This is embarrassing, right?
It’s one thing for the LA Galaxy to fall out of the Concacaf Champions League in the quarterfinals at the hands of, say, Monterrey.
It’s another to go out against Club Tijuana, which is what the Galaxy accomplished tonight, losing 4-2 in TJ to go out 4-3 on aggregate.
A couple things about the victors.
–Club Tijuana has been in existence only since 2007. They did not play in Mexico’s top flight until 2011. This is season No. 7 for the Xolos. Rare is the team that can make a Major League Soccer team (and the Galaxy was founded in 1996) seem a mountain of tradition, but Tijuana does it.
—Tijuana, city of, which is just across the U.S. border from San Diego, has been one of the most notorious towns in Mexico (at least in the minds of norteamericanos) for decades. Originally, for being astonishingly seedy and dangerous, and the past 20 years for being a hub of drug sales and consequent violence and corruption. And even more dangerous.
–The Club Tijuana badge includes … a Mexican hairless dog. Maybe not a chihuahua, but something that looks a lot like it.
–And you can’t drink the water in Tijuana.
This is the sort of result that makes you think the Galaxy just doesn’t care enough to win the Champions League. Or perhaps lacks the mental toughness to do so.
The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) club championship has been won by U.S. teams exactly twice since 1962.
To their credit, the Galaxy did it. Once. Back in 2000. Defeating Saprissa of Costa Rica in the final. DC United was the other Major League Soccer to win the continental title, in 1998.
Mexican teams have won the past eight continental titles, and 10 of the past 12. The other two were won by Costa Rican teams.
This is embarrassing for the whole of MLS, which likes to consider itself the equal to (or superior of) Mexico’s league — now known as Liga MX. But it pretty clear is not.
Mexico’s teams and players are competent. Anyone who has watched them in the World Cup can vouch for that.
But the MLS ought to be winning the Champions League at least once a while, and the Galaxy, the premier MLS franchise, ought to win it more than once every couple of decades.
If they are not embarrassed, they ought to be.
2 responses so far ↓
1 James // Mar 19, 2014 at 9:45 AM
Galaxy’s showing in the first half was deplorable. Demonstrated a distinct lack of interest, between not contending enough for 50-50 balls, the imprecise, sloppy passing, and the Swiss Cheese Defense, which never works well for anyone.
Second half was much better – if they’d played that way the whole game, they’d have advanced easily, IMHO.
2 Doug // Mar 19, 2014 at 3:24 PM
Part of the problem for MLS teams in this tournament is that they are just starting their season while the Mexican teams are in mid-season form. Though they are new to the top flight, Xolos has had a lot of success, including winning a Liga MX title and reaching the quarter-finals of the Copa de Libertadores, the South American version of Europe’s Champion’s League. Xolos also have at least 6 Americans on their roster, including U.S. internationals Herculez Gomez, Joe Corona and Edgar Castillo.
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