Robin: No Mercy

I'll discuss last night's Yankee game tonight, after this afternoon's game has also been played. I have to discuss soccer.

Last night, the U.S. team beat Mexico in Mexico for the 1st time in 25 tries, 1-0. The goal was scored in the 79th minute by Michael Orozco Fiscal, a native of Orange, California but of Mexican descent and playing for a team in the Mexican league, San Luis. North Brunswick, New Jersey native Tim Howard was sensational in goal, again.

Just as our Russian gymnasts are better than Russia's Russian gymnasts, and our Chinese figure skaters are better than China's Chinese figure skaters, our Mexican soccer players are better than Mexico's Mexican soccer players.

Over 100,000 fans of El Tri (nicknamed for the Mexican tricolor flag) were shocked. They are no longer unbeatable at the Estadio Azteca.

I'll bet there were a lot of guys crying in their Modelos on (ironically enough) French Street in New Brunswick last night.

In the last 6 months, the U.S. soccer team has beaten both Italy, the runners-up in the recent Euro 2012, and Mexico, who just won the Olympic Gold Medal, on those countries' soil.

Nobody's laughing at us anymore. If they are, they're idiots.

Well, maybe they laugh at our uniforms. Those barber-pole things are hideous.  nd, as superstitious as sports people are, chances are we'll never get rid of them now.

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But yesterday was also the day that Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger sold Robin van Persie. Sold him to Manchester United, of all teams.

It's bad enough that Robin van Rat forced his way out, revealing his true character; that he was only in it for the money; that he stabbed in the back the man who took him out of a bad situation at his hometown club, Feyenoord of Rotterdam, the Netherlands; whose guidance turned him from a kid with a lot of promise to the leading scorer in the English Premier League last season; who stood by him when the whole world thought he was guilty of rape (this wasn't quite a Kobe Bryant situation, the girl turned out to be a gold-digger); who kept confidence in him during injury after injury after injury; and who beamed with pride every time van Persie said things about loyalty, about how winning a trophy elsewhere wouldn't mean as much as winning it with Arsenal.

I've seen plenty of players leave my teams for other teams over the years. I should be used to it by now. Reggie Jackson. Graig Nettles. Goose Gossage. Rickey Henderson. Kirk Muller. Bruce Driver. John MacLean. Andy Pettitte. Scott Niedermayer. Brian Rafalski. Cesc Fabregas. Samir Nasri. And, just in the last few weeks, two captains, Zach Parise and Robin van Persie. And, if you want to throw in managers and coaches, Jacques Lemaire, Joe Torre and Greg Schiano.

Sometimes, it was the player getting greedy and wanting more money elsewhere. Sometimes, it was the player wanting out of a bad situation. Sometimes, it was the player getting screwed by bad management.

But when George Steinbrenner let Reggie go, he didn't trade him to the Boston Red Sox. And while Driver and MacLean both went to the Rangers, it was when they were in the latter stages of their career, after they'd already won a Stanley Cup with the Devils.

van Persie said he wouldn't sign a new contract with Arsenal because he didn't like the direction the team was taking, because it wasn't showing enough ambition. So Wenger signed Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and Santi Cazorla, 3 apparently fantastic young players.

That wasn't enough for van Persie. So now we know: It wasn't about ambition or trophies. It was about the money.

Maybe that's the real reason he went to United: He's so horny even a fox like Bouchra can't satisfy him, and he knows that, no matter what Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs do, the ManUre fans will overlook it and say it doesn't matter. And he gets the big money.

I guess he forgot that he could do the same thing at Chelsea. And make even more money. And not have to move out of London. And unlike ManUre, the Chavs actually need a new striker.

Bouchra barely stood by him when she found out she cheated on him with the gold-digger.  Her Twitter feed says, "proud wife of amazing husband." She should leave the son of a bitch. If he doesn't value loyalty, why should she?  

Still, Wenger could have sold van Persie to a club outside England. Instead, he sold him to Man United.

