Our second annual international friendly ended much the same way our first one did — with Chattanooga FC beating our Mexican visitors by one goal. The CF Monterrey U20 squad may have been a few years younger than our team’s average, but they played a very mature level of soccer, and made things quite difficult for us. But our boys came through in flying colors for the come from behind win!

Some interesting twists for our squad: due to the holiday (or other obligations), we came into the game without several talented players — Chris Ochieng, Mark Sherrod, Nickson Odeny, James Moore and Moises Drumond — all absent for the game on the Fourth. And while Thomas Hunter was here, Coach Crossman gave backup (and third season local-boy-makes-good CFC-er) Ryan Peck his first start of the season. Michael Brooks and Robbie Hill got the starts up top, their first time on the field together… So the squad was a very different mix than we usually see, and perhaps very different than how they are used to playing as well.

While this Monterrey squad is quite young, it is very important to note that they are extremely talented. We heard word that 3 of these guys have been practicing with the professional squad (the one that has won the Primera Division and the CONCACAF Champions League!) and we should expect to see at least 2 of them on that team this fall. Then both of the goalies play for youth national teams (one for the US the other for Mexico)… So while young, these jugadores are no slouches.

On to the game notes:

Robbie Hill started us off with fireworks in the second minute of the game with his immaculately placed chip to the left upper 90 of the goal. The goalie didn’t even move — except to watch the ball float lazily into the net. A fantastic shot that he has to be so proud of — we loved it!

CF Monterrey looked a bit rattled for the next 10 minutes or so, and the entire stadium saw a hand ball in the box that somehow the head official decided not to notice… But Monterrey quickly found their feet again and started causing problems for our backs. But the defense held for the most part until that absolute crushing blast that Ryan Peck deflected (that had to hurt!) and another attacker poked into the back of the net to take us into the half all knotted up at 1-1.

Early in the second half, a Monterrey player embellished some contact in the box and got a penalty kick out of it. Monterrey converted to take the lead 2-1. At this point Chattanooga FC seemed to struggle a bit, looking as though we might go down.

Wholesale substitutions came on with about 30 minutes left: Luke Winter, Phil Beene, Ivan Heredia, Tom Webster, Josh Shields and Julian Algeier and the pace picked up quite a bit. CFC started creating more attacking chances, but nothing was converted.

Then with about 15 minutes left, Julian Algeier took the ball at the top of the box and attempted a shot that the rushing goalie knocked back into the midfield. Someone (who? Ivan? Luke?) slid to reach the flying ball and one-touched a volley over the goalie and into the box, where a running Phil Beene picked the ball out of the air and rocketed it into the back of the net to tie us up at 2-2! The crowd went bananas of course…

Then in the last 7 minutes of regulation, someone (again, who?) fired a beautiful cross from the far left side to Tom Webster who came bearing down on the 6 yard box at full speed. Tom trapped the ball perfectly at his feet, carefully sized up the keeper and slid the ball home into the back corner of the goal. Pandemonium erupted. CFC leads 3-2!

Of course Monterrey pressed hard and the head ref allowed a bit more stoppage time than he should’ve, but CFC held firm and won the game 3-2.

Well, we have to say that we are extremely proud of the team. A comeback win is not easy and it was certainly not expected from a good number of guys who have not had a great deal of play time this season. Based on what we saw this game (and Saturday in Conyers), we are quite impressed with the quality of play of our so-called substitutes. There is not much of a drop off in talent, and this bodes well for the us at the end of the season. And our Man of the Match is one of those subs: Tom Webster for his game winning shot! Well done.

What a great way to end our 4th of July — thanks fellas!

Well those of us who braved the icky weather last Tuesday for Mexico-Colombia were rewarded with an entertaining (if cold and wet) match. Three pretty great goals, a red card and even some coach ejections kept us more than interested in the new batch of talent in training for the 2014 World Cup.

