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U.S. Soccer Keeps Searching for a True Home Game

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:42:00 -0700

The common wisdom is that the United States does not like to schedule— is afraid to schedule — World Cup qualifiers in major Latino cities. But the Americans dared to play in front of a crowd of 55,647 fans at Soldier Field that was 60 percent in favor of Honduras on Saturday night, and the United States survived.

Giving up the first goal, a highly dangerous habit, the Yanks scrambled back for a 2-1 victory that kept them in second place in their region in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

With Costa Rica beating Trinidad and Tobago, and Mexico being stunned in El Salvador, the Americans are second to Costa Rica, both having played an extra match.

“You take care of business at home,” said the United States coach, Bob Bradley, who insisted his players were not put off by playing in front of a predominately blue-clad Honduras crowd that knew how to chant and blow horns and wave pennants. After their ghastly 3-1 loss in Costa Rica on Wednesday night, the Americans upgraded their act despite another weak start.

The blue-clad fans arrived from Honduran enclaves in New York, Florida, Texas and Washington, D.C. Faustino Cruz, who lives in Springfield, Va., took a 12-hour bus ride with family and friends. This was a big-time soccer atmosphere, and the second largest World Cup qualifying crowd ever in this country, trailing a previous crowd in Foxborough, Mass., by about 2,000.

But the passion of the Honduran majority in the stands had nothing to do with the way the United States had to scramble after a 1-1 draw at halftime, with defensive mistakes leading to both goals.

Clint Dempsey’s loss of the ball led to Carlos Costly’s goal in the fifth minute, only marginally better than the second-minute goal given up in Costa Rica. But the United States stabilized, and a handball by Mario Beata of Honduras set up Landon Donovan’s penalty kick in the 43rd minute, to get the desperate Americans back in the match.

Then the captain, Carlos Bocanegra, scored in the 68th minute to ultimately win the match. Donovan drove a corner kick from the left, and Dempsey made up for his early flub by heading the ball back into the goal mouth, where Bocanegra knocked it home with a diving header. Moments later, Bocanegra felt a twinge in his hamstring and wisely removed himself, rather than be exposed for a costly goal.

The Americans showed more energy than they had in Costa Rica. Donovan and Jozy Altidore were more active, Jonathan Bornstein and Jonathan Spector were vast improvements at the two outside backs, and Ricardo Clark, given a start at midfield, might have been the most persistent player.

“It’s a big crowd,” Bradley said of the atmosphere. “We don’t let outside things influence us. You control what you can.”

Good for the United States officials for daring to put the game in a showcase stadium like this. Sunil Gulati, the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, who teaches economics atColumbia University, can dabble in probabilities and demographics. He committed to playing Honduras in Chicago, which was listed as 26 percent Hispanic according to the 2000 census.

By choosing its spots carefully, the United States has not lost to a regional opponent at home in 53 straight matches, going back to a loss to Honduras in 2001. They have won 43 and drawn 10, including 14 World Cup qualifying matches.

Although many of the Latinos in Chicago are of Mexican descent, Gulati did not think Mexican fans would be a major factor because their national team’s game in San Salvador would be available on television.

“We beat Mexico in the Gold Cup final here,” Tim Howard, the United States goalkeeper,said Friday, referring to the 2-1 victory in 2007 in front of 60,000 fans.

Howard praised the red-clad Sam’s Army, the United States boosters who follow the national team to all continents, and added, “We thrive in front of big crowds and big environments.”

There is a history of American players feeling like foreigners on American soil. In 1985, the United States scheduled a vital World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica for a small college football field in Torrance, Calif. An hour before the match, several thousand Costa Ricans came over the hill, waving banners and chanting.

The United States lost, 1-0, and a young American player plaintively asked the American coach, Alkis Panagoulias, when the United States would ever play a home game. His response was, “Never.”

That is not exactly true, since the United States does well against Latin countries in Foxborough, but regional qualifying matches remain a challenge in most major cities, including R.F.K. Stadium in Washington.

On Sept. 1, 2001, the United States dared to play Honduras at R.F.K., and the crowd of 54,282 sounded decidedly pro-Honduran, as their players kicked the Americans around during a 3-2 victory.

Since then, the federation has put the first game of the final qualifying round in 2001 and 2009 in cold, blustery Columbus, Ohio, and was rewarded both times with a 2-0 victory. Mexico has its own version of atmospheric difficulty. It is called Azteca Stadium, and the Americans will travel there on Aug. 12.

This time the United States was willing to play a major regional opponent just a short walk from the home office of the U.S. Soccer Federation — Soccer House, a mansion of French Chateau style in the charming Prairie Avenue Historic District. The United States gained 3 points at home and made a few dollars at the same time. There might be a lesson in that

Filling Stadiums With Sound of Vuvuzelas

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:38:00 -0700

PRETORIA, South Africa –- While many of the stadiums at the Confederations Cup have been half empty for matches, they often feel nearly full because of the dancing, singing and, especially, the horn-blowing of the South African fans in attendance.

UPDATE

Brazil 3, U.S.A. 0

The seleção Brasileira made easy work a U.S. side that was again forced to play a man short after a red card. Check back for Jere Longman’s report and player ratings from Jack Bell.

The plastic horns, known as vuvuzelas, give the impression of a hive of buzzing bees. Anyone who has been to Azteca Stadium in Mexico City knows the sound.

But some international television networks, and at least one Spanish player, have complained, calling the vuvuzelas intrusive and suggesting they be outlawed now and for next year’s World Cup.

Xabi Alonso, the Spanish midfielder, said after a 1-0 victory over Iraq in Bloemfontein on Wednesday, “I find these vuvuzelas annoying. They don’t contribute to the atmosphere in the stadium. They should put a ban on them.”

But Joseph Blatter, the president of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, seems to be taking a different approach. “It’s a local sound, and I don’t know how it is possible to stop it,” Blatter told reporters. “I always said that when we go to South Africa, it is Africa. It’s not Western Europe. It’s noisy, it’s energy, rhythm, music, dance, drums. This is Africa. We have to adapt a little.”

Before Thursday’s match here against the United States, Brazilian radio reporters, who have been known to interview players on the field during matches, amused themselves by becoming human horns, impersonating the sound of the vuvuzelas to their audiences back home.

U.S. vs. Brazil: Player Ratings

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:35:00 -0700

The United States entered Thursday’s match against Brazil desperate for a victory to stay alive in the Confederations Cup after its 3-1 loss to Italy in the opener. But a must-win against Brazil? You must be dreaming! The United States has beaten Brazil once in 13 games since 1930 — a 1-0 victory the Concacaf Gold Cup in 1998.

UPDATE

Egypt 1, Italy 0

A goal by Mohamed Homos, center, lifted Egypt over the World Cup champion Italy on Thursday in the Confederations Cup, moving the Pharaohs into a tie with the Azzuri for second place in Group B.

The Americans lost 3-0, and have been under a microscope after their desultory play in two World Cup qualifying matches this month — a loss in Costa Rica and a come-from-behind win against Honduras in Chicago — and the loss to Italy.

Brazil is, well, Brazil. Good is never good enough. Style is never stylish enough.

THE RATINGS

Jack Bell of The Times rated the U.S. players and Guilherme Machado, a native of São Paulo, rated the Brazilian players.

Final Score: Brazil 3, United States 0

Overview
The United States did exactly what it did not want to do, give up a goal in the first 10 minutes, then another one from a blistering Brazilian counterattack in the 20th minute. Was the U.S. playing with 10 men in the first half? Because it often looked like there was an extra guy in a yellow jersey on the field. The U.S. appeared to be chasing the game and never catching it.

