1. Love that the broadcasters table was covered in snow.

2. What the F are the two soccer guys doing wearing a hat only my mother would wear in weather like that (yes, she actually has one of those things).

3. How is it the only guy not wearing one of those hats is the one who never played professional soccer.

4. I think I would still trade watching a game in the snow over a torrential downpour.

What a miserable looking game to play in. And aside from having a headache from squinting the whole time trying to find the damn ball, a hell of a game to watch. Honestly, nothing scares me more than a team having to play in seriously inclement weather as anything can happen and often it is the random mistake that leads to the win. That being said, I actually thought this was one of our better lineups we have fielded in awhile. When I first saw it I thought to myself, “huh, that actually looks pretty strong and threatening; kind of like we want to score and actually win the damn game”. And lets get right down to it; we need this one. We are at home. Playing in weather we should be more used to. Mexico tied and 3 points puts us right into the thick of the top half in our group.

On to the game. I feel for the refs in this one. Obviously snow was blowing seriously in the eye of ref when he missed an obvious missed penalty call on Dempsey. Just despicable. I wonder if the game was at nil-nil the call would have gone our way. Midfield play aside, the back line looked fairly good in the first half. Cameron tracked back well and looked very threatening on the run ups. Omar had a solid clearance when CR started to threaten. I truly hopes he gets the confidence that he carries in Galaxy games into his international role. It also looks like Dempsey and Altidore could have some good link up action in the future but playing in conditions like this one makes the entire game really hard to judge. It is also really nice to know you have a guy like Brad Guzan to drop back in goal. Having watched many a highlight in the BPL this year of his play he is in great form.

It was great to see Dempsey back playing after having a bit of an injury spell with Sp*rs. He really seems to play well for the USMNT and almost had a great goal on the short pass just after the mid stoppage time. I have to say though, it was really getting old to see the ref call any sort of a foul on pretty much all of our set pieces. Has this guy seen a game played in the BPL? Does he know how hard players in the MLS work? I half expected the guy to blow the whistle before we even took the kick. Ridiculous. In the end, I just wanted this game to end. The snow fell harder and harder. You could barely see the players shoes and by the end neither team could do much but play the long dangerous ball over the top to a sliding player in the box.

All things aside, I completely understand the idea that it might have been best for all involved to have not played this game. The 2nd half partial stoppage was a bit comical when you consider you have already played 56 minutes in that kind of crap but it really got bad toward the end of this game (5 min of stoppage time? really?). This really is a perfect example of bad planning that most sports have been subject to at one point or another (recall the snowy baseball games-can’t imagine looking at snow while someone throws a ball 90+ mph in my direction). Given the craziness of weather, and availability of a number of other soccer venues to play WCQ games at, who the F thought it would be a good idea to play in Colorado. In March. Did no one look at the average snowfall for that state over the last 10 years? This was just bad planning on the powers in charge. Probably the same guy that said “let’s where those old school white jersey’s tonight too. oh? it’s supposed to snow? that’s ok though, right?”. But thanks for the memories, risking seriously player injury and allowing the possibility of a weather related goal decide the outcome of a qualifier. Hey, do you need a job int he MLS? Sounds like you would fit right in…

For the MLS followers, check out the new iOS ezine called Overlap. Pretty well put together and a nice article on Zusi. Oh, and it’s free.

Points to the person who can find the ball in the picture below.

goal (Photo credit: PV KS)