If I were the manager, I would have sold him back to Feyenoord for a nickel. Just to make a point to all involved: Ferguson, Man City, Juventus, van Persie himself, and especially the board: "I am the manager, and if you got a problem with that, get yourself another manager."

Some things are more important than money. Why do I care this much about a team that I didn't even know existed only a few years ago? That is on the other side of the world?

Something about Arsenal drew me in. And the NYC Arsenal Supporters have accepted me as a long-lost relative.

Nick Hornby, the author who rose to fame with Fever Pitch, his memoir of being an Arsenal fan, said it best:

It's not easy to become a football player. It takes years. But to be a fan, if you put in the hours, you're welcomed without question into a new family. Except, in this family, you all care about the same people, and you all hope for the same things. What's childish about that?

Well, there are childish parts of it. Hornby spells it out further:

Football has meant too much to me, and has come to represent too many things. I've been to far too many games, and spent too much money, fretted about Arsenal when I should have been fretting about something else, and I've asked too much from the people I love.

Okay, I accept all that.

Perhaps it's something you can't understand, unless you belong.

I've belonged with the Yankees since 1977 (since I was 7 years old). With the Devils, since 1982 (since the team's Day One). With Arsenal, only since 2008.

Indeed, it was Arsenal that led me to my "local side," the New York Red Bulls -- not the other way around. It was before Arsenal legend Thierry Henry arrived with Metro -- though that certainly deepened the connection.

If I'd been a gloryhunter, why would I have connected with Arsenal then, when the trophy drought (since winning the 2005 FA Cup Final) was already well underway? Why would I still be with them? Why wouldn't I have switched to Man United or Chelsea?

Because they've made me feel like I belong. No, it isn't as long or as deep as with the Yankees or the Devils, or East Brunswick High. But it's not like they packed up and left on me, like the former New Jersey Nets.

van Persie being a rat? I can get over that soon, especially if the new signings work out.

Wenger selling to the corrupt cheating ManUre? That will be harder to accept. It was a blasphemous act. I've been a huge defender of Wenger, but I cannot defend this.

And yet... I didn't give up on the Yankees during the collapse of 1982, or during the worse collapse of 1990, or after the mind-numbing Playoff loss of 1995, or after the cheat-aided humiliation of 2004.  I didn't give up on the Devils when they were, in Wayne Gretzky's truthful words, "a Mickey Mouse organization" or when the Rangers got the Stanley Cup first.

To be angry with Robin van Persie, to show him no mercy, to treat him as a traitor, is completely understandable. To be angry with Arsène Wenger, to think of him as a sap, in spite of his achievements (3 League titles, 4 FA Cups, 2 Doubles, 15 straight Champions League qualifications, and the only unbeaten League season of the modern era), is at least partly understandable.

To give up on Arsenal because of this -- when last year's mess with Fabregas and Nasri left us much worse off, and we recovered and had a better finish than the season before anyway -- is not understandable at all.

Do I wish van Persie "Good luck"? More like -- wait for it...

"Break a leg."

U.S.A. 1-1 Argentina: Cold Night, Hot Game

Last night was 2 firsts for me: My first time inside the new Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and my first time watching the U.S. national soccer team.

If I ever do either again, it will not be at the same time. Forget the fact that the huge number of Hispanics in the New York Tri-State Area almost made it seem like a road game for the U.S. -- a factor also in cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston and Miami.

But the one thing everybody hated about Giants Stadium was the wind. The brand-new $1.6 Billion stadium having no roof at all, and a nasty wind swooping in off the wide Hackensack River and slicing through the concourses, turned it into a giant meat locker. I actually had to wear my U.S. national team jersey over my winter jacket. (Now I'm glad I got the XXL size.)

Let me get the most important thing out of the way, and say that the fans were great. The Argentines were loud and waved a lot of flags, but caused no trouble at all. And their legendary grilling prowess did something I thought impossible: It made the Meadowlands parking lot smell great.

The Americans got a little stroppy after some perceived bad calls by the officials -- only one of which was bad enough to upset me -- but nobody took it out on the visitors, at least that I saw.