We were sad to hear only about 1,500 folks turned out, but we are no dummies — it was harsh conditions for any sort of fair-weather soccer fan (which makes up easily 80% of the CFC crowd). All in all, 1,500 on a rainy 32ºF weeknight is not a shabby turnout… Though we do know that at least 3,000 more folks might’ve turned out for nicer weather, a weekend game or the US U20 National team. So note to organizers (CFC? We saw that you “hosted” it): winter games between two teams that have only very very slight ties to Chattanoogans might not be such a good idea.

Also, it was sad to see the food and drink be a far cry from the quality we are used to having at CFC games. Finley: take some notes will ya?

Still, we had fun and hope that we can try to attract more teams to play in the Scenic City. up with football!

See you there at Finley Stadium tomorrow night soccer freaks! It will be cold and wet, so come prepared and dressed appropriately… But the soccer should be world class!

Chattanooga FC says in its eblast that 21 of the players play professionally in the top leagues of Mexico or Colombia, so we should see some really outstanding play. Plus, who knows what players you may see in the next World Cup?

Viva futbol!

Mexico vs Colombia U20s
Tuesday Nov 30, 2010
7:00pm
Finley Stadium
Chattanooga, TN

Wow! How cool is this? Chattanooga gets to host an international friendly between the Under-20 National Teams of both Mexico and Colombia on November 30, 2010! Amazing! The only downside is that both teams will also play the US U-20 NAtional team in Atlanta, so the number of fans we might attract from Atlanta might not be as big…

Read some about the match on ChattanoogaFC.com or at the TimesFreePressOnline.com.

We’ll let you know about where/how to get tickets as soon as we find out!

Viva Futbol!

We are back *at long last* from a vacation trip that resulted in a shocking lack of wifi accessibility… So sorry we have gone dark for over a week. No worries. We are back and will be hard at work for you.

Anyone traveling to the away game against RCU tomorrow? Don’t worry, we’ll go for you and send a good review!

Other disappointments besides wifi:

1. Chattanooga FC’s tie with Atlanta FC – at home no less! AFC’s first point of the season, what is up with that???

2. Italy, France and even England… they had great success in WC qualifying, but failed to show up convincingly. Perhaps in ENG is saving for later?

3. All the African teams (save Ghana and perhaps Ivory Coast). We had hoped for more.

What an amazing night of soccer for Chattanooga! Chattanooga FC doesn’t just get to play a great soccer team from Guadalajara, but we actually compete with them in front of our largest crowd to date!

Yes, you read that correctly: Not only did we see some wonderful soccer from the U-23 team of the second oldest soccer club in Mexico: FC Atlas, and we did see some impressive soccer, we also saw some equally wonderful soccer from our very own Chattanooga FC. I think we shocked even ourselves as we went on to win our first international friendly 2-1 in front of 6,300+ fans. And to top it off, even the forecasted ugly weather ended up being most cooperative. A lovely night for the beautiful game!

FC Atlas may have underestimated us by not bringing their top stars or by not preparing too vigorously, but they still had some really good talent and very, very nice play. In our opinion, their front three attackers were a sheer pleasure to watch, and they sure put our defense through the paces. Apparently one of their midfielders has been playing occasionally with the FC atlas first team, and we may see him in the Primera División very soon.

So, while we were able to sneak a 2-1 win away from FC Atlas on this night, we are well aware that it could just as easily been a 4-0 win for them… And the biggest reason that was not the case has to go to the Chattahooligan’s official Man-Of-The-Match: Goalkeeper Richard Masters! Richard played yet another exceptional game for CFC, making easily 5 great saves and only allowing one absolutely brilliant free kick to bend in.

While we won’t bore you a with a complete recap of the game (you can read the twitter feed or news articles on that – any chance we can see video highlights somewhere?), we will give a quick summary of thoughts on the game:

The CFC defense played doggedly and with determination. We bent, but we did not break. Nice work gentleman. The midfield showed some nice poise and definitely did their part to help shore up the defense. The attackers made some nice play (particularly Salazar)… Ochieng has amazing touch and vision, but seems to lack that one last burst of speed to get past the defenders to score. We’ve heard a rumor of an injury he’s playing with – true? Will he be healthy for Pumas FC Sat?

