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US soccer celebrates 100 years!!
Topic Started: Jan 23 2013, 11:01 PM (803 Views)
americafutbol10
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2013 is the centennial celebration of US soccer...and, with that in mind, how about we list our top 5 favorite & fondest memories (WCQ, WC, USMNT games attended, etc.) & I'll start:

1) US 2-0 Mexico (WC Round of 16 - 06/17/02)
2) US 2-0 Mexico (WCQ - La Guerra Fria 02/28/01)
3) US 2-0 Mexico (WCQ - Columbus, Ohio 09/03/05)
4) US 3-0 Costa Rica (WCQ - Salt Lake City 06/04/05)

5, tie) US 2-0 Spain (Confederations Cup 06/24/09) & US 1-0 Algeria (WC Group Stage 06/23/10)

Bold = Games attended

Didn't include most important dates in the last 100 years, since I've only been a USA soccer fanatic since 2000 but, if anybody would like to list the most important dates in US soccer, please feel free. My top 3 would be:

1) US 1-0 England (1950 WC)
2) US 1-0 Trinidad & Tobago (1990 WCQ)
3) US 2-0 Mexico (2002 WC)

Happy Centennial, US Soccer! ;)
US Soccer...Don't Thread On Me!

Michigan Football...Harbaugh Effect (GO BLUE!)

LA Galaxy...5-time MLS Cup Champions!

Colombia...VIVA, Cafeteros!
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Yogi
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Good choices all around af10. That 1989 US win in Trinidad thanks to Paul Caligiuri's goal may be the most important one in history in my mind. That win is what brought the US out of the wilderness and brought the sport back to national attention.
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shelsoccer
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I'd echo Yogi's thoughts about the importance of the 1989 win in T&T. As old as I'm getting, I wasn't around for the 1950 upset of England. Although that game was memorialized in a movie, it didn't have a lasting impact on soccer in this country, but it did contribute to keeping the game alive here. I might also add in the recent friendly win over Mexico in Azteca, a first.
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alabastergremlin
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A game which will always stay with me is a loss. The loss to Germany in WC02. A game which we deserved better than the outcome we received. What a well fought game in which, after the final whistle, every person there and every person watching knew Germany escaped with that one.

The Mexico game the round before was obviously massive. I think the Portugal game, for the sheer jaw-dropping shock value of a 3-0 lead, is pretty under appreciated as well.

The victory over Spain in the Confed Cup was great.

I was 8 or so for "the shot heard around the world" but I can appreciate the importance of it as the US hasn't missed a World Cup since and, despite ups and downs, has been a player in world soccer in some way since then.



Aside from an individual game...I think a lot could be said about the decision to put the World Cup in the US in 94 and the massive success it turned out to be is a topic in its own right.

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Johnbuildr
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Difficult to add much to what you guys have already noted.

I will always remember getting up in the middle of the night and being shocked along with the rest of the world to see our under rated boys bomb Portugal, one of the top favorites going into that WC.

But the Mexico win and the Germany loss, the latter a real miscarriage of justice, are the top highlights of US soccer in my fan-lifetime.
I've been to Columbus multiple times, Salt Lake City, and to great Gold cup wins in Pasadena and elsewhere, but that 2002 WC run was a cut above them all, and arguably the highest point ever for US soccer to date.

Biggest let down to me was traveling to Germany for that wonderfully staged World Cup only to have our team underperform and bow out in group play, even though they did have a tremendous game against Italy. It was a devastating step back in US soccer in my mind, and at a time when I was so hopeful the US would take another step up in their level of play and in the rest of the soccer-world's eyes.
Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum



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Sammy Maudlin
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A fascinating story on a game I bet few of us remember, the US win in 1981 over Mexico in Ft Lauderdale in World Cup qualifying, unfortunately by that time the US was already eliminated from group play, with Canada and Mexico advancing, but it was still an improbable win back from another time when the US national team was a mere afterthought.
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Yogi
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Great article, I do remember that game, of course I read a blip about it the following day in the St Louis Post Dispatch then had to wait 2 weeks or more for Soccer America to arrive and describe the game in more detail.

It is good to read about some names from the past like Steve Moyers but I do not miss those days when soccer and especially the national team were, as Sammy correctly describes, a mere afterthought.
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shelsoccer
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Thanks, Sammy. A trip down memory lane.

Like Yogi, I remember reading about it but obviously didn't get to see it ... and I guess few have since. I clearly remember many of those old NASL names. I particularly was a big Steve Moyers fan. And, I remember the tragic, too-young death of the promising Njego Pesa. I can still ID some of the players from the team photo. God, I'm old.

However, I do think the author over-states the impact of that game in terms of the development of the national team and the rivalry with Mexico. It was an after-thought, a meaningless game in terms of qualifying and quickly forgotten.

At that point in the history of the NASL, Americans were still getting sparse playing time. Qualifying for the 1986 World Cup would have been a more realistic goal. However, the league folded in 1983 and that retarded the development of those Americans who played in that game in Ft. Lauderdale.
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Winslow
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A match I will never forget was one of my earliest caps, the 2-0 win over England in Foxboro in 1993. Goals by Dooley and Lalas, Meola's finest ever Nats performance, and a large group of English fans behind us chanting "We may never win again!" after the final whistle.
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Martin
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My first US national team game: 1984 at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the US beat Colombia 1-0 with a goal by Ade Coker. Also playing for the US back then were Ricky Davis, Jean Willrich, Jacques Ladouceur, Hayden Knight and my college classmate Jeff Hooker.
Club Sportivo Desamparados
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alabastergremlin
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My first US Soccer game was actually an Olympic game. 1996. Birmingham, against Argentina. US scored 29 seconds into the game and lost 3-1.

The team consisted of Keller, Pope, Lalas, Kirovski, Reyna, Heyduk among others. I did not realize it until just now but Arena was the coach then.

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libero
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My first US game, the same year as Martin's, 1984 but it was a World Cup qualifier in a stadium which does not exist anymore (old Busch Stadium) against a country which does not exist anymore (Netherlands Antilles!) :lol:

Oh, the US won 4-0.
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hobbes
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Sammy Maudlin,Mar 26 2013
09:05 AM
A fascinating story on a game I bet few of us remember, the US win in 1981 over Mexico in Ft Lauderdale in World Cup qualifying, unfortunately by that time the US was already eliminated from group play, with Canada and Mexico advancing, but it was still an improbable win back from another time when the US national team was a mere afterthought.

Thanks for that article Sammy. It was fascinating read from an era that seems not that long ago (in some ways 1980 doesn't seem forever ago, in other ways it feels like a completely different time), but in a soccer sense is light years from what things are like now.

I agree with Shel that the author maybe overstates what that game meant (surely the 1991 win at the Gold Cup kind of got things going to a real degree), but it's a game I had never even heard about until now.

cheers,
hobbes
Saskatchewan for the CPL: multis e gentibus vires
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Rufus T. Firefly
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I agree with Shel that the author maybe overstates what that game meant (surely the 1991 win at the Gold Cup kind of got things going to a real degree), but it's a game I had never even heard about until now.

For me the 1991 Gold Cup, the US' first real competition under Bora, is for me the start of the modern era for US soccer, when it started to become relevant in this country.
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raconteur
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Include me with those thinking the 1991 Gold Cup is what really started the modernization of the sport in the US. Yes the 1990 World Cup is another noted era but that team barely qualified out of CONCACAF then was completely outclassed at Italia 90. But a year later, Bora had organized the US into a more competitive team and one which won the inaugural Gold Cup. That is when the US national team started to take on some significance.
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