The crowd was announced as 78,936, making it the largest paid attendance that's ever included me, and 3,630 short of capacity, although the place looked absolutely full, and the public-address announcer said it was a sellout. So the discrepancy is probably due to complimentary tickets.

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of fans in Barcelona shirts & other Barca-themed items, because of Argentina's Lionel Messi, who plays for Barca. Very surprisingly, there were at least a dozen people wearing Arsenal items -- myself not one of them, but it was so cold I wished on a few occasions that I'd brought a scarf.

I saw a couple each of Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United (one fan had the green & gold Newton Heath scarf, one of these "Love United Hate Glazer" people, and I told him, "Nice Norwich scarf, pal!"). One fan wore an Everton shirt with Landon Donovan's name and Number 9 (10 for the U.S.), and there was a guy in a Fulham shirt with Clint Dempsey's name and Number 23 (8 for the U.S.).

A few Real Madrid items because of Angel Di Maria, a few Internazionale (a.k.a. Inter Milan) because of Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso, and several Argentine clubs I didn't recognize, along with the 2 that I would, the 2 giants of Buenos Aires, Boca Juniors and River Plate.

*

In a way, this game was the exact opposite of a lot of Arsenal matches I've seen:

* The team in red (usually, the U.S. wears white or navy blue, this was the debut of the red shirt with the navy sash) looked very much overmatched by a team that was passing the ball around, as if toying with them. I got the feeling that, like Arsenal, Argentina could have turned it on and won this game easily any time they wanted to.... But they didn't.

* A big (in hype, at least) striker missed some easy shots. Messi was not "the best player in the world" last night. His dribbling is sick, and he can really pass, but he was 0-for-5 on shots. His shooting was so far off the mark that the U.S. goalie, North Brunswick, New Jersey native and Everton star Tim Howard, made none of his saves against Messi: None one of the shots was on target. It reminded me of Arsenal's Nicklas Bendtner -- even if Messi's height didn't (he's officially 5-foot-7, Bendtner's listed as 6-foot-3 1/2), nor his hair (although it was equally silly).

* A big star on the dazzling team got hurt -- or seemed to. Like a lot of Spanish and Hispanic players, Messi dives in order to win favor from the referees. On one play in the 1st half, he ended up rolling around like he'd been sprayed by shotgun pellets. There was a 3-minute delay (but only 1 minute of injury time was added), and a stretcher was brought out. Guess what: He got up, took a couple of minutes to shake it off, got back on, started the Argentina goal, and was still on at full-time. Diva twit.

* The overmatched team decided to get a little rough. There were no cards for Argentina, and 4 yellow cards for the U.S., and I have to admit that all but 1 were deserved. We made some good clean tackles, but also made a few that were rough, including a couple we totally got away with. It really was like cheering on a Dirty Northern Bastard team against an Arsenalesque one. I felt dirty.

* And, of course, the team that would have been happy with a draw was.

*

Nonetheless, the U.S. should have lost this game 4-0. The Argies kept coming and coming and coming. I don't know what the possession percentage was, but if you told me it was 70-30 Argentina, I'd believe it.

It was only through heroic defending that the scoreboard did not show that we got shellacked. Even on the Argentina goal: Just before the half, Messi set up DiMaria, and Howard (easily the most popular U.S. player last night, though our being in New Jersey may have had something to do with that) ended up making 2 amazing saves; unfortunately, a 3rd was required, and before he had a chance to get up and grab the rebound, Cambiasso slam-dunked it in. The goal was no fluke, it was very well-earned.

I can't say that about our goal. The New York Red Bulls were missing half their roster due to international duty or injuries (including Thierry Henry), and one of them was Juan Agudelo, the 18-year-old Colombian-born, Barnegat, New Jersey (Shore)-raised Red Bull, who came on in the 2nd half for the useless Jermaine Jones, and took advantage of Argentine goalie Sergio Romero's inability to hang onto a Maurice Edu shot, and dinked it in for the equaliser.

