USA Soccer sucks again

USA! USA! USA!

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Vindication. Satisfaction. Domination.

After finally earning a win against the Americans on U.S. soil, Mexico's players used all of those words Sunday to describe the 5-0 romp that gave them their fifth Gold Cup championship.

Oh, and one other noun: pride.

"I believe this is a great win for Mexico because we showed the pride we have in our hearts today," Giovani Dos Santos said. "This is a huge step for us in the process."

That process had included no progress this decade when the United States hosted its southern rival. The Mexicans were 0-9-2 since a March 1999 victory at San Diego.

They snapped that victory drought before an overwhelmingly pro-Mexico crowd of 79,156 at Giants Stadium with an offensive onslaught in the second half. Captain Gerardo Torrado scored on a penalty kick in the 56th minute, then the inexperienced U.S. squad came unglued.

Now if you excuse me, I need to go find a bottle of gin to forget about how much we actually suck at playing soccer. Bartender!

MLS Salaries

I found an interesting link today. It's' all the salaries of the 2009 MLS players. View it here.

Here's some of the things I found the most interesting.

1. Pro soccer players get screwed in this country. They make nothing compared to some of the other pro sports.

2. Ten players in the league make $21,100. I make more than that and I'm a freelance journalist.

3. The highest paid player is David Beckham of the Los Angeles Galaxy. He makes $5,500,000. Pay that guy less!

4. Kasey Keller of the Seattle Sounders FC makes $300,000. Pay that guy more!

5. Most of the players make around $35,000. Nothing to brag about. And these are pro athletes.

6. The Chivas, currently the 2nd best team in the MLS, their highest payed player is Sacha Kljestan. He makes $170,000.

7. Houston's highest player (the best team in the MLS) makes $248,050. That doesn't seem too bad to the fact that the New York Red Bulls (the worst team in the MLS) as a player making $1,500,000.

8. I should have played soccer.

9. Fredy Montero, AKA the guy who scores all of Seattle's goals only makes $155,000. I see that number exploding if he continues to have such a good year.

10. Did I mention David Beckham makes too much money to not even be a part of that team?

This weekend in review (bring your soccer cleats)

Pushing my leftist, soccer-loving agenda (good god what has happened to me?), here are some things that happened this weekend.

Brazil shocked that United States has a soccer team - Up 2-0 on one of the world's best soccer teams, the US couldn't hold on against Brazil and ended up losing 3-2. The difference? Apparently you cant win soccer games when the other team possesses the ball 60 percent of the time.

Billy Mays dies - In terms of shocking, this was up on the list. Forget about Michael Jackson, this was the guy that sold us Oxi-Clean!

Seattle Sounders FC get big win over Colorado - the boys in green shut down a team that had an 8-game unbeaten streak. The Colorado Rapids were stunned 3-0 by Seattle, Kasey Keller recorded his fifth shutout of the season (which means that Oliver Platt has scored more times than opponents of the Sounders).

Hoopfest - Judging from the amount of 50-year old men suffering from heat stroke, I'd say that it was Hoopfest weekend in Spokane. I caught the tail end of it and it was full of "those guys" that decided their 230-pound 5'4" frame was fine for non-shirt wearing. Ewwww.

The Seattle Mariners take two against the best team in baseball - Really? Those M's? If their lineup wasn't taking at-bats like it was t-ball, they might have something in Seattle.

Brandon went to Chewelah, Casey went to Montana - Where the cattle to human ratio is something like how many back-breaking strikeouts Ken Griffey Jr. has to home runs.