Down by 2-0, the U.S. started the second 45 minutes strongly, then again, Brazil was content to sit back a bit and let the U.S. expend energy. But then another red card for the United States: Sacha Kljestan was sent off like Ricardo Clark was against Italy.

For Brazil, a stroll en route to the semifinals. For the U.S., another difficult and disappointing performance in an international tournament.

The Ratings (on a scale of 1, diabolical; to 10, world class):

UNITED STATES

Goalkeeper
Tim Howard
Unwisely stayed on his line on Brazil’s first goal. For all his experience in the Premier League over the years, still seems suspect on long shots and long balls. But really could not be blamed for Brazil’s two first-half goals. Strong saves on Robinho and Kaká. Kept the U.S. from utter embarrassment. Grade: 7
Defenders
Jonathan Bornstein
One good overlap and cross. Brazilians ran him ragged on right flank. Caught watching a bit on Brazil’s third goal.Grade: 4
Jay DeMerit
Overmatched. Grade: 3
Oguchi Onyewu
Picked up a yellow card in the first half. Strong, but often looked clumsy, but who doesn’t against the ‘Zilians?Grade: 4
Jonathan Spector
Lost his mark when Felipe Melo slipped behind to head home a free kick (his second international goal), from a phantom foul called on Michael Bradley. Late nutmeg to setup crossbar-rattling shot by Benny Feilhaber. Grade: 5
Midfielders
Clint Dempsey
Drifted back toward the middle of the field — where he is more effective — with Beasley on one flank. But why does he seem to disappear for long stretches when he plays for the nats? Grade: 3
Michael Bradley
Like most of his teammates, chasing the game in first 45. Finally … a shot from distance, even if it was high and wide. More active and creative in second half. Never gave up.Grade: 6
DaMarcus Beasley
Some incredibly causal passing. Bad trapping. Absolute disaster. Lifted at halftime. Grade: 1
Sacha Kljestan
Deer in the headlights in first 45. Red card — out in the 57th minute on another petulant, rash and reckless challenge (see Clark, Ricardo). When are they going to smarten up? Grade: 2
Landon Donovan
Quick passes are fine, when they work. When they don’t, it’s just a giveaway. Caught as the captain of a lifeboat with only one paddle. Grade: 5
Benny Feilhaber
Replaced Jozy Altidore in the 60th minute. Born in Brazil, but wearing the red, white and blue. Never really got in the flow. Shot from distance way high. Has skill, good vision.Grade: 5
Forwards
Jozy Altidore
Where has the confidence, the arrogance on the ball gone? Too quick to pass, not quick enough to shoot, even on his few chances. Grade: 3
Conor Casey
Replaced Beasley at start of second half. Rarely touched the ball; never got in the flow. Did head a free kick off the crossbar in the 89th minute. Grade: 4
Coach
Bob Bradley
With Ricardo Clark suspended after Monday’s ill-advised, but severely punished foul, Bradley turned to Sacha Kljestan in the midfield, a player he coached in M.L.S. at Chivas USA. Carlos Bocanegra remains sidelined with a hamstring injury, and Jay DeMerit started for the second game in a row. Benny Feilhaber was dropped from the starting 11 for DaMarcus Beasley, who has continued to struggle but remains in Bradley’s plans, for now. Why Beasley and not José Francisco Torres or even Freddy Adu?
The Americans have some skilled and experienced players now, but do the players play with enough fire and passion? Have Bradley’s selections been the right ones? Will Bradley be the coach who takes the United States back to South Africa next June for the World Cup? It is fine to talk about effort incessantly, but it is now time for results when playing against the world’s best.
Grade 3
Substitutes/Did Not Play
Brad Guzan (GK), Luis Robles (GK), Carlos Bocanegra, Freddy Adu, José Francisco Torres, Heath Pierce, Marvell Wynne, Charlie Davies, Danny Califf.

BRAZIL

Goalkeeper
Julio Cesar
Good game but not challenged sufficiently by the U.S. team. Regardless, Brazil’s best current goalkeeper. Grade: 9
Defenders
Maicon
Excellent game over all. Very quick and tactically smart throughout the game. Good ball handling. Scored in the the second half after triangular passing with Ramirez and Kaká.Grade: 10
Lucio
Excellent defending from the veteran. Strong and smart passing. Subbed out by Luisão in the second half. Grade 10.
Miranda
Good game over all by the newcomer from São Paulo F.C. Not enough action but very good ball handling. Grade: 8
Andre Santos
Good game by the new seleção player but had some poor ball handling and lost position a few times. Promising player for next year’s World Cup. Grade: 7
Midfielders
Gilberto Silva
Good game by the veteran defensive-mid. Had good position and handling with good passing and good vision. Will stay for next year’s World Cup. Grade: 10
Felipe Melo
Very good game from the new Brazilian. Scored in the seventh minute on a set piece from Maicon. A bit too hungry but strong action and promising player for World Cup. Grade: 8
Ramires
Impressive game from the Cruzeiro player. Quick and fast on the ball with good passes and handling for new seleção pick. Involved in Maicon goal. Grade: 8
Kaká
Very good game. Good passing and vision. Has to quit trying to get penalties on faking. But a center piece for Dunga’s seleção. Assisted Maicon’s goal. Grade: 9
Forwards
Robinho
Very good game from the dribbler of Manchester City. Scored second goal on a assist from Ramires. Excellent vision but will be expected to have better passing for World Cup. Another center piece of Dunga.Grade: 9
Luis Fabiano
Quiet game for the Sevilla player. A lone striker and did not get too involved with plays bet expected the ball to come to him. A bit lazy until got subbed out in the second half by the newcomer Nilmar. Grade: 7
Julio Baptista
Subbed in for Kaká in the second half. Quiet game. Strong and smart but not enough time to run for the Roma player. A good addition for the seleção.Grade: 6
Luisão
Subbed for the veteran Lucio at 25th minute of the second half. Another strong defender and capable of filling Lucio’s boots. Had a good game with good vision and passing.Grade: 9

Blatter Gives M.L.S. Unsolicited Advice

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:32:00 -0700

PRETORIA, South Africa - Joseph Blatter, the president of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, again got on his soap box at a news conference Thursday and called for Major League Soccer to switch its March-to-November schedule to the European calendar.

Asked about the development of soccer in the United States since it hosted the 1994 World Cup, Blatter acknowledged the formation of M.L.S., but added, “There is one big problem there. The organizers know that.”

As long as M.L.S. teams do not have their own stadiums, they would continue to have to play in American football stadiums and arrange their seasons accordingly, Blatter said. Perhaps he doesn’t realize that eight M.L.S. teams play in stadiums built for soccer.

“The result is, you will not attract star players from Europe to play six or seven months,” Blatter said. He continued: “This is not the right solution for M.L.S. They have to adapt themselves to the international calendar. If they do that, they can have success.”

Blatter also reiterated another of his favorite talking points – that he is against use of video replay in soccer. The issue reared again on Monday after Egypt claimed video replay had been used before the referee ejected an Egyptian player for using his arm to block a shot by Brazil, leading to a penalty kick and a 4-3 Brazil victory.

FIFA said that no video replay had been used; Blatter said a television set for the fourth official would be removed from the sideline for the rest of the Confederations Cup to ease suspicions.

“I am still of the opinion we should not use video for decisions on the field of play.”