After his goal, a photo was taken of Agudelo, sticking out his tongue. The model here is not basketball legend Michael Jordan, whom Agudelo is too young to remember well, but former Arsenal Captain Patrick Vieira, now running out the string with Manchester City.

After 40 minutes scoreless, I would have loved a draw; once Cambiasso scored, I began to beg for a draw. I think a lot of us were begging, and we got it. The place went mental: You'd have thought it was Donovan's injury-time winner vs. Algeria in the World Cup all over again, while the Argentines were stunned that they let in such a bad one. (Again, it was just like watching Arsenal... in reverse.)

The last 20 minutes were agonizing... and this game didn't count for a damn thing! But when the referee mercifully blew his final whistle, with 1-1 being the final score, the reactions were as I would have expected if you'd told me beforehand it would end in a draw: The Argentines didn't care, they knew it was a friendly and a night out and a chance to spend a weekend in New York City and environs; the Americans were overjoyed that they held one of the world's defining football nations -- and a much better team than their own -- to a draw.

Men of the Match: For the U.S., Howard, then Agudelo. Defenders Jonathan Spector (West Ham United) and Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan) were great, Captain Carlos Bocanegra (St-Etienne) was awful in the 1st half but great in the 2nd, and even Donovan played a little defense. For Argentina, Gabriel Milito (like Messi, of Barcelona), then Cambiasso. Javier Mascherano (also Barcelona) was a pain in the ass, too. I just now realized there was no sign of Manchester City's Carlos Tevez -- is he hurt? He could have made a huge difference.

All I wanted was to not have it be miserably cold, and for my national team to not get embarrassed by one of the world's footballing powers. That wish, like the game itself, was a draw: The weather sucked, but the game was cracking. Not only did we not get embarrassed against a team that tried to make that happen, but we held our own, and protected our house. Nobody drank our milkshake.

No, U.S. soccer isn't there yet. But, as the song goes:

We're on our way!
We're on our way!
We'll hit the big time!
We're on our way!
How we'll get there, we don't know!
How we'll get there, we don't care!
All we know is that we're on our way!

A Tie Is Like Kissing...

U.S.A. 1, England 1. Kind of like the War of the American Revolution: By not losing, we gain in reputation; by not winning, never finishing us off, England look awful.

An old saying in American football is, "A tie is like kissing your sister." (I know of at least 4 different coaches to whom it's been attributed.) For America, this tie was like kissing your sister's really hot best friend. For England, this tie was like kissing your mother-in-law.

It wasn't a very good game, and both teams missed plenty of opportunities to finish the other off.

I am disappointed that Wayne Rooney didn't do anything to get himself a red card, or that he, or John Terry, or Steven Gerrard, got called for diving; but that just makes it more likely that "Shrek," "Captain Adultery"/"Captain Chav" or Stevie G will do some such thing in a win-or-go-home game.

Did anybody else think of Bill Buckner when seeing replays of Robert Green's misplay of Clint Dempsey's shot?

On the other hand -- almost literally -- the man of the match was North Brunswick, New Jersey's own Tim Howard. What a performance he had in goal.

How are the ravenous English tabloid media handling this?

The Daily Mirror, a good liberal paper, does a takeoff of the Diego Maradona line "Hand of God," calling poor Green "THE HAND OF CLOD." The News of the World also chose that as their headline.

The Sun, Rupert Murdoch's bundle of lies despised all over the world, especially on Merseyside for the way they treated the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, didn't go for an embarrassing headline, but, connecting Green's goof with past Three Lions goalkeeping goofs, said, "ENGLAND were struck by the curse of the keepers as Robert Green's clanger handed the USA a point."

The Times, London's supposedly repsectable paper, but also tainted by Murdoch, gives the somewhat understated headline, "Green horror show hands draw to USA."

