Columnist Nick Green has written 100 Percent Soccer
since 2005. A
native of England, he began writing about soccer in
the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat
in the stands for one in
the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home
Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas
USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer.
Married to a long-suffering soccer widow, he has a cat
named Pele.Olympic Qualifying Sunday: Guest-Blogger Vanessa Rojas & More
The U.S.plays Mexico today in CONCACAF Olympic qualifying, although both nations have qualified for the semifinals.
Guest-blogger Vanessa Poster, a Torrance resident and Loyola Marymount student who plays for Costa Rica, returns ahead of that nations' clash with Canada. Costa Rica can qualify for the semifinals outright just by conceding five goals or fewer, since T&T lost to Canada by six. This is her third post.
Friday was an exciting day to say the least.
We began as every other day with breakfast in the morning, a light training session and a chalk talk after lunch.
I was starting the game, earning my fourth cap and was very excited.
We were playing 3-4-3 with an obvious offensive mindset.
Previous encounters with Trinidad and Tobago had been a blow out, but this year they came out with a fury.
I was playing on the back line and they were putting a lot of pressure on us - they were not going to just roll over and let us win just because we were better than them on paper.
I don’t know if it was the grandiose stadium or the dry climate, but we could not get into our groove.
They scored the first goal and it was like a blow to the stomach, but that must have lit a fire under us because we started to play with more passion. As the game went on the coach decided to move into a 4-3-3 to give more support to the back line. Soon after Trinidad scored again, and it put us against the wall, for if we lost this game we were sure not to qualify to the next round of the tournament.
As the game went on we had chance after chance, but the ball would just not go into the net.
Then, with the score 2-1, the fourth official put up injury time of three minutes.
We only had three minutes left in the game to get at least a tie. It seemed improbable, when we would repeatedly cross the ball and it would deflect away it was as if someone had cast a spell on the net.
Then we had a last ditch effort cross deflect off a players' foot and someone was open on the six yard box and GOOAAALLLLL!!!!.
The referee called the game about 25 seconds later.
We play Canada today.
The fight continues