June 27, 2007
With Eye on Future, U.S. Takes Youngsters on Trip to Venezuela
By Jack Bell, New York Times - EXTRA TIME
Talk about a quick turnaround. Only hours after defeating Mexico in the final of the CONCACAF Gold Cup on Sunday in Chicago, Coach Bob Bradley and an ersatz United States national team were preparing to leave for Venezuela. The inexperienced American team, which includes 11 players who have made fewer than five appearances for the senior national team, opens play in Copa América tomorrow against Argentina.
The Argentines, the defending champions, expect to start Lionel Messi and Hernán Crespo at forward, with the powerful Carlos Tévez on the bench. In 1995, the United States defeated Argentina, 3-0, to advance to the quarterfinals.
For the United States, which accepted an invitation to the event this year after rejecting one in 2004, the tournament is not as important as the Gold Cup, the regional championship. By winning that title, the United States qualified for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa.
“Copa América is going to be a great opportunity for our younger players to gain invaluable experience at the highest international level,” Bradley said on U.S. Soccer’s Web site. “Playing two major tournaments back to back is both a privilege and a difficult challenge in terms of putting together rosters, and this is something we’ve known all along. This group has many of the faces that could play a role in 2008 and 2009 when our focus turns to our ultimate goal of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.”
World Cup qualifying matches in CONCACAF are not expected to start until early next year.
Gone from the American roster for Copa América are many players who play professionally in Europe (Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard, for example) and some stars from Major League Soccer (Landon Donovan and Brian Ching). Three players (Marvell Wynne, Drew Moor and Herculez Gomez) could make their first international appearances. Five others (Kyle Beckerman, Charlie Davies, Brad Guzan, SachA Kljestan and Lee Nguyen) have played once for the United States.
After the first-round match in Maracaibo tomorrow, the Americans will play Paraguay on Monday in Barinas, then Colombia on July 5 in Barquisimeto.
FIFA’s Big Count
Two hundred and seventy million people, about 4 percent of the world’s population, are involved in soccer, according to the Big Count 2006, FIFA’s most recent study of the game around the world, conducted with figures provided by 207 national associations. The overall figure is a 10 percent increase over a similar study from 2000 and also shows a 50 percent increase in the number of registered female players worldwide.
Among the survey’s findings:
***The number of female players worldwide has increased 19 percent, to 26 million from 21.9 million. The number of registered female players (at youth and senior levels) has jumped 54 percent, to 4.1 million from 2.7 million.
***The United States Soccer Federation has the most registered youth players (3.9 million) in the world, with 2.3 million male players and 1.5 million female players. Germany is second and Brazil third.
***Germany (6.3 million) has the most registered players over all, followed by the United States (4.1 million). The United States (1.7 million) has the most registered female players in the world, followed by Germany (871,000) and Canada (495,000).
***China (26 million) has the most players, professional or otherwise, followed by the United States (24.5 million) and India (20.5 million).
***Among FIFA’s six confederations, Europe has the most male youth players (9.4 million), followed by Concacaf — the region that includes the United States — with 5.2 million. No other region has more than 2.3 million registered young players. Among female players, Concacaf has 23 million, more than double South America’s 11 million.
***As a percentage of overall population, 8.53 percent of the more than 500 million people who live in Concacaf nations are involved in soccer, the highest percentage among the confederations.
FIFA collected the data during the first half of 2006 in a questionnaire sent to its member associations. There was a 75 percent response rate. The complete study is available at fifa.com.
Notes
***Last weekend, the French striker Thierry Henry left Arsenal of the English Premier League for Barcelona in Spain. Now it appears that the Argentine striker Carlos Tévez, who starred at West Ham United last season, is probably headed for Inter Milan, the defending Serie A champion in Italy.
***Giuseppe Rossi, a striker born in New Jersey who moved to Italy with his family, is being pursued by Parma of Serie A. He currently plays for Manchester United, which signed him at age 16.
***The United States Soccer Federation has added 10 teams to its new development program: Chicago Magic, Chicago Sockers, Clearwater Chargers (Florida), Crossfire Premier (Washington), Greensboro Youth (North Carolina), IMG Academy (Florida), Kendall Soccer Coalition (Florida), Mustang FC (California), Oakwood SC (Connecticut) and Vardar (Michigan).
***Officials from South America will make their case against FIFA’s proposed ban on games played at high altitude before FIFA’s medical commission director and its executive committee. “We really need to defend fair play,” María Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s foreign minister, told The Associated Press from Zurich. “We believe because of the scientific and medical studies that altitude is not a problem.” FIFA has proposed prohibiting games in cities more than 8,200 feet above sea level.
***GolTV (English) and Telefutura (Spanish) began their coverage of Copa América yesterday with two games and will broadcast the United States-Argentina game tomorrow at 8:50 p.m. Each network will carry all 26 games live.
***ESPN will provide coverage of all 52 games of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, which begins Saturday in Canada. Twenty-six games will be available on ESPNU and 26 on ESPN360.com, a broadband service that is available only for users with Windows-based computers. The United States will be making its 11th appearance in the event and is in a first-round group with South Korea (Saturday, 5 p.m.), Poland (Tuesday, 5 p.m.) and Brazil (July 6, 7:30 p.m.). All three of the American team’s first-round games will be on ESPNU.