Instead, Blatter has proposed another solution. Beginning this season in the Europa League (formerly the UEFA Cup), two additional referees’ assistants, located outside the field of play, will help monitor action at the goal line and elsewhere in the penalty area.

Looking for Lodging for 2010

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:32:00 -0700

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa – Four hours’ drive south of Johannesburg is this quiet city, the judicial capital of South Africa and the hometown of Zola Budd, the barefoot runner who collided infamously with Mary Decker during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Bloemfontein (pronounced Bloom-fon-tain) is also the birthplace of the writer J.R.R. Tolkien. And one of the quaint hotels here is called the Hobbit Boutique Hotel, each room given to a theme from the book (no you don’t have to duck upon entering).

On the advice of German colleagues, I stayed there on Tuesday, before the Spain-Iraq match at the Confederations Cup. The staff is exceedingly friendly and it is a 15 or 20-minute walk from Free State Stadium, which will be used for the World Cup.

If you want more of a jungle theme, there is the Protea Hotel Willow Lake, located inside the Bloemfontein Zoo, even closer to the stadium.

Reporters covering the Spanish team here at the Confederations Cup are staying there. One of the Spanish reporters told me that every time he opens his window to the patio, he sees the zoo’s elephant outside. I guess that’s better than opening the closet and seeing a lion inside.

North Korea Qualifies for World Cup

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:30:00 -0700

North Korea qualified for its first World Cup since 1966 with a 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia, giving it second place in its Asian final-round group. North Korea, which upset Italy at the 1966 tournament in England, became the sixth team in next year’s 32-nation field, joining host South Africa, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

South Korea (4-0-4) won Asia Group B with 16 points, and North Korea and Saudi Arabia finished at 3-2-3 and 12 points. North Korea qualified because it had a plus-two goal difference to Saudi Arabia’s even.(AP)

A Brazilian Buzzsaw Consumes the U.S.

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:28:00 -0700

PRETORIA, South Africa — The odds are never good even when playing soccer against Brazil with an empty scoreboard and a full lineup. They decrease significantly when you surrender two early goals. And they become almost impossible when you play a man down for the final third of the game.

After playing confidently against Italy on Monday, the United States appeared nervous and flat early against Brazil on Thursday in the Confederations Cup, allowing two goals in the first 20 minutes of a 3-0 defeat.

The loss crippled the Americans’ chances of advancing in this eight-team prelude to next year’s World Cup, but they remained alive, barely, when Egypt knocked off Italy.

The pattern of Thursday’s defeat — early and anxious fouling, poor marking — resembled the frustrated beginning of recent World Cup qualifying matches against Costa Rica and Honduras.

On the left side of midfield, DaMarcus Beasley continued to struggle, his career compromised by injury and rust. He made an elemental mistake that led to Brazil’s second goal and was replaced at halftime. Then, for the final 33 minutes, the Americans were left to play with 10 men as the attacking midfielder Sacha Kljestan received a red card for a late and clumsy tackle.

As the United States faltered, Brazil prevailed with the completeness expected of a five-time World Cup champion — set pieces, drag-strip counterattacks, wondrous passing and a revived defense.

After lapses in a 4-3 win over Egypt on Monday, Brazil reconfigured its back line. Dunga, the coach, summoned interchangeable parts and Maicon, the new right back, delivered an exquisite free kick to assist on Brazil’s first goal, then scored the third after a wonderful pinballing series of passes.

“We had a very nervous, tentative start to the game,” United States Coach Bob Bradley said. Quickly falling behind, 2-0, he added, “created as hard a situation as you could have.”

In losing here to Italy and Brazil, which own nine World Cup titles between them, the United States chronically struggled to score in open play. The Americans did not manage a shot on goal in the first half Thursday and did not seriously threaten until the final seven minutes, when Benny Feilhaber and Conor Casey lashed shots off the crossbar.

With its second victory in the tournament, Brazil has advanced to the semifinals. First, it will face Italy in a highly anticipated first-round match here on Sunday, perhaps for the right to avoid Spain, the European champion, until the championship game June 28. But if Italy (1-1) loses and the United States (0-2) defeats Egypt (1-1), those three teams will be tied; goal differential will decide which team advances.

Thursday, Brazil was energized, while the United States seemed tired, according to the captain, Landon Donovan. The Americans had been forced to chase endlessly while playing a man down for more than 57 minutes after Ricardo Clark received a red-card expulsion during Monday’s 3-1 defeat to Italy.

Kljestan, who started for Clark only to meet the same fate of ejection on Thursday, said: “I think the game started out slow for us. We didn’t play quick enough. We didn’t pressure them quick enough. And we gave them a couple of set pieces early and they punished us.”

Bradley had alerted his players about set pieces. The previous time the two teams had played — a 2007 exhibition — Brazil won, 4-2, while scoring on a corner kick, a free kick and a penalty kick. In the seventh minute Thursday, it became apparent why Bradley had been so adamant in his warning.

Maicon, who plays for the Italian league champion Inter Milan, delivered an impeccable free kick from 35 yards on the right flank into the penalty area. Midfielder Felipe Melo got behind Jonathan Spector, who grabbed the Brazilian’s jersey but could not prevent a point-blank header that eluded goalkeeper Tim Howard.

Bradley had also alerted his players to Brazil’s counterattack. In the 20th minute, they understood why. Beasley missed an easy trip of the ball on a short corner played to him by Donovan, an amateur mistake as a soft roller went beneath his left foot. Brazil scooped the ball and raced the length of the field to make the score 2-0.

Kaká’s short pass unleashed the streaking midfielder Ramires, who dribbled furiously to the top of the penalty area. Spector raced across the field, trying to cut off Ramires. But the Brazilian midfielder made a deft pass to Robinho, who beat a charging Howard from 12 yards, punching the ball inside the left goal post.

Then, in classic Brazilian style, Robinho took the time to describe the brilliant sequence, or at least to shout out a hello, into the microphone of a television reporter stationed behind the goal.

The United States seemed more determined as the second half opened. But in the 57th minute, Kljestan lost the ball, made an ungainly tackle of Ramires, and was ejected.

“In all sports, teams like that tend to get the benefit of the doubt, so you can’t put yourself in that position,” Donovan said in reference to whether the red card was deserved.

Five minutes later, Brazil’s Maicon started a deft give-and-go sequence in the penalty area with Ramires and Kaká, then retrieved the ball and chipped a shot that deflected off Jonathan Bornstein’s foot. The ball sailed over Howard’s head into the net.

“I think we were overpowered,” Howard said. “Sometimes you just come up against Goliath and David doesn’t win.”

Egypt Upsets Italy at Confederations Cup

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:26:00 -0700

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Egypt stunned Italy, 1-0, on a 40th-minute goal by Mohamed Homos on Thursday, putting Egypt in a position to possibly advance to the semifinals of the Confederations Cup with another victory.

Homos out jumped Daniele De Rossi for a cross from Mohamed Abo Terika and headed the ball off the inside post and past goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon.

Essam El Hadary made several tough saves for Egypt, the African champion, which lost, 4-3, to the five-time World Cup winner Brazil in its opening game.

Brazil leads Group B with 6 points after a 3-0 win over the United States; Italy is second, ahead of Egypt on goal differential. Egypt closes the first round Sunday against the United States. Also Sunday, Italy, the World Cup champion, plays Brazil in the tournament’s most-anticipated group-phase match. The top two teams from each group advance to the semifinals.

