The U.S. men’s soccer team qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa in a thrilling game on Saturday night in San Pedro Sula in Honduras.  The fact that no one in the U.S. could see the game — unless they had access to a closed circuit broadcast — is a testament to the backwards world of FIFA, not of US Soccer. (Thank goodness for Twitter – which kept most of us informed virtually in real time on Saturday night).

The U.S. team (unlike FIFA which lets host countries dictate broadcast rights, which led to the stupid blackout) is very much living in the 21st century.  This is the sixth consecutive World Cup berth for the Americans – which means that this generation of U.S. players can’t even remember a time when  U.S. didn’t make it to the world’s biggest and best sporting event. 

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Team Turmoil played at the Oakland Coliseum on Sunday. And, no, the Raiders’ season hasn’t started yet.

The other form of football was being played: Mexico took on Nicaragua in the first round of the Gold Cup, a 12-team regional soccer tournament.

And while the dreary Coliseum was more crowded and livelier than it has been in a long time, it still wasn’t full. The crowd that watched Mexico defeat Nicaragua 2-0 was 32,057 — the kind of gathering the A’s would swoon for — but it wasn’t capacity. Read the rest of this entry »