Things got weird in the U.S. versus El Salvador soccer match in the Gold Cup last night a game won 2-0 by the Americans. Both Jozy Altidore and Omar Gonzalez alleged they were bitten by Salvadoran players and Altidore said he also had his nipple twisted by his biting attacker, Henry Romero. (Embedded at this […]

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After the road trip came the game, the reason former colleague Damian Secore and I drove a rented Chevrolet Chevy to the Mexican capital for a 2006 World Cup qualifying match. Anyone who is a soccer fan should see a game in Azteca Stadium, if they get the chance. I have been there three times, […]

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I am perversely proud of driving from Tijuana to Mexico City for the 2006 World Cup qualifying match of March 2005, at the Estadio Azteca. The report, below, recounts the final leg — from Guadalajara to the distrito federale. As it turned out, co-pilot Damian Secore and I encountered just about zero problems across a […]

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Another installment in the 2005 Tijuana-to-Mexico City road trip report on a 2006 World Cup qualifying match pitting the United States against Mexico. I had forgotten about spending time, the previous night, in steamy San Blas watching the festivities for Holy Week. It was Mexico at its most festive and friendly. The 425 miles to […]

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This was one of the more interesting legs of the 2005 road trip across Mexico to see the United States’ World Cup qualifier at Estadio Azteca. We had seen the map, and we knew we were leaving the desert, but we did not fully anticipate the massive shift in climates, once we entered Nayarit state. […]

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This is about United States versus Mexico soccer. World Cup qualifying soccer at that … But this is now, not 2005 — as it is in the parts of the 12-year-old series I have been republishing on this blog in recent days. The U.S. national soccer team got a very nice result today, in Mexico […]

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On our Tijuana-to-Mexico City road trip ahead of a 2006 World Cup qualifier, back in 2005, we noticed that the main north-south road on the western side of Mexico goes right through Navajoa — where Los Angeles Dodgers pitching star Fernando Valenzuela was born. Back in 2005, I assumed readers would not be interested in […]

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This ran as Day 1 in the March 2005 Futbol Diaries road-trip series — ahead of the U.S. national team playing Mexico in a 2006 World Cup qualifying match at Azteca Stadium. It can stand a bit more context. We had begun the day in Southern California, and we were driven down to San Diego […]

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The United States and Mexico are set to resume the greatest rivalry in North American soccer, four days hence, in a 2018 World Cup qualifying match to be played in Mexico’s Estadio Azteca. And the thought of it prompted memories of the 1,800-mile road trip two of us took from Tijuana, Mexico, to Mexico City […]

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In six-plus years based in Abu Dhabi, I saw this kid play dozens of times in person, hundreds of times when we add TV exposure … and it seems to me a highly justified decision by one on the web’s most important soccer sites: Omar Abdulrahman of Al Ain and the United Arab Emirates, best […]

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