IBGerm

I was struggling with the idea on whether to write this one up or not, but here we go

Javier Aguirre’s stated…Panamanian player kept on playing outside the pitch." (course all coaches teach their players to play until the whistle)

"I wanted to stop the ball, there is contact with the player, inevitably because of the momentum that the player had. I lifted my foot too much and I regret that."
So, incidentally, does "the Panamanian player":

I can honestly say I’ve never seen this in international play let alone in league play but then again maybe I haven’t watched enough soccer (football, futbal)

AP describe the action:
Referee Joel Aguilar ejected Aguirre and whipped out a red card to give to Phillips as fans littered the field with cups of beer and other objects. Phillips was escorted off the field by a swarm of police — and pelted with beer as he ran into a tunnel — and after about 15 wild minutes, play resumed.

A fight then broke out between two fans in the front row across the field from the benches and Houston police officers moved in to separate them. Police handcuffed at least two fans in the area.

…Perez was injured on the field in the 90th minute and medical staff brought out a stretcher. As Perez was carried off the field, Mexican fans unleashed another barrage of cups and beer bottles and Perez fell off the stretcher.

The game ended about five minutes later and the Panamanian team lingered on the field to let stadium officials drive off the fans.
In other words, this was just another day in the life of the Mexican National team. Hey, it’s all in the spirit of sportsmanship right?

Why do we have to allow this type of play let alone the type of fans like this. I know this incident happens to be down in Houston with the Mexican national team, but it shouldn’t matter race color creed or what national team;these type of fans and play should not be allowed. I don’t care whether the coach said he was trying to stop the ball. The point being he made contact with a player on the field or sideline. Granted a red card was issued but FIFA needs to act accordingly on this issue. If you are going to give a red card to a US national team player for arguing a call walking off the field and suspend him for three games with a possible fourth,the same punishment needs to apply here if not more harshly. I am not defending what the US player did (which was stupid and immature) but it seems to be peanuts compared to this.

Now for the fans. I still don’t understand why the game was allowed to continue after several times in the waning minutes of the game beer bottles, water bottles and various trash projectiles not only were launched to the field but also to several Panamanian players. Once again it does not matter what nationality the fans are or where the games happen to be played; this type of trash in the fans should not be allowed. This is simply classless. In my opinion this has been occurring way too often recently. I love the idea that soccer (footbal, futbal), Is getting more popular in this country, but please let’s not import the thugs and hooligans and truly classless fans. I certainly hope we do import the passion however, but without the trash.

These are just my opinions.

David Beckham has come under attack from L.A. Galaxy team-mate Landon Donovan just as he prepares to return for action with the MLS team.

Donovan turned down his own chance to stay in Europe. Donovan, who is the United States captain and wears the Galaxy armband in Beckham’s absence, also questioned the former England skipper’s leadership abilities, claiming he is too often silent in team meetings. “Maybe he’s not a leader, maybe he’s not a captain,” he said. “Fair enough. But at a minimum, you should bust your ass every day. That hasn’t happened. And I don’t think that’s too much for us to expect. Especially when he’s brought all this on us.”

Can Landon Donovan look at David Beckham and be thinking anything good about his teammate? According to the AP, Landon Donovan believes that Beckham has become a bad teammate. “I can’t think of another guy where I’d say he wasn’t a good teammate, he didn’t give everything through all this, he didn’t still care,” Donovan said. “But with (Beckham) I’d say no, he wasn’t committed.” Click here for all the quotes and details from the original AP article.

Beckham’s first two seasons in MLS were largely a miserable experience. An unbalanced Galaxy team struggled all year and missed out on the play-offs, with Gullit quitting before the end of the campaign. Gullit’s departure, is the moment Donovan believes the light went out for the club’s marquee player. “When David first came, I believed he was committed to what he was doing,” Donovan said. “He cared. He wanted to do well. He wanted the team and the league to do well. “Somewhere along the way – and in my mind it coincides with Ruud being let go – he just flipped a switch and said, ‘Uh-huh, I’m not doing it anymore’.” Beckham pushed for a loan move to AC Milan in January, and then extended it to the point that he missed half of the 2009 MLS season. That served as evidence that he does not care for the league, according to Donovan, who gave up his chance to play in Europe early in his career in order to stay at home. “My sense is that David’s clearly frustrated, that he’s unhappy and, honestly, that he thinks it’s a joke,” he said. “I also kind of feel (he has taken the team) for granted. I don’t see dedication or commitment to this team, and that’s troubling.”

Beckham is due to make his return for the Galaxy against the New York Red Bulls on July 16.

He will line up alongside Donovan in that game, but the striker does not want that to be the case for much longer. “Let’s say he does stay here for three more years,” Donovan said. “I’m not going to spend the next three years of my life doing it this way. This is f****** miserable. I don’t want to have soccer be this way.”

Has the Beckham experiment officially failed? With even the players now coming out and saying so, how can Beckham’s return have any chance of success? Does this make the MLS look bad even after the great showing of the National team in Africa? I know I am personally looking forward to booing Beckham (although we will not even see him in Dallas this year). I totally understand the desire to play for God and Country, but to trash the league that gave him a life line after all others didn’t offer a contract!! Tell me what do you think?

