U.S. Sends Mexico Packing at World Cup
June 17, 2002
The day began on a shaky note for the U.S. side with Mexico pushing the Americans deep into their own end from the opening whistle. The Americans applied pressure of their own following a shot on goal by Brian McBride that hit the back of the net and put the U.S. up 1-0 eight minutes into the match.
Mexico turned up the heat after the break but failed to convert on a series of corners and free kicks. And as is often the case in sports, missed opportunities have a way of backfiring - and backfire they did. A splendid cross from Eddie Lewis led to a goal-scoring header from Landon Donovan to send Mexico packing.
The match turned physical early on with the referee handing out ten yellow cards - five to each side – and a red card to a Mexican player towards the end.
Mexico’s coach, Javier Aguirre, blamed part of his team’s loss on the referee, saying that he missed a clear second-half handball by an American defender in the penalty area.
"We were unlucky", he said. "We conceded the goals at the worst possible time." One of his strikers, Jared Borgetti, praised the U.S. side, however, saying, "We tried everything but came up against a brick wall."
The U.S. now gets to try out it’s brick wall against heavy favorite Germany in the quarter-finals on Friday. The U.S. coach said following his team’s win Monday that he’s more than aware of how difficult Friday’s match against Germany will be.
Germany’s coach, Rudi Völler has already warned his team against taking the Americans too lightly.
"This is going to be a tough one", he’s said. Everyone will have to wait until Friday, though, to see just how tough the match will be.
What is safe to say right now is that tens of millions of football-crazy Germans will be following the game on television Friday and those are numbers that the U.S. can only dream about.