players is worth more than the entire Mexican team, but they just don’t work together….
I will never forgive Oscar for missing that wide open header.
said in reply to Brant…
Yea right.
Definitely had that look in his eye. He was furious.
You are right Kosh, when Mexico was second to us they developed ways to make their players better. Since we are now second maybe even 3rd in the region now, we need to stop giving Klinnsmann flack, because he’s trying to fix the development systems in our country that are well in need of overhaul.
Just wondering, why?
dark day for the USMNT
Same here, just pathethic
The difference for me was when we were on top Mexico was investing and developing their youth in a big, big way. The structure, politics and money of our youth programs undermined our status as the regions no. 1 – and like that we are now miles behind them.
This is part of what JK is trying to fix, but our “I want it all and I want it now” culture and entitlement attitude does not see that. JK has a lot of work to do, more than the fans can appreciate and he’s getting no help – not only from the fans but the so called pundits and experts.
I think we are going to have to study what Mexico did there and apply some of that to our developing systems. Right now, all we can do is qualify for the WC and get our youth teams equipped properly with the right minds, attitudes and hunger.
Congrats El Tri.
Yeah, I thought Juan was going to rip his head off.
Wow!!
El Tri with the gold medal!!
Oscar….
We’ll get to there level in probably 2 decades. We just need to get our leagues developed correctly.
Mexico has just erased Neymar from this match. Once again Brazil puts out a group of talented players, but definitely not a team. Neymar seems to play for Neymar and only Neymar.
Pato is a talented team player and should have started.
Juan just ROASTED teammate Silva on the field for dicking around with the ball in the defensive third and giving up a counter attack. Screaming match that ends in coach pulling Silva and not even saying a word to him once off.
So much flash, so little maturity. You see it all the time for United in the red cards and the rash tackles and the fights.
As much as I hate to say it, Mexico’s future looks a hell of a lot better than ours. Just look at their international results since they won the 1st u-17. What has the US done in that time frame? 2nd in confederation cup and crashed out in how many international tourneys? Sucks, I know.
This is the last thing we needed, Mexico with a Gold medal.
Hmmm
Mexico is absolutely leading the charge, they are like the poster boy for CONCACAF, along with Honduras.
Mexico striker left unmarked on a corner and buries it. Should be a frantic final 10+.
CONCACAF.. look out World..
LOL
That’s the Brazil we know–lots of flash and little substance.
Game over!
We have a CLUB THAT DID NOT EXIST 5 YEARS AGO averaging 40,000+ a game. That is not improvement & passion?
You are leaving out how much has improved in the last decade to feed your bias.
We are getting there but it is going to take some more time for the game to marinate into our culture. But it is happening!
Marcelo can’t possibly be as fat as he looks, can he? What is it with Brazil and talented, fat footballers?
Ouch! Neymar gets clattered by the Mexico goalie who came out to and got there to punch away a cross.
Mexico doing the same thing they did to Japan.
Is there any way we can create a Marcelo clone in time for 2nd round of qualifying?
With that logic any tackle can end your career. The only thing shocking is how p*ssy the sport has become. This is a contact sport, you should expect to get hit
Marcelo is shockingly lucky to not be watching the rest of this game from the locker room.
He could have ended Peralta’s career.
Passion that’s what different. We as a country have no passion for the sport. Look at the dream team loaded from one to twelve with the best players in the world. And why is that, they play in the best youth leagues college leagues then pros. We don’t have that in soccer . If we win people cheer if we lose people move on to something else. Until the country has passion even hockey like passion we will lag behind good enough to compete but never to be great.
Bon Bradley coaching Brazil now?
I’d never support Mexico, and I know they’d never support us to carry recognition for CONCACAF. They are supporting themselves by finding ways to improve past the rest of the competition in our region, and leaving us further and further behind if we don’t fix our development soon.
You speak of Mexico’s player development. I’m curious to know what they’re doing differently from the USA?
Well. I’m throwing in with Mexico today as a nod to our region. Like or despise em, as of late it’s hard to argue with their approach to player development and quality showing at youth international tournaments.
How ridiculous is Brazil’s depth? Their Olympic team has Lucas, Pato, Damilo and Hulk on the bench. Yeah.
I hate cheering for Brazil to win anything (it’s like cheering for the high school QB and homecoming king to get a date with a sheerleader) but there’s no way I can cheer for Mexico in this one.
Brazil’s got enough firepower that even spotting Mexico a 1-0 lead they could still win by 6. Let’s hope they do.
game on…wow 30 seconds in
What happens when i hate both teams
Bahia!