Right City, Wrong Team

Having spent three years living in L.A., I know that the City of Angels is a great soccer market.  The area's beautiful soccer-specific Home Depot Center supports two MLS teams, the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA, and the city's parks are constantly filled will soccer leagues and pickup games (even in the middle of the afternoon of weekdays, when you'd think people would be working, but whatever . . .).  It's not surprising, then, that the CONCACAF brass elected to hold the Gold Cup Final in Pasadena's Rose Bowl;  after all, event organizers wanted a location and venue where they could sell 93,420 tickets. 

Unfortunately for fans of USA Soccer, however, the Los Angeles area wasn't the best selection.  Given the city's large, growing and soccer-obsessed Mexican population, the Rose Bowl was filled with as many, if not more, Mexico fans for Saturday night's matchup between the border rivals.  For the U.S., it was, in a way, the greater of two evils.  Early games against Canada in Detroit and against Panama in Tampa Bay failed to draw a good crowd, and tons of empty seats were clearly visable on TV.  While the final was completely sold out and impressively loud, it was the green, red and black-clad Mexicans who provided most of the passion, not the fans wearing red, white and blue.  Even the post-match ceremony was conducted in Spanish, which U.S. goalie Tim Howard called a "disgrace."

Time Howard didn't get much support from either his defense or from the home crowd.

Many soccer commentators have noted that the U.S. missed a big opportunity to put itself on the soccer map with a victory over a talented, deep and young Mexican side on Saturday, and that definitely seems true.  A Gold Cup championship not only would have guaranteed the U.S. a spot in the 2013 Confederations Cup (where the U.S. last made a big international statement in 2009), but also would have generated some additional soccer buzz well in advance of the 2014 World Cup.  Instead, the Gold Cup final showed that U.S. soccer isn't quite ready to compete with the world's soccer powers, either on the field or in the stands.