Footie News

Oguchi Onyewu taunts the fans after being sent off in the 73rd minute.
AP
The US men's national team eked out a 1-0 win against Guatemala in the Gold Cup last night. Not carried on English-speaking TV, but I watched it on Telemundo. The good news: Great goal by Clint Dempsey (video here), with assists from Taylor Twellman and DaMarcus Beasley. Bad news: Despite being played in California, the crowd was 90% Guatamelan. More bad news: Oguchi Onyewu got sent off with a second yellow red card. He really lost his cool with the flopping of Guatemalan ace Carlos Ruiz. The other good news is that I didn't have to listen to Dave O'Brien, who was doing the MLS game on ESPN2. I tuned in after the USMNT game to hear O'Brien intone "It's a final, US 1, Guatemala 0, and Clint Dempsey responsible for that score." What an idiot. Dempsey scored a goal; he isn't responsible for the score of the whole game. Listening to O'Brien talk about soccer reminds me of reading a badly translated menu in a Chinese restaurant. (ESPN so does not get soccer. One of their graphics for a player last night said, "Played in England for two years". So -- was he playing pickup in Holland Park, or in the Premier League? It was probably somewhere in between, but ESPN doesn't think American soccer fans would know the difference between the Premier League and League Two.)

This week US Soccer dedicated Field 1 at the Home Depot Center to Glenn "Mooch" Myernick. Soccer fan Drew Carey donated $160,000 to the Mooch Myernich Memorial Fund.

The fund was established to help increase the number of children playing the sport in metropolitan communities nationwide, and to assist soccer clubs and organizations in urban areas to create and sustain soccer opportunities for local underserved children. Prior to Tuesday’s event, the Foundation had already raised more than $100,000 from individual and corporate donors in Myernick’s honor to help support the growth of soccer in major metropolitan areas across the country. An assistant coach for the USA in the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cup, Myernick was universally admired, respected and loved by all those whose lives he touched. He passed away in October of 2006 at the age of 51.

David Beckham lead England to a 3-0 win over Estonia in their crucial Euro 2008 qualifier. He set up goals with beautiful crosses in to Peter Crouch and Michael Owen. Watch the video of the goals here; Joe Cole's goal was even better. It reminded me of Maxi Rodriguez's goal in the World Cup. The English press isn't finished with Beckham; today's alarming news story puts Becks at high risk for deep vein thrombosis if he tries to travel to England games from LA.

I've discovered a new women's soccer blog, USA Women's Soccer. Filled with news, but I can't figure out how to link to individual posts. This one's about halfway down the May archive:

This one slipped under the radar, but the National Soccer Hall of Fame revamped its election rules at its April 28 board meeting. Instead of the top two vote getters (provided they get over 50% of the vote) getting elected plus the possibility of a third player getting elected if he/she received over 80% of the vote, the new rule states that any candidate that receives over 75% of the vote will be elected to the Hall of Fame. While each Hall of Fame has a different election process, this is the same percentage required as the final round of voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Basketball Hall of Fame, while the Football Hall of Fame requires 80% of the vote. And in case you're curious, if the new rules were in place for the 2007 election, Joy Fawcett still would not have been elected as she only received 67.25% of the vote.