The Daily Express, a right-wing rag more obvious than any U.S. paper except maybe the New York Post, the Washington Times and New Hampshire's Union Leader, has already released its June 13 editions (it's 9:22 PM as I type this, making it 2:22 AM London time), and the front page says, "HIT AND MISS," the "hit" being Stevie G's goal; while the back page says, "CAPELLO TO AXE CLOWN GREEN." Secondary headline: "England won't keep calamity keeper." This, after David James, England's longtime Number 1, has frequently been called "Calamity James," and is knocking on the door of 40 years old. He is probably still a better option.

The Daily Telegraph, another right-wing rag, a.k.a. the Torygraph, quotes Bob Wilson, the English-born but Scotland-playing goalkeeper who backstopped Arsenal's 1971 Double-winning side, and later became one of the world's foremost goalkeeping coaches. Bob called Green's goof "a basic schoolboy error, a howler."

As an Arsenal fan, I have to admit, along with "Bill Buckner," I thought "Lukasz Fabianski."

"There are no excuses," Wilson said. "There were a couple of bounces en route, but it was just down to poor technique. It was a howler.

"You always need a second barrier as a goalkeeper. He almost shovelled it in with his hands. You can't blame the ball for this goal, or the pitch. It was awful, a basic schoolboy goalkeeping error.

"We always teach and talk about a second barrier in goalkeeping and he led with his hands and scooped it past him. A horror moment."

But Wilson doesn't blame Green alone. He goes after England's Italian-born manager, who must have had flashbacks of Italy's disastrous 1974 World Cup, the only one in which he played:

"It creates a huge problem for Fabio Capello, and lots of fingers will now be pointing at the manager.

"He still doesn't know who is the best of his three 'keepers. Rob Green was trusted with the Number 1 jersey and now the critics will be saying he should have gone with Joe Hart because statistically he had the best season.

"You could see the look of horror on the faces of all the players, but everyone will have spoken to him at half-time and given him their full support. The fact that it happened in the first half gave him the chance of redemption in the second 45 minutes.

"The error reminded me of Dan Lewis letting in the goal in the 1927 FA Cup final when Cardiff beat Arsenal, the only time the FA Cup went out of England. Lewis allowed the ball to slip out of his shiny jersey and into the net. The shot was almost identical."

Having recently gone over the Arsenal: The Official History DVD, that particular gaffe was fresh in my mind, and I thought of that, along with Buckner and "Flappy-handski." Supposedly, Lewis' shirt was new and slippery, and the ball just plain skidded under his armpit and into the net.

In the tradition of ESPN Classic, I give you...

The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Robert Green for England Failing to Defeat the U.S.A. at the 2010 World Cup

5. David James and Joe Hart. England's other choices weren't obviously better in the run-in. Making Green the choice of...

4. Fabio Capello. He picked Green.

3. England's Attack. In 97 minutes, one of the world's supposedly best teams scored only one goal.

2. The U.S. Defense. The game went 97 minutes, counting each half's injury time. They stopped Steven Gerrard for the last 93 minutes, and for the entire 97 minutes, they stopped Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard; for most of the game stopped Emile Heskey; and ,for the last few minutes, stopped Heskey's replacement, the 6-foot-7 Tottenham bastard Peter Crouch.

1. Tim Howard. The opposing goalie was an absolute beast.

So... England are facing the same old story: Before the World Cup, the homeland press are calling them champions-to-be; after one bad group-stage game, they're spitting blood, or saying the sky is falling, or both.

But if I know the U.S. team (and I think I do), they'll be so proud of themselves over this that they'll clown their way through the Algeria and Slovenia games, and either blow a chance to finish 1st in their group, or even miss 2nd and fail to advance at all.

If the U.S. can beat Algeria, as they should, they'll advance no matter what happens against Slovenia. If they only get draws against both, and England beats both, and they draw against each other, that will leave the group standings as...

ENGLAND 7
U.S.A. 3
ALGERIA 2
SLOVENIA 2

And we advance, most likely to play Germany in the first knockout round. I don't want to lose to the Krauts... but we probably will.

But we proved a point to the English. And by the way, it's "soccer," not "football." You got a problem with that? Come and beat us!

As for those other Yankees, they beat the Houston Astros today, 9-3.