Italy Coach Marcello Lippi changed his front line after an opening 3-1 victory over the United States, starting Giuseppe Rossi at center forward, with Vincenzo Iaquinta on the right and Fabio Quagliarella on the left wing.

“We tried some different things, and it didn’t go very well,” Lippi said. “We wanted to play with two wide attackers and Rossi moving around in the middle, but we didn’t do anything we trained to do.”

After 20 minutes, Iaquinta moved to the center, Rossi went to the right flank and Quagliarella to the left. Both of Lippi’s usual center forwards, Luca Toni and Alberto Gilardino, started the game on the bench. Toni replaced Rossi in the 58th minute, with Iaquinta moving to the left and Quagliarella to the right.

“When Egypt started to play better and work harder they scored a goal from a corner, which is permissible,” Lippi said. “But then we stopped playing. It was a very ugly end to the first half. We tried to turn things around in the second half, but their goalkeeper was very good — he stopped four or five great chances. In the second half, we played fairly well.”

Egypt Grabs Soccer World’s Attention

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:25:00 -0700

JOHANNESBURG — The goalkeeper went to his knees in prayer. His teammates rolled on the field, shirtless and ecstatic. The coach hugged his assistants and began to cry.

Egypt had just scored its greatest soccer victory, defeating Italy, the defending world champion, by 1-0 on Thursday night in the Confederations Cup. As players poured onto the field here, thousands poured into the streets of Cairo, waving flags and honking horns in startled delirium.

No one had expected anything from Egypt at this dress rehearsal for next year’s World Cup. It had won the African soccer championship six times, and was strong on the counterattack, but Egypt was considered a bit player on the world stage. Surely, it would be exposed against Brazil and Italy, which own nine World Cup titles between them.

“No Hope for Pharaohs,” blared a headline a week ago in a Confederations Cup preview in The Star newspaper here.

But no one counted on Egypt’s being such a brilliant soccer chameleon, adapting the style of its worldly opponents, playing samba offense in a narrow 4-3 loss to Brazil and door-bolt defense to become the first African team to defeat Italy.

And now Egypt is the talk of the Confederations Cup. It can advance to the semifinals of this eight-team tournament with a win Sunday against the United States and a draw or a loss by Italy against Brazil.

Coach Hassan Shehata remains beleaguered. His team arrived here having lost to Algeria and tied Zambia in the final round of World Cup qualifying. There is no guarantee that Egypt will even be here next year for what is widely considered the world’s most important sporting event.

But all of that was forgotten Thursday night. The scoreboard said, Egypt 1, Italy 0, and players rolled on the grass and Shehata hugged his assistant coaches and tears ran down his cheeks.

“He’s under so much pressure,” said Zak Abdel, an Egyptian who coaches goalkeepers for the United States national team and is a friend of Shehata’s. “The Egyptian media is very difficult. After the Brazil game, they said he was lucky. Whatever. He came back and beat Italy. It wasn’t luck.”

A former player, Shehata, 60, silver-haired and mustachioed, has coached the Egyptian national team since 2004. He is known as fair, honest and a strict disciplinarian. In the 2006 African Nations Cup, he tossed his star striker, Mido, off the team after the forward confronted him on the field after being substituted for during the semifinals.

The player sent on by Shehata then scored the winning goal, vindicating the coach. Shehata kept Mido out of the final, but allowed him to collect his victor’s medal. Tough but fair.

“He’s very organized,” Abdel said of Shehata. “Some players don’t like that. If practice is at 4 o’clock, some players wake up at one. Shehata wants you to be a professional, up at 7 for breakfast. After four or five years, the players realized they come into camp to work. Before it was vacation. You do whatever you want. Now it is work.”

Shehata played another hunch on Thursday, inserting midfielder Mohamed Homos into the lineup. Five minutes before halftime, Homos drove a header into the net for the game’s only score. Then goalkeeper Essam el Hadary, alert and aggressive and inspired, made save after save to thwart Italy, diving, sliding, sitting, anything to keep the ball from crossing his line.

It happens this way all the time, said Bob Bradley, the American coach. This is why soccer is so beautiful and cruel.

Teams come into international tournaments after long club seasons. Some players are enthused, others are tired. Their motivation can be sprightly or fatigued, their concentration frisky or exhausted. A great team can fail and an underdog can succeed.

Bradley pointed to the 2002 World Cup opener, when France, the defending champion, lost to Senegal. In the 1990 World Cup opener, Argentina, also the defending champion, lost to Cameroon. Africa is at it again in the Confederations Cup, with Egypt threatening Brazil and defeating Italy, soccer minnows swimming with whales.

Losers’ Bracket: Try to Catch It if You Can

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:20:00 -0700

Welcome to the losers’ bracket. That’s what the weekend interleague frolics at Yankee Stadium feel like after the Mets and the Yankees were cuffed around by divisional rivals in midweek.

In their annual June appointment, the Mets rallied for a 6-2 victory on a soggy Saturday afternoon, after their vintage collapse Friday night, when Luis Castillo muffed a two-out pop fly that allowed the tying and winning runs to score.

Castillo’s clank off the heel of his glove was worse than anything Marvelous Marv Throneberry ever did at first base, was downright Bucknerian, except that it did not lose the sixth game of a World Series.

•

In an admirable display of professionalism, Castillo met reporters before Saturday’s game, telling them he had no option but to move forward. He was saved by the quotidian renewal of baseball that allows somebody to perform a hideous error late one evening and be back leading off the next afternoon.

Castillo was greeted with loud, derisive applause by appreciative Yankee fans, but he might have anticipated that. And wonder of wonders, life did begin again. Castillo stroked a hit in the second inning, handled grounders and a line drive, beat out a roller in the eighth and generally kept chugging along.

The long and loopy Friday game came after the two New York teams had stumbled around against the two division leaders, the Red Sox and the Phillies.

The interleague schedule is something of a burden for teams with intracity opponents, giving the Yankees and the Mets six challenging games every season, just as it does for teams around Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Chicago.

This year’s interleague demands seem downright cruel: the Yankees just got whacked three times in Boston, giving them an 0-8 record against the Red Sox, while the Mets lost two of three to the Phillies. It’s a long season, but both New York teams gave indications of not being as good as their rivals.

“But it’s good for baseball,” the Mets’ manager, Jerry Manuel, said of interleague play. “It outweighs the fact that you are playing a good team.”

Is there anything positive that can come from six games against the Yankees?

“It tells you where you are as a team,” Manuel said. “And you still have 100 games left.”

Manuel has a unique perspective, having managed the White Sox. Cajoled into comparing the rivalries, he said, “I thought the Chicago thing was a little more intense.”

“It was so intense,” he added, “that we had to play all day games at our place, and that hurt us.”

Why did they have to play only day games on the South Side, which has played a vast majority of its games at night for half a century?

“Fights,” Manuel said. “Tyson, Ali, stuff like that.” There were no fights Friday. Folks who can afford the outrageous prices in this Yankee Stadium palace are probably not brawlers, at least in the physical sense.

The crowd in the stadium was decidedly mixed, supporting a current survey by The New York Times, with Cornell University and NY1 News, that indicated 34 percent of New Yorkers favored the Yankees, while 25 percent favored the Mets. Thirty-four percent said they had no allegiance to either team, and 6 percent said they liked both teams, if that is humanly possible.