Decent coaching on the whole. We did have some spots of the game where we packed it in on defense, but we still kept attacking right to the very end. Very exciting.

One word summary of the game: Beautiful.

We did it!
This blogger’s hope was to break 5,000 fans in attendance at CFC’s first home game, and we did just that. 6,317 or something was the official tally from the press box announced during the game… but we felt it was more like 7,000 to 7,500 as we easily filled the north stands by more than 75% — and it holds 9,500…

This attendance in Finley is second only to an exhibition game by the US Women’s National team against Sweden that saw 13,000 turn out… We even beat the the MLS doubleheader in 1998 that had only 3,757 in attendance back when Valderrama and Lalas came to town! Amazing!

Nice Atmosphere
Not only was attendance good, it was diverse! Of course there was a large Mexican contingent, but there were also VW and SIAG workers from Germany, and a big list of of other internationals too. Our only hope is that they might find the game appealing and drop on by later in the season for another game or two…

The production level was high — flags for all the 32 world cup team countries, 4 beer stands (yay!), better signs for sponsors, more vendors and concessions (more beer!), a video board with replays and a more organized and professional announcer (or two, as one did English and the other Español). Even the pregame music was peppy. We liked the nifty roster-stats sheet where you could keep track of players and events during the game…

Our only complaint was $4 beer? What is with the price gouging? Up from $3.50 last year… still a dang good bargain, but c’mon — we wish we had known to budget accordingly.

All we can say is that we had a GREAT TIME and we’ll be back this coming Saturday for more… will you?

Well, well, well… It seems as though our sources were correct about Chattanooga FC’s negotiations to schedule friendlies with two pro teams. We have confirmation that the two teams CFC is working with are the Charlotte Eagles, of the USL, and F.C. Atlas, of Mexico’s Primera Division. Wow.

Now, to be fair, it looks like neither deal is locked up, but are still looking very positive. We suppose that the game with Atlas would be the riskier of the two — coordinating an international match and with a team who might in all likelihood pound us. But we have to say that for us soccer faithfuls here in Chattaboogie, this is the most exciting thing to happen since the US Women’s National Team played here or even since the MLS did an exhibition doubleheader for Finley’s grand opening ceremonies (anyone remember Valderrama or Alexi Lalas?)!

A quick look at the two teams:

F.C. Atlas
Futbol Club Atlas is one of three teams that play in Mexico’s second largest city, Guadalajara, along with C.D. Guadalajara and Estudiantes Tecos in the Primera División de México. The club shares its home stadium, Estadio Jalisco, with C.D. Guadalajara. They were founded in 1916 and are currently chaired by Chairman Carlos Martin del Campo and coached by Carlos Ischia.

They finished 16th in the Primera División in Clausura 2009 and are currently ranked 9th in points in the current Clausura season (out of 24 teams). Atlas won the Primera División in 1950-51 and the Copa México four times, they have also won the Campeón de Campeones four times, with the most recent win being in 1961-62.

http://www.atlas.com.mx/

Charlotte Eagles
The Charlotte Eagles began in 1993 when the they began play as a USL Franchise in the USL’s Premier Development League. 17 years later, the Charlotte Eagles Soccer Club is now one of the USL’s oldest and most successful clubs in North America. The Eagles have been in that division, the USL-2, for nine of the last 14 years. After winning the USL Second Division in 2000, the Eagles moved up to the top tier (USL First Division) for three seasons.

The Eagles have been in the playoffs an amazing 14 of their 16 seasons in the USL. They have reached the championship final seven times, winning the USL-2 Title in 2000 and 2005. The Eagles have only had two head coaches, Brian Davidson (1993-1996) and Mark Steffens (1997-Present), and two general managers, Tim Donelli (1993-1996) and Tom Engstrom (1997-Present).

