Congratulations U.S. Men's Soccer Team!!!

For those who didn’t notice (especially in Seattle, where ther Griffey Love-Fest was in full swing…see last post) the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team won the CONCACAF 2007 Gold Cup on Sunday.

You might ask, how did I miss that? The CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) Gold Cup is only the PREMIER INTERNATIONAL CUP TOURNAMENT OF NORTH AMERICA. Was it on ESPN? Was it played in some foreign country?

Um…no and no. It was played in CHICAGO. And I had to watch the broadcast on Univision in Espanol (that’s Spanish, folks). At least, I got to watch it live.

The U.S. topped Mexico 2-1 in the final game of the tournament, and nearly 4-1…an early goal was negated by an off-sides penalty and a late game dribble past the fallen Mexico keeper bounced off the goal post on what should have been a very easy score.

Needless to say, the Mexican sportscasters on Univision were less than thrilled with the result of the match.

Now there was a bit of controversy in the semi-finals apparently when a Mexican referee negated a game-tying score by the Canadians with an off-sides call during stoppage time. The Canadians ended up losing to the U.S. 2-1, and there were many cries of conspiracy (especially because the ref had already red carded two U.S. players in the game, ensuring Mexico would play a short-handed U.S. squad in the final). However, heart-breaking as the call might have been, Canadians were just as incensed that their team let the U.S. go up 2-0 on them by half-time.

[just for the record, Mexico did NOT gain a pass to the finals until AFTER the Canada-U.S. game by defeating the French island republic Guadeloupe 1-0; they were heavily favored, however]

Now what is most amazing to me is NOT that the U.S. won, but that they made such a strong showing in the Gold Cup. Anyone who’s been following the U.S. national team the last decade has seen plenty of inconsistency in the play of the men’s team. Sometimes they’ve been…well, “brilliant” is too strong a word, but pretty darn good. Sometimes they’ve been a real mess. However, they went 6-0-0 in this year’s tournament, winning every match they played…the only team in the tournament to do so. Hell, no one even scored on the U.S. team till the quarter-finals (they beat Guatemala, T&T, and El Salvador by scores of 1-0, 2-0, and 4-0 respectively)!

Could it be their new coach? Well Bradley is a Pisces. How does that fit into the current squad?

Pretty well actually. The U.S. men’s team had a 23 man roster for la Copa de Oro (the Gold Cup). One might think that there would be a fairly even distribution of players across the 12 signs of the zodiac. In other words, about 2 of every sign.

Nope.

Sure there’s 1 or 2 of most signs…but then there’s four Gemini and five Pisces…SIX Pisces if you count the coach. The cardinalities of the team are skewed incredibly to Mutable signs (4 Cardinal, 5 Fixed, 14 Mutable…not counting the coach!). Star players Landon Donovan (Pisces) and DeMarcus Beasley (Gemini) both belong to these Mutable signs, as does the team captain Carlos Bocanegra (Gemini) as is goal keeper Tim Howard (Pisces).

Mutable signs are ADAPTABLE signs, and with so much of the team focused in this area, it makes for a very flexible even mercurial (no pun intended) personality. These guys don’t have the rigidity of the super-strong German men’s team (mostly Scorpio in the 2006 World Cup) or the family/homeland focus of the Koreans (mostly Cancer in 2006). But they are supple and elusive, intelligent (eight Air signs!) and merging as a whole, single entity (all that Pisces!). If they can capitalize on their chemistry this team will continue to make strong showings in the international arena!

All right…more on Soccer (futbol) later. For now, congrats to a U.S. team that seems to be working very well.

(oh, final note: the part of body that Pisces rules in the feet. Nice footwork Landon, with your 4 goals in the tournament!)