USA 1-2 Mexico

Well, shit. The USA’s futility at Estadio Azteca continues with a 2-1 loss to El Tri today. After a great start (a U.S. goal in the ninth minute), things went downhill pretty quickly. ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle has a good summary:

The U.S. battled hard, but this will go down as a missed opportunity for the Yanks. In a game where the U.S. looked fatigued at the end, the team’s inability to keep possession was their undoing. They simply spent so much time defending that they wore down. The sight of Juarez beating Donovan in the run-up to the winning goal was telling. Donovan is one of the fittest players on the team, yet even he looked gassed.

I’ll be less diplomatic than Carlisle. The final score belies the game, really. The Yanks played like shit. Zero play in the midfield, and thus no possession. It felt like Mexico was on a perpetual power play.

Thank God for Tim Howard, otherwise this game would have been a repeat of the Gold Cup final, only with our A squad in. Donovan played well, but again, zero play from the midfield, and defensively we were lacking.

It seems like our entire strategy — or, worse, perhaps this is becoming the “U.S. style” of football — is to play bend-but-don’t-break defence and hope for goals on the fast break, maybe the odd set piece off a foul coming from a fast break.

That’s not sustainable, as we saw in the second half of the Confederations Cup final against Brazil, and through much of this game.

I won’t comment on officiating, since I was watching streaming video at my desk while simultaneously working and chatting with two friends and keeping an eye on the Washington Post’s live chat. But I will say that the Post crowd was pretty apoplectic, as is their wont, and it did look like the ref completely lost control of the game.

General consensus was that if you look at a Mexican player, foul, possibly a card. Mount an unprovoked back-alley knife attack on an American, play on. But I didn’t see it.

Some quick hits:

• Always nice to see the klassy Mexican fans. Thanks for throwing shit at Landon Donovan as he sets up a corner. Call it “passion” if you want; I call it bush-league.
• USA maintains its perfect record in Mexico City: No wins, especially at Azteca.
• Brian Ching is worthless.
• In the end, this game was a must-win for a Mexican side that is still in danger of not buying tickets to South Africa next year. The Yanks have a bit more wiggle room, but not too much — don’t want any more of these performances.

Two more quick hits, courtesy of friends writing in:

Dave Breg: “We suck. It’s Jurgen time.” (Bring on Klinsmann, I say!)

Bill Atkinson: “At least we have clean drinking water and Tamiflu.”