Yankee fans might even have gotten their money’s worth Friday from a play they will remember a long time — a seasoned major league second baseman performing the modern one-handed stab at a ball in the throes of gravity. Apparently, it is absolutely against the contemporary code of honor to raise the other hand alongside the glove to capture the ball — or swipe at a fumble, in an emergency. Style counts, after all.

To be fair, Mark Teixeira, the solid Yankee who legged his way from first to home on the play, did allude to a slight wind that carried the high, drifting pop-up by Alex Rodriguez. There is a draft in the Yankees’ new launching pad, and this was Castillo’s first game there, but it was one epic blunder.

Castillo compounded his error by hitting the deck to retrieve the ball, thereby depriving himself of being in position to make a strong throw as Teixeira steamed home. Look at it this way: Whose knees would not buckle after making an atrocious error like that?

“I need to catch the ball,” Castillo said later, standing up and speaking like an adult. “I feel bad. I feel bad. I need to catch the ball.” He dropped his voice, and all that could be heard was the word “tomorrow,” which came up soon enough.

•

The inadequacies of the Yankees were apparent Friday, when Joba Chamberlain reminded everybody that he was still essentially a novelty act — flameball youth trying to learn the starter’s craft, in public. Very public.

Chamberlain had one of those 100-pitch, two-hit, four-inning performances that situate him exactly halfway between Nolan Ryan and Steve Dalkowski. Then Andy Pettitte was extremely mediocre on Saturday.

Manuel and his Yankee counterpart, Joe Girardi, have been reminding their players that there are 100 or so games left. After watching both New York teams struggle against the big dogs during the week and now displaying pitching woes and mistakes on the weekend, they may adopt the same mantra: Thank goodness for the wild card.

A Hall of Fame Find by a Sports Reporter

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:15:00 -0700

So here, potentially, is the ultimate — and fitting — commentary on the 1998 home run extravaganza that supposedly saved Major League Baseball from its self-inflicted collective bargaining wounds of four years earlier:

The reporter who doused the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa celebration of strength with a long article that raised a short question — is it real? — has a chance to be voted into the Hall of Fame before either of the now-shamed sluggers.

Steve Wilstein, the former Associated Press reporter who spotted a bottle of androstenedione on the shelf of McGwire’s dressing stall and got him to admit to using the then-over-the-counter, testosterone-producing supplement,has been nominated for the J. G. Taylor Spink Award and admission to the baseball writers’ wing in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“I’ve only been nominated by the writers in Seattle,” Wilstein said in a telephone interview. “I’m not one of the finalists yet, and I don’t want to sound as if I’m campaigning. But I’d like to think the decision will be more of a referendum about writers covering the issues than it will be about me.”

McGwire left the sport before it got around to the messy task of testing for performance-enhancers in 2003 but convicted himself in the court of Hall of Fame-voting opinion by refusing to say his little bottled helpers didn’t go beyond androstenedione during Congressional hearings in 2005.

Sosa was a serial denier, including under Congressional oath, but has now been identified by The New York Times as having been among the 104 positives during tests conducted primarily as a survey in 2003.

Eleven years after McGwire obliterated Roger Maris’s record of 61 homers in a season with 70, with Sosa pushing him through the summer with 66, the Sosa revelation brings more symmetry than surprise. The 1998 race that captivated the country is now burnished with a figurative asterisk. Barry Bonds’s subsequent assault on McGwire, 73 homers in 2001, is a tainted legal labyrinth.

Even Alex Rodriguez, prematurely presented as the great, clean home run hope by some who forgot that he, too, was a product of the 1990s, was ensnared before he could even mount a serious run at Bonds’s career mark. With many a superstar already implicated, names will continue to drip from this faucet. The fallout, however, was always more about a negligent and ignorant culture than the occasional plumber who did sloppy work and got caught.

The Sosa news did not make Wilstein — gone three years from the daily sportswriting life and living in Washington State — want to say ‘I told you so.’ He is simply eager to remind people that the next time a reporter treads into sacred territory and discovers something untoward, don’t excoriate that person for doing his or her job.

“I love the game, grew up in Brooklyn a Dodgers fan, with a three-fingered Duke Snider glove,” he said. “My daughter grew up in the Bay Area a Mark McGwire fan. I was never an enemy of baseball, which is how many people in the game and other writers saw me.”

Back then, you expected such defensiveness from the lifers. Tony La Russa, McGwire’s manager at the time, levied the popular snooping charge against Wilstein, even though the bottle was on a shelf and all a reporter had to do was read, if not spell, androstenedione.

Others were flummoxed by the assertion that a magic potion might be of assistance in the hitting of a curveball, a naïveté born of insulation and the belief that baseball, being true Americana, was on a higher moral plane than less refined pastimes.

Maybe a bat was occasionally corked, a pitch doctored, a sign stolen. But steroids were only for Olympic swimmers and sprinters and incredible football hulks.

Wilstein had seen the East German female swimmers up close, and Ben Johnson before he tested positive in Seoul. To him, McGwire and Sosa looked no different. They looked chemically enhanced.

“We hear lots of talk these days about how baseball writers missed the story, and to a large degree some of them did,” Geoff Baker, who covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times, told Bloomberg News while discussing Wilstein’s nomination. “History will show that he did an excellent job at what he was supposed to do.”

I remember being in the Shea Stadium press box on a Friday night in late August 1998 — McGwire and the Cardinals happened to be in town — when an editor sent an e-mail message to me with the thoroughly researched Wilstein article, which included quotations from Sosa of the not-me-man variety.

Later that night, McGwire waved off a question about androstenedione, which has since been banned. He has been ducking the more damning questions since. Considering where combative denials got Bonds and Roger Clemens, it hasn’t been the worst public strategy.

Sosa could yet be held legally accountable for his denials and will certainly move into the purgatory holding pen, alongside McGwire, for baseball’s drug cheats once considered to be Hall of Fame locks.

Put them in, I say, with steroid scars inscribed on their plaques. But put Steve Wilstein in first for hitting the biggest home run in 1998.

Rodriguez Falters as Mets Fall Again to Orioles

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:12:00 -0700

BALTIMORE — The Mets want to win, although it may not always seem that way. Even on nights like Thursday, when their 5-4 loss to the Baltimore Orioles offered evidence to the contrary.

The ingredients to their latest defeat, their sixth in eight games, included a ninth-inning breakdown by their generally indestructible closer, Francisco Rodriguez; a practically unprecedented comeback by the Orioles, who had lost each of their previous 34 games when trailing after eight innings; and the second winning hit in as many nights from their newest nemesis — and perhaps future teammate — Aubrey Huff. All this occurred after the Mets overcame a two-run deficit through five innings to lead, 4-2, after seven.

“You know at some point that he’s not going to be perfect,” Manager Jerry Manuel said of Rodriguez, who blew his first save chance of the season Friday night at Yankee Stadium when Luis Castillo dropped a pop-up that enabled the tying and winning runs to score.

“You hope that when he’s not, we got a little bit more room for him to work with,” Manuel added.

By now, Manuel knows that is too much to ask of a Mets team (33-31) that must play nearly flawlessly to win. As it was, when Daniel Murphy drove in the go-ahead run with a seventh-inning double — his first extra-base hit since May 9 — and when Sean Green guided the Mets through a shaky eighth, they were already pushing their boundaries.

Nothing, though, was flawless about Rodriguez’s ninth inning. Almost immediately, he recognized that he had poor command of his fastball. But what surprised him and catcher Omir Santos was how selective the Orioles had suddenly become. “They swing at almost everything” is how Santos described their approach.