Charlotte finished third out of nine teams in USL Division 2 last year. Their USL season starts April 17 against the Charleston Battery. Notable is the Eagles preseason game against the MLS’s New England Revolution on March 14, 2010. The Eagles lost 2-0.

http://www.charlotteeagles.com

Ay caramba Chattahooligans! Sit down or grab onto something before you read this one! We’ve just learned that there might be talks going on between Chattanooga FC and a PRO MEXICAN TEAM — to get them to come play us in Finley Stadium! This season! Holy guacamole Batman!

Now, details are hazy, and we think it is safe to assume this sort of thing might never come to pass… BUT, let’s suspend disbelief for a moment and think about the ramifications. What if a pro mexican team really does come?

Won’t they clean our clock?
Probably. But maybe they will only send reserves. So our clock might only be cleaned, not completely taken apart. But would a 7-0 drubbing be good for Chattanooga FC? Maybe not… on the other hand is a 3-1 win good enough for a Mexican team? Hmm.

Could it be good for some of our players?
If they play well against a pro Mexican team? Maybe yes. It might give them an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise get to be seen by some quality coaches against real talented opposition.

Would a lot of fans attend?
We are guessing a definite yes. If it’s a real-deal pro team, fans will roll out from Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham and beyond… We bet you easily can count on 10,000 at a game like that.

How would Chattanooga FC pull off such a game?
That’s what we’d like to know. Doesn’t it cost alot of money to fly in an international team and put them up for room and board? Maybe CFC has more bank than we thought. But no doubt, selling $5 tickets to 10,000 people is $50,000. And they could probably charge more than that.

Is this some sort of joke?
It may be — hazards of reporting rumor means that you can get duped. It’s entirely possible that this is some sort of prank to make us look like goofs… But it’s a risk we’re willing to take (as it makes for entertaining blogging)!

What do you say amigos?

In case you don’t follow our Twitter feed, we’ve decided to post some interesting updates and links here for you on the US Men’s National Team players. These come straight from the tweets we follow. As the big WC draws closer and closer, we’ll try to keep you up to speed on the latest news regarding our boys. These bulletins go from most recent at top, to less recent at the bottom:

FoxSoccerNews
Milan star Onyewu returns to training with USA national team http://dlvr.it/2C17

SoccerByIves
Landon Donovan named Everton Player of the Month for January (chosen by fans). http://tinyurl.com/ykxe77k

#USMNT Training Talk with Jeff Cunningham and Brad Davis – http://bit.ly/cLw5pp

USA’s Davies a month away from resuming training http://dlvr.it/28pj

BoltonNews Soccer By Ives: Americans Abroad: Midweek Rewind: Stuart Holden did not dress in Bolton Wanderers’ 0-0 draw vs. Wi… http://bit.ly/bkVfC6

Jeff Carlisle on ESPN Soccernet: US Men’s National Team players’ last chance to impress Coach Bradley: http://tiny.cc/zaTCJ

LAGalaxy
This is a good stat… RT @permanent4: Everton earned 22 points in 19 matches before Landon Donovan arrived. Since? 13 points in 6.

While there is still plenty of time to plan, do any of you Chattahooligans know of restaurants, bars, pubs or such who plan on showing all the World Cup games this summer? A place where we all can gather to have grand time rooting on our favorite countries (and then toddle off to the Chatt FC home game later that evening)?

We can guess that since Big River Grille has been friendly to Chattanooga FC last season, that they might be hosting some. Our only complaint is that BRG is such a tourist attraction that it will feel less like a local watering hole… Last World Cup we were impressed by The Blue Plate’s HDTV broadcasting (we easily watched a game from 50 ft away), but it isn’t quite as rousing an environment as a bar might be — especially if there is a large group of us. The Terminal Brew Pub is a nice thought, but you can’t fit that many people around the TVs there… You could argue for Taco Mac — and with their vast beer selection and gazillion TVs, that might be a good spot… as long as you could get ALL the TVs on the World Cup…

Surely there are other ideas?