 

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The following comes courtesy of the Courthouse News Service wire:    

PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) – A woman says Major League Soccer player Nate Jaqua sexually assaulted her when she was attending the University of Oregon on a soccer scholarship. On July 1, 2007, the college soccer player and other members of the team met Jaqua at the popular college hangout Rennie’s Landing, according to the woman’s lawsuit in Multnomah County Court. Jaqua, whose real name is Jonathan Jaqua, discussed the differences between college and professional soccer with the plaintiff and her friends, the lawsuit says. The plaintiff says she trusted Jaqua because of his Major League status. At midnight, she headed home alone, but says Jaqua insisted on walking with her for several blocks. That’s when Jaqua attacked the plaintiff and “subjected her to a brutal, forcible sexual assault,” the lawsuit claims. The plaintiff says she had to quit the soccer team because of her memories, is afraid to be alone and is scared of men. Represented by Randall Vogt, she demands $10 million in damages.

Jaqua has played for Los Angeles Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo. He currently plays with the Seattle Sounders.

What do you think? Guilty? Did he do it? Is she just going after money?

 

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I wanted to follow up on the first e-mail about the situation that occurred in Dallas (FC Dallas versus the Houston Dynamo on Saturday, June 13 ). First off I apologize about the format and spelling mistakes in the previous e-mail. I’m rewriting this in order to make it a little more readable and clarify a few points. Also I know for the most part that this is a minute group within the traveling Houston Dynamo supporter section and not a reflection of the group as a whole.

Before I get into the details of how they unfolded that night, I want to mention that not only were all three flags either missing and stolen or destroyed but the flag poles themselves were crushed, destroyed and are virtually unusable now. I did retrieve one flag however the grommets on that flag were ripped out. I eventually recovered the two poles that night but as I stated previously the top two sections of these polls were crushed and mangled. The flags themselves are easy to replace, but the flagpole kits were a special purchase and will run us retail of $100 to replace each flagpole. http://www.sportsauthority.com/sm-bsi-race-day-flag-pole-kit–pi-1826404.html. The flags we had, one was a red and white checkered flag, the other was a red and white stripped flag, with a snake (don’t tread on me, 1^st navy flag basically) and a black and white pirate flag.

For this game we decided to park in east parking lot across from the east side gate. We set up under a tree three or four rows back from me east side entrance a little to the right of center. We had three cars parked around the grass – tree medium. We decided to start about 4:14pm that afternoon. At this point we had several small Houston Dynamo fans around us with no issues, in fact were having a good time and enjoying a beverage with a few of the Dynamo supporters.

We decided to go into the stadium about 5:15 PM that evening to see the alumni game and stayed for the main event game that evening. Andy and Jenna left were we were seated, section 126, about 90:00 on the game clock, about one minute into the stoppage time. From what I understand, they left at this time, as to not be around when the supporter section came marching out. They felt it was an issue of safety. If they had stayed and saw what was happening and tried to stop it, they might have had an issue since there were more of them.  If the solution was to take down the flags earlier then what is the point. Are we saying other fans from other teams are ok to vandalize FCD fans property?  Where does it stop?

Paul ,Jennifer and myself waited until the end of the game and walked out the stadium and back to our cars. After talking with Andy and Jenna after the event they stated that when they got to the cars both flagpoles and all the flags were still there. We were maybe 5 to 10 minutes behind them. As soon as we left the stadium I looked up and noticed the poles being pulled down. I honestly didn’t think anything of it since Andy and Jenna had left before us and I assumed that they were taking them down to store them to take home. When we got to the cars this is when I noticed one of the poles with no flags attached on the road and the other on the grass median next to a small Houston Dynamo supporter bus. At this point I looked up and noticed Paul was talking to a security officer next to a larger Houston Dynamo supporter bus and yelling at me that he saw a gentleman come off the bus throw one of the flags down. At this point he picked the flag up and noticed another gentleman walk off the bus chanting and taunting that he had this other flag. As soon as he looked up he saw Paul and ran back up onto the bus. Now I am in the middle and surrounded by Houston Dynamo supporters and a few security officers. I decided that I would not take further action by myself and walked back to the east gate to get Frisco PD involved. I walked back to where Paul was situated now with 10 to 15 various Frisco officers and a few security officers from Pizza Hut Park. After trying to sort the situation out Jim from the FC Dallas organization was there trying to help as well as Paul Byrne from the Houston Dynamo organization. Unfortunately it didn’t seem as if anything was getting, and was told by Paul Byrne that this would be dealt with when they arrived back in Houston or in the following next couple of days. I have not heard anything back at this point.

We also tried to either press charges or get Frisco PD to enter the bus and at least retrieve the flag but they were unable to. I was basically told that I need to call the police and report this, which I thought was kind of strange since as I thought the Frisco police were already there along with several sheriffs and constables. It was then decided by Frisco police that they would like to just see the bus leaves for any more issues and/or trouble occurred. So the bus was forced to leave. Unfortunately the only description I have a gentleman that had the flags on the bus was that he was a 5 foot 7 Hispanic gentleman in his early 20s. Honestly I know that does not narrow it down one bit.

I want to know what if anything is going to be done about this. Like I said earlier I know it’s a small group of the supporter section that did this. It is not a reflection of the Houston supporter section as a whole, but nevertheless it is pure vandalism and stealing. What was taken were three flags in total one of which was retrieved but the grommets on that flag were torn off rendering the flag useless. Also both polls, one section of each were crushed. These are fiberglass poles and crushing the tubes reduces the structural integrity of the poll which basically makes them useless.

I look forward to hearing your responses on this issue.

FC Dallas season-ticket holder