2012 Team USA Women's Olympic Soccer Watch- Another Crucial Showdown With Mexico

The Team USA women are 25-1-1 against our southern neighbors when it comes to playing soccer against Mexico.  

What's the lone loss?   It's one Team USA still hasn't forgotten.   It was a 2-1 Mexican win on November 10. 2010 during the CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament in Cancun that not only clinched an automatic berth for them, but forced Team USA into the Third Place match vs Costa Rica and eventually a two leg playoff against Italy to become one of the last teams to qualify for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.  

FIFA number one ranked Team USA has been on a ruthlessly efficient mission so far to make certain that no such slip ups happen in this qualifying tournament for the London Games.  They know that unlike the World Cup. if they falter in qualifying, they'll be sitting at home watching the Olympic tournament on TV instead of attempting to threepeat as Olympic champions.

They face off at BC Place in a highly anticipated Group B match against Mexico to determine who wins the group and plays Group A runner up Costa Rica in Friday's knockout semifinals to determine the CONCACAF reps for London.   The Group B runner up will play host nation Canada, who knocked off Costa Rica 5-1 last night at BC Place.

Team USA has never lost a game on Canadian soil, are 8-0-0 when playing in domed stadiums, have going into this match a 10-0-1 record in CONCAFAF Olympic Qualifiers and have blistered the nets with 27 goals in this tournament.   But FIFA number 21 ranked Mexico has scored 11 goals of their own in group play and ain't 'scurred' of the mighty USA.  

So throw those stats out tonight.   The last three USA-Mexico matches they have been determined by one goal margins, and much is riding on this one.
 

CONCACAF 2012 Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament Starts Today

I mentioned it at the conclusion of the FIFA Women's World Cup tournament last year that Canada would host the CONCAFAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament that will decide which two teams from our region punch their tickets to London.

The fun starts at the newly renovated BC Place Stadium in Vancouver later today as eight teams begin play to determine who will be in the championship match on January 29 and ultimately in the Olympic Games Women's Tournament.

The eight competing teams in Vancouver will be placed in two groups and the draw shook out like this:

Group A:  Canada, Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica
Group B:  Guatemala, Dominican Republic, USA, Mexico

Top two teams in Group play make it to the semifinal round on January 27 with the semifinal survivors qualifying for London and playing for the CONCAFAF tournament title.

The teams getting the two available CONCAFAF berths will join host nation and FIFA number 8 ranked Great Britain, FIFA World Cup champion and number 3 ranked Japan, FIFA number 9 ranked North Korea, FIFA number 4 ranked Brazil, Colombia, FIFA number 6 ranked France, FIFA number 5 ranked Sweden, South Africa, Cameroon (who knocked off Nigeria's Super Phobes) and one more nation from Oceania (possibly New Zealand) to round out the 12 team Olympic tournament.field

The three teams to watch in this tournament are the homestanding Canadians, Mexico and the two time defending Olympic champion USA who has also won the last two CONCAFAF Olympic qualifying tournaments and are working on an Olympic threepeat.. 

The FIFA number one ranked USA in the 2004 final knocked off Mexico 3-2 and in the 2008 final beat Canada 6-5 on penalty kicks after the match concluded in a 1-1 draw.

In November 2010 CONCAFAF champ Canada beat Mexico for the title in qualifying for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup after Mexico upset the USA 2-1 in the semis to claim the other World Cup auto qualifying berths   Team USA was forced to win the third place game against Costa Rica and then beat Italy in a two leg playoff just to qualify for the 2011 World Cup..

Team USA coach Pia Sundhage is bringing the same squad that finished as the World Cup runners up in Germany minus two players since you're only allowed 20 on the roster  The one they added however is Vancouver born UCLA standout Sydney Leroux. 

FIFA number 21 ranked Mexico wants to prove that the November 2010 loss they saddled the USA with in Cancun wasn't a fluke and they'll get their chance on January 24.  Assuming everything shakes out as expected it'll be a Group B finale that will probably determine who wins the group and who faces the runner up team from Group A.    

The FIFA seventh ranked Canadians have a new coach after their disappointing showing in Germany but are still just as determined to put a dent in the US soccer domination of them.

They also wish to continue the positive direction of their program in advance of their nation hosting the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup.  

The USA's last loss to Canada was ten years ago and in compiling a 41-3-4 record against our northern neighbors have never lost a match on Canadian soil.
 

While pundits are expecting a Canada-USA final on January 29, there are six other national teams in Vancouver who have Olympic dreams as well and would like nothing better than to take down one of the favorites and punch their own tickets to London. 

The Canadians open up Group A play today with Haiti with Cuba taking on  Costa Rica in the other contest.  The USA opens Group B play tomorrow with the Dominican Republic and Mexico takes on Guatemala.

If the favorites slip up by taking an underdog team for granted or one of the underdog teams gets hot at the right time, anything can happen. 


But one thing is certain.   There will only be two teams representing CONCAFAF at the London Olympics when this qualifying tournament is concluded.  The rest will be going home bitterly disappointed and in a few months watching the Olympic women's football tournament on television and waiting to try again to qualify when the Games come to Rio in 2016.

The Texas Conservafools Don't Want Mexican Immigrants, But Will Take Their Electricity

Yesterday I was fuming as we went through a series of rolling blackouts until 1:30 PM  because whoever designed several electric generating plants in North Texas didn't wrap the water pipes leading to those generators.

The pipes froze and the generators went offline, and just like that 7000 MW of electricity suddenly ceased flowing across the state.

That's 8% of our generating capacity in the second most populous state in the US, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was forced to for the second time since 2006 declare an electricity emergency and institute the rolling blackouts starting at 5:45 AM .

Instead of doing the logical thing and splitting Texas between the eastern and western US power grids, the state is on its own electric grid, so that compounded the problem.   While one electric portal was opened to get excess power from Louisiana, guess where we had to get the rest of the power to make up the 7000 MW shortfall from?

Si. Mexico.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Mexico's state electricity company on Wednesday started supplying electricity to the US state of Texas, where demand shot up amid unusually cold temperatures and caused power outages.

Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission "was determined to support Texas with electrical energy faced with the problems the state is suffering due to climatological conditions," a statement said."

Yep, the same nation that Rick Perry and his merry band of Tea Klux Klan wannabe secessionists demonized in the recent gubernatorial campaign.   The same nation whose immigrants Texas owes for the population increase during the last decade that helped it gain three of the four congressional seats the state picked up, with the fourth seat being courtesy of Hurricane Katrina evacuees from Louisiana who stayed here.

Rolling blackouts in Houston, the city considered the energy capital of the planet and during Super Bowl Week in Dallas-Ft.Worth.    ERCOT claims that rolling blackouts won't been necessary today, but we'll see.


Proven conservative leadership at its finest.

To all you peeps that voted GOP in the last election and kept the Republicans in power in Austin to continue mismanaging the state because you are clueless and hate non-whites, chew on the delicious irony that your heaters and every appliance in your homes are being run on electricity produced in Mexico until the repairs are made on the offline generators.

One of the things I have not liked about the move back to Texas is that in this deregulated electricity market, I've experienced more blackouts since I've been back home than in the entire 8 years I was living in Kentucky.    The ones I experienced there in 2004 and in 2009 were all severe weather related..  My power stayed on during a nasty ice storm weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Ike knocked us offline..


The only thing thats making this lemon situation remotely humorous is the fact that the conservafools don't want to accept Mexican immigrants, but will accept their electricidad.