Arrrgggghhhhh. The US is much better than Mexico at this point. It's frustrating to see them lose even if it is in Azteca stadium where everyone loses. I was searching for the answers and I fell back on an old technique for assigning blame. First, I blame my parents. If that doesn't work, I blame an ethnic minority. And if that doesn't work I blame the government. My parents must remain blameless for this loss, mostly because they've never had anything to do with soccer but also because they are both dead (am I allowed to write that?). So obviously I went to the fallback from that which is to blame the f*&@ing Mexicans. That worked for a while but upon some introspection I realized that the Mexicans just went out and played a great game of soccer (well, okay, a few tossed paper cups at Landon when he was trying to take a corner but as far as Mexican fanaticos go that's pretty mild). So that only left the government to blame. By government I don't mean President Obama (this isn't an am radio station we're running here), but rather the governors of the US Soccer Federation. These dough-heads think that there is nothing wrong with flying a team from Miami at sea level to Mexico City at 7400 feet above sea level to play a World Cup qualifying match with about 18 hours to adjust to the low oxygen. I could understand this brain-fart if we were, say, Trinidad and had no high-altitude training facilities. But the fact of the matter is that we have world class soccer facilities in Salt Lake City and high altitude athletic facilities in Colorado and California. Why on earth wouldn't they decide to give the players a day or two to acclimate before tossing them into the meat-grinder that is Azteca stadium? I mean, it isn't as though the US guys weren't trying. Did you see Charlie Davies lying on the ground with his heart visibly pounding through his chest? They just couldn't get enough oxygen to their muscles to chase down the very fast Mexican forwards, or to run past the equally fast Mexican defenders, or to chase down the Mexican midfielders when they had the ball.
How on earth haven't the people running the US MNT figured out that altitude, especially 7400 feet of it, matters. And why don't they know that two days at altitude is all that it takes for the human body to acclimate? I blame them.
As an aside, how about that Cuahtemoc (yeah I know, spelling) Blanco? The guy is as old as dirt but he still played a great first half and set up the first Mexican goal beautifully. He drew two US defenders to him and then poked the ball over to Israel Castro who banked a beautiful diving ball off the crossbar and into the net. Hopefully Blanco sticks around for the World Cup if Mexico makes it (they'll make it: 3 of their next 5 qualifiers are at Azteca). He should be eligible for the senior's discount on a hotel room by the time the World Cup rolls around so that should save the Mexican national team some money in South Africa.
