12/21/24
August 15, 2012
First Win for U.S. Men in Mexico: After 75 years, 23 losses and one tie, the U.S. men's soccer team has won a match in Mexico for the first time ever. Mexican-American Michael Orozco Fiscal scored a goal in the 80th minute and Tim Howard made two monumental saves to hold on for a 1-0 victory.
US definitely missed Bradley in the middle, but the back line played as well as they have in quite some time. It's quite unusual to get a friendly in Azteca, but this win and experience should serve the team well when they (presumably) return there next year in qualifying.
posted by bender at 09:16 AM on August 16, 2012
According to PTI yesterday, the answers given for "What % chance does the US have of winning (tonight) in Mexico?" were "1%" and "What is zero divided by infinity? 0%".
Heh.
posted by grum@work at 11:06 AM on August 16, 2012
And then today they'll talk about what a great win it was without having seen a minute of it. While the US hung around and poached the win, hard to complain given the lack of Dempsey and Bradley (and Donovan missing half the game) and the makeshift D.
posted by yerfatma at 11:30 AM on August 16, 2012
Unbelievable saves by Howard. I didn't expect to see so many players I didn't know factoring into the goal. Nice to have the Azteca monkey off our backs before a potential World Cup qualifier there.
posted by rcade at 12:53 PM on August 16, 2012
In their defense, PTI opened with it and said they needed to "eat crow".
posted by yerfatma at 06:05 PM on August 16, 2012
Of course, this is the one Mexico/USA tilt that I miss.