Facing the bottom of the Orioles’ lineup, Rodriguez allowed a leadoff double to Matt Wieters before walking pinch-hitter Nolan Reimold on five pitches. Then came a pivotal play: Santos fielded Brian Roberts’s bunt up the third-base line and, with no other options, fired to third. It was a close play, and the third-base umpire, Tim Timmons, called the pinch runner Felix Pie safe in a ruling that sent the Mets dugout into a fit of rage. David Wright recoiled in shock. Manuel ran out to argue, but Timmons could not be swayed.

With the bases loaded, Rodriguez walked the free-swinging Adam Jones, forcing in Pie with the tying run. He recovered to strike out Nick Markakis looking, but miscalculated when the next hitter, Huff, came to the plate. Expecting him to take the first pitch, Rodriguez tried to get ahead with a curveball. Huff drove it to right field, giving Mets General Manager Omar Minaya one more reason to seriously consider acquiring him and his potent left-handed bat before the July 31 trade deadline.

“It was an awful, awful outing,” Rodriguez said. “I’m a human being. Unfortunately, days like this are going to happen.”

They just seem to happen more often to the Mets, and Manuel, after another trying loss, was asked to rank this one. He said he did not know if he could: every one counts the same.

INSIDE PITCH

John Maine will not come off the disabled list Monday, when he can be activated, and the Mets are uncertain when he will rejoin the rotation. Guy Conti, the organization’s rehabilitation coordinator, told The Associated Press that Maine still felt a “pinch” toward the back of his shoulder while throwing a 60-pitch simulated game Thursday in Port St. Lucie, Fla. But the pitching coach Dan Warthen, who spoke with Conti, said he was not told about any physical setbacks. ... Oliver Perez threw three scoreless innings (48 pitches) in an extended spring training game and is on track to pitch again Tuesday.

The Unknown Is Troubling Yankee Hitters

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:07:00 -0700

Baseball players love familiarity. With the Yankees, that desire for familiarity apparently extends to the opposing starter: they have not liked facing unfamiliar pitchers for years.

It was a problem for the Yankees when Joe Girardi was a catcher for them in the late 1990s, and the problem has persisted now that Girardi is in his second year as the manager.

In their past five games, the Yankees were silenced by four starters they had never faced before: Craig Stammen, John Lannan and Shairon Martis of the Washington Nationalsand Fernando Nieve of the Mets. They combined to hold the Yankees to five earned runs in 27 1/3 innings. The Yankees lost three of the four games.

The only familiar starter in that stretch was Johan Santana, who gave up a career-worst nine runs.

How can the Yankees batter Santana, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, and get baffled by pitchers with lesser pedigrees?

“I don’t really have any concrete theories,” Girardi said. “We talk about it as a staff. I think everyone loves to see something that they’ve seen before because they’re used to it, in a sense, no matter what walk of life you’re in.”

The Yankees are in the middle of a stretch of unfamiliar starters scheduled for six consecutive games. The Yankees will face the Florida Marlins’ Sean West, Josh Johnson and Chris Volstad this weekend.

Girardi said he was concerned that the Yankees have wilted against pitchers who are relatively unknown to them.

“We have to find a way to be better against these clubs,” he said.

The problem is not confined to the Yankees. The St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols, who is perhaps the best hitter in baseball, said last month that he would rather face elite pitchers like C. C. Sabathia, Jake Peavy, Carlos Zambrano and Roy Oswalt than a pitcher he does not know.

“Sometimes, I have success against these guys because I’m really focused, and I know those guys are going to bring their best game,” he said. “And I need to bring my best game. Sometimes, I get discouraged about facing a rookie or somebody else because you think he’s going to make an automatic mistake. But sometimes that’s not the case. Sometimes, he pitches me tough, too.”

Nadal Withdraws From Wimbledon

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:52:00 -0700

Rafael Nadal announced Friday that he would skip Wimbledon this year, citing tendinitis in his knees.

“I played underneath myself for the last few months,” he said at a news conference at the All England Club, only three days before the 2009 championships begin. Nadal was the top-seeded player.

“I could not play close to my best,” Nadal said, insisting he would work hard to “come back as soon as possible.”

Asked if he had been told by doctors that he was suffering from a long-term or permanent injury, Nadal replied: “I can recover for sure.”

Nadal’s departure commences a symphony of musical chairs within the men’s draw.

But under rules observed at the four major international championships, Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, seeded fifth, moves into Nadal’s slot at the top of the draw. James Blake of the United States, seeded 17th, moves into Del Potro’s position. Nicolas Kiefer of Germany, seeded 33rd, moves into Blake’s position.

The unseeded Thiago Alves of Brazil, who lost in the final qualifying round, takes Kiefer’s slot, gaining entry into the main draw, making him what is customarily called a Lucky Loser.

Nadal announced his decision after playing an exhibition against Stanislas Wawrinka. Although he won the first set, 6-4, he lost the second, 7-6, and then lost a tie breaker. On Thursday, it was clear that his knees were bothering him. He played Lleyton Hewitt in an exhibition and lost, 6-4, 6-3, at the Hurlingham Club in London.

The Times Online, referring to Toni Nadal, his uncle and coach, reported:

When Toni urged his nephew to “bend down” to the ball during the second set yesterday, the Wimbledon champion appeared to mutter, “I can’t.”

According to records of the All England Club, Nadal is the second player in the past 35 years not to defend his championship. Goran Ivanesevic of Croatia won the title in 2001 and did not compete in 2002.

Some tennis observers have openly questioned the extent of Nadal’s knee injury after his fourth-round loss to Robin Soderling at the French Open, calling it gamesmanship or a public relations smokescreen.

But it is precisely Nadal’s never-say-die playing style, one that involves covering every inch of the court, and often several feet beyond the baseline and doubles alleys, that has both battered opponents into submission in his rise to the top and battered his knees through cumulative wear and tear. The effect of this tenacious physicality is compounded by the number of matches he plays — he enters nearly every tournament, and usually reaches the finals.

As Cynthia Gorney writes in The New York Times Magazine:

Nadal is muscled-up and explosive and relentless, so that his best tennis looks not like a gift from heaven but instead like the product of ferocious will. His victories and his taped-up knees and his years as a very good No. 2 in the world all resonate together, as though the rewards and the wages of individual effort had been animated in a single human being: if you hurl yourself at a particular goal furiously enough and long enough you may tear your body up in the process, but maybe you can get there after all.

While it’s too early to know for sure, if Nadal is out for an extended period, several possibilities emerge:

1) Nadal’s early exit at Roland Garros not only paved the way for Roger Federer to win the French Open and complete a career Slam, but now his absence at Wimbledon also opens the door for the Swiss great to regain the No. 1 ranking he so desperately craves and continue to dominate tennis for years to come.

2) Andy Murray, fresh off his Queen’s Club victory, pulls off an upset of Federer at Wimbledon and at least temporarily takes Nadal’s place in the rivalry that has held a thrilling stranglehold on the sport for over four years.

3) Over the next year or two, the game moves beyond the Federer-Nadal era entirely, leaving Murray and Djokovic to fend off del Potro, Tsonga, Cilic, Monfils and other talented up-and-comers. There could be a different winner at each of the Slams. Imagine that!

4) Nadal takes time to recuperate and comes back at top form. But does he play a different style of tennis? Does he play fewer events?

In the Rain, Golfers Face a Longer Bethpage Black

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:49:00 -0700

The only real statement on the first day of the United States Openwas made by Mother Nature, as if the Black course itself wasn’t enough of an antagonist. How a golf course plays is highly dependent on the weather, so let’s take a look at what effect an inch of rain has on the game of golf, in addition to making everything wet and your grip slippery.

A very soft and wet course will have three main effects, two of which make play harder, and one which makes play easier: decrease driving distance, make the rough heavier, and slow the green speeds.

Fairways during the regular PGA Tour season are kept firm and fast, which makes drives longer, because drives roll out well beyond the actual carry distance, but also less accurate. The longer a player hits his drive the harder it is to keep it in the fairway. Drives on soft fairways will not roll out and will even plug in the mud, which drastically reduces length off the tee, effectively increasing the length of the course even though it makes fairways easier to hit.

If we compare PGA Tour driving distances with those from the first day of the United States Open, the rain effect is quite shocking: players hit their drives an average of 40 yards shorter than usual. That means the exhaustingly long Black course is playing 480 yards longer. It also means players are hitting 3-irons into greens instead of 6-irons, which in turn means more missed greens and more scrambling from the rough.

That brings us to the second effect rain has on an Open course: heavy rough. The rough at a United States Open is about four inches long, which is just about impossible to hit out of when wet with anything more than a short iron. Anyone who has ever tried to mow grass after a heavy rain knows the feeling: it’s like hitting through mashed potatoes.

If you miss the fairway, forget about your 3-iron and just wedge it back into play with what amounts to a penalty shot. Around the green the wet rough will make distance and spin control unpredictable, so players will be left with longer par putts, something they do not like because they compound the mental pressure, which is already cooking on high.

Justin Leonard talked about the challenge posed by the rain after he played at par through seven holes on Thursday.

“It was obviously very difficult out there,” he told reporters. “The golf course was playing even longer with the heavy rough and the rain. My goal was to forget about par and do the best I could.”

He added, “I was fortunate to hit a couple of good drives, but you have to avoid getting off the fairway because it is extremely wet and thick.”

The only positive effect that rain has on play is that moisture slows green speeds. Green speed is a function of how long and wet the grass is, so any kind of moisture — humidity, fog or rain — will slow things. The target green speed at the United States Open is 14 on the Stimpmeter, which is about 30 percent faster than regular tour speeds of 10.5.

Fast green speeds are difficult because approach shots do not hold the green as well and, while putting, aim and speed control are drastically different from what players are used to. For example, a 20-foot cross-hill putt that normally breaks two feet will now break three feet on fast greens, but you have to hit it half as hard. And a five-foot will break two inches more than they are used to, so expect a lot of misses on the bottom edge of the cup.

Faster green speeds also accentuate small features in the green that are not visible to the naked eye, so green reading is more difficult. With the amount of rain that fell on Thursday, green speeds were probably around 11, but nowhere near the target of 14, and also soft and receptive, so players were more in their comfort zone. We’ll see how much they dry out over the weekend, and if they dry out and get up to target speed, you’ll see a lot more missed three-footers than you are likely to see Friday, reminiscent of 2002.

Mark Sweeney is the founder of the Emmy Award-winning AimPoint Technologies, a golf science company. He also teaches green reading to PGA Tour players and caddies.

A Poor Finish to a Long Round for Woods

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:46:00 -0700

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Tiger Woods finished his first round at theUnited States Open on Friday, 26 hours 51 minutes after he teed off, then talked about having a little cleanup to do.

It was a familiar refrain on a day when the skies remained dry but the Bethpage Black course was a mudder’s track. Woods, a three-time Open champion, is considered a horse for any course, but his round of 74 got messy at the finish.

He was even par when he stood at the tee at No. 15 but played the last four holes in four over. Only once, in 2006, has Woods posted a higher number in the first round of this tournament.

“It’s not like I was hitting it all over the place.” Woods said. “I was hitting good shots.” He added, “Unfortunately I didn’t finish off the round the way I needed to.”

His day began at the seventh green, where he missed a 10-foot putt for par. To be sure, it was not an easy opening stroke, but over the years Woods, 33, has been a magician at turning would-be bogeys into pars.

Earlier this year, Greg Norman described Woods as “the best clutch putter I’ve ever seen in the game of golf,” and added, “Outside nine feet, Woods is by far the best.”

When Woods drained a 12-foot putt for par at the 10th hole to stay at plus-2, it appeared to be the start of something good. He birdied the par-4 11th and 14th and was just one shot off the early lead when he made his way to No. 15, a 459-yard par 4.

The tee box was more crowded than the office water cooler. The group ahead of his, which featured Robert Allenby, Justin Leonard and Ian Poulter, had yet to hit. After a wait of over 10 minutes, Woods, who was paired with Ángel Cabrera and Padraig Harrington, hit his drive into the secondary rough on the right.

His second shot plugged in the deep grass surrounding a right greenside bunker. He was able to take a drop but had to hit his third shot off a severe side-hill lie. The ball landed on the green but Woods blocked the par putt and missed a two-footer coming back.

It was his second double-bogey in two days. He took a 6 at No. 5 on Thursday. In the first round of the 2008 Open at Torrey Pines, Woods also made two double-bogeys, but it did not preclude him from winning his 14th major, in a 19-hole playoff with Rocco Mediate.

Woods knows that if he wants to contend here, he has to make the putts he missed Friday, none more so than his gimme (for him) par efforts at Nos. 16 and 18.

The United States Golf Association holds certain truths to be self-evident, and one of them is that there is no place at the Open for the lift, clean and place practice. So despite the muddy conditions, the golfers had to play the ball as it was. Woods said he hit four balls Friday that were caked in mud.

“It’s potluck,” he said.

Not that he was complaining. “Everyone has to play the same conditions,” said Woods, who praised the maintenance crew for its overnight efforts in wringing the course of Thursday’s rainwater.

“It looked great,” he said, adding, “I’m sure they worked all night to try to get this golf course playable, and it was great out there.”

It was shortly before 11 a.m. when Woods putted out at 18. He had the rest of the day off. His second round is scheduled for Saturday, ahem, weather permitting.

Asked if he wished to be starting his second round later Friday, as other golfers were, Woods smiled and said: “As of the way I feel right now, no, I don’t want to go back out there right now. I’d probably be a few clubs light.”

He will carry a few strokes more than he wanted to into the second round. But Woods, who won the Open when it was held here in 2002, kept his postround banter light. “I was right there where I needed to be,” he said, “and two bad shots and a mud ball later, here we go and I’m at four over par.

“Just continue to do what I’m doing and just hopefully clean up the round a little bit, maybe tomorrow, hopefully, drive the ball in the fairway and get a couple of breaks and not catch ’em, but we’ll see what happens.”

Bethpage Eases Up in the Afternoon

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:23:00 -0700

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Turns out, the golfers who never teed off during the United States Open’s Day 1 downpour were lucky in more ways than just staying dry. When they finally kicked off their first round after noon on Friday, Bethpage’s fearsome Black course had lost much of its bite. Mike Weir of Canada blistered it for four birdies on the front nine and finished with a six-under 64, which tied the course record and is an unthinkable score on such a long course with usually punishing greens.

Weir held a two-shot lead after the first round finally finished, ahead of Sweden’s Peter Hanson, who birdied the final two holes to reach four under. David Duval made a surprising charge to join Todd Hamilton in a tie for third at three under.

Phil Mickelson came along to electrify a crowd already rooting hard for him to win. Mickelson threatened the lead but faltered late to finish one under. The second round was scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. Friday, and Mickelson, for one, was eager to keep going.

“The soft conditions are great,” he said. “Balls that land in the fairway stay in the fairway. I think the conditions will never be easier. We want to play as much golf as we can under these conditions.”

The afternoon crew quickly took advantage of those conditions and left the morning golfers behind. The amateur Drew Weaver and Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland were the best of that crew, shooting one-under 69s. Tiger Woods started his day at 7:26 a.m., when the first round resumed with a shotgun start, by missing the par putt he left there when the weather horn sounded Thursday morning. Woods double-bogeyed No. 15 and stumbled more from there, finishing at four over.

“The course is playing tough, obviously,” Woods said after his round. “They moved quite a few tees up, but still, the fairways have dried out just enough where you’re getting just a little bit of mud, and the wind is starting to pick up just a little bit.”

That wind did not bother Weaver, who could hardly consider Thursday’s weather disastrous, or even terribly troubling. He gained an entirely different perspective on such things when, as a student at Virginia Tech, he was 100 yards from the shootings that ravaged the campus in 2007.

“It’s always with you,” Weaver said.

Weaver, 22, who recently graduated, qualified for the Open in sectional qualifying and also won the British Amateur, which gains him entry to the Masters.

Despite the unfriendly rain Thursday and the not-yet-compliant course of Friday morning, Weaver enjoyed his round. He had three birdies on the back nine to pull from two over to become one of the few players under par in the morning. But he said he plays with the perspective earned on the day he heard shots coming from Norris Hall, the day a lone gunman killed 32 people.

“At the British Amateur, it’s definitely something I was playing for,” he said. “It’s nice to have something to dedicate to those that were lost.”

Weaver played in the Masters and the British Open but never had a sniff of the lead. He started Friday at two over after he played 11 holes on Thursday. He made a good par save at the 12th hole with a 10-footer and then birdied No. 13 with a 20-foot putt, and No. 16 with an 18-footer. “At that point I was kind of feeding off the crowd, wasn’t nervous and used my adrenaline to my advantage,” he said.

He got the crowd into it on 17 with a 22-foot putt that broke left to right and rolled in the hole.

“It was incredible, really nice to pour that in and hear that roar,” he said.

Weaver, though, said he learned how to appreciate much smaller things than golf victories by surviving the massacre at his university.

“We’ve definitely moved on and developed a little better outlook on life, a little more positive, and have learned to appreciate the smaller things in life,” he said. “Things are great, but we haven’t ever forgotten the loss.”

Woods, meanwhile, was dealing with woes involving golf only, and he had a few. After starting the day one over, he collected another bogey immediately. He seemed to be finding his game with two birdies early on the back nine, but then doubled No. 15 and bogeyed 16 and 18.

“Well, I wasn’t playing poorly,” Woods said. “I was even par with four to go, and I was right there where I needed to be, and two bad shots and a mud ball later, here we go and I’m at four over par.”

On No. 18, while Woods’s playing partners Ángel Cabrera and Padraig Harrington were busy looking for Cabrera’s ball in the rough, Woods not only did not help, he hit his approach shot over their heads toward the green. He was clearly focusing on his game.

The United States Golf Association hoped to get most of the second round completed Friday before dark. The forecast for Saturday is gloomy: an 80 percent chance of rain, and possibly another inch for the waterlogged course.

Sports

k_est@hotmail.com (SuccessCodes.us) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:41:00 -0700

Caddie’s Job, Usually Tough, Just Gets a Lot Worse

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — If playing golf in a downpour is miserable and demoralizing, imagine what it is like for caddies, whose primary job in a rainstorm is to keep the players as happy and as dry as possible, even if that means the caddies get more wet and uncomfortable.

It is the caddie’s job to hold an umbrella over his player’s head as the caddie stands outside the umbrella in the rain. Occasionally, a player might hold the umbrella for himself and his caddie, but only to help the caddie determine the yardage of the next shot. Even a golf bag has priority over the caddie when it comes to staying dry. The caddie might hold an umbrella over his head and the pro’s bag, but if the caddie puts the bag down and walks away, the umbrella remains over the bag.

“It’s your job to take the torture,” said John Rathouz, caddie for John Merrick, a rising star on the PGA Tour. “You just throw the bag on your shoulder and trudge on.”

Rathouz stood outside the caddie hospitality tent Thursday morning, not long after play at Bethpage State Park had been suspended by rain. With him was Mark Urbanek, the caddie for Charlie Wi, a PGA Tour player from South Korea. Hair wet and shoes soggy, the caddies took a fast-paced inventory of their day.

“I had four towels and six gloves for my guy,” Urbanek said. “But some of them are already trashed by the rain. Just a mess.”

Said Rathouz: “My yardage book is destroyed. I’ll take it home tonight and try to dry it out.”

Urbanek: “We kept taking the rain suit on and off because Charlie doesn’t like to swing in the rain jacket. I hope the inside is not too wet.”

Rathouz: “We improvised out there. Player and caddie working as a team.”

Urbanek: “If your player isn’t helping you, you have no chance at all.”

Rathouz: “You just have to stand next to each other and hope you’ve brushed your teeth.”

Five years ago, Rathouz was just out of college and working a public relations office job.

“But mostly, I was checking golf scores instead of working,” he said Thursday. “I decided I wasn’t meant for an office job.”

So Rathouz, who is 27 and grew up in Omaha, headed for that week’s stop on the Nationwide Tour, the minor leagues of pro golf. Rathouz was not trying to play golf. He was looking, in caddie parlance, “for a bag.”

Rathouz slept in his car waiting in the parking lot to approach players who were arriving for the tournament that weekend in Boise, Idaho. Merrick pulled up in a nice sports car and accepted Rathouz’s invitation. The two have been together since, including a highlight from April when Merrick, who has already won $1 million in 2009, finished sixth at the Masters.

The rainy beginning Thursday to the 109th United States Open was not likely to be among the year’s highlights. Merrick played four holes in one over par. Wi made it through eight holes in three over par.

“It was a fight to keep anything dry,” said Urbanek, who is 29 and from Princeton, N.J. “A lot of amateurs don’t realize that even a little water accumulation on the ball or the club face of the driver and the ball goes all over the place. With a tour pro’s swing, to have the ball sitting in the rain for two seconds in a heavy downpour will make a difference.”

A pro’s golf bag, which customarily weighs about 35 pounds, picks up another five pounds in the rain, the caddies said. Or it might just feel that way because the bag is stuffed with extra paraphernalia, long- and short-sleeved rain jackets, plus extra pants and shirts.

Before he was a caddie, Urbanek played some of golf’s mini-tours, well below the PGA Tour level, and was just about to, as he said, “hang it up and get a real job,” when he started caddying for a friend. Three years later, he is with Wi, who also has earned more than $1 million this season with three top-10 finishes.

“I’ve saw some things today I’ve never seen before on tour,” Urbanek said. “I never saw workers squeegee a path on the green before you hit your putt. That’s usually done after you leave the green. We also played through the group in front of us. They were waiting for a ruling and they waved us through.”

Both caddies said the players had adjusted their games in the deluge.

“They were much more content with just being in the fairway even if it was a mis-hit,” Rathouz said. “Then it was just get it anywhere on the green.”

The caddies said they would dry out overnight, and dry out their tools as well as their players’ bags, then look forward to what they hoped would be a dryer Friday.

“It will still be wet,” Rathouz said with a shrug. “Guys won’t be trying to do anything crazy. Just keep it in play and we’ll clomp along.”