South American national teams started World Cup this international break with several of the leading South American players ineligible through either suspension or injury.
Obviously the most-missed is Lionel Messi, who injured his left knee in La Liga and will almost certainly will not play in any of the remaining qualifiers for Argentina in 2015. Messi has scored 49 goals in 105 games for his country.
Kaka is two goals away from becoming Brazil’s all-time leading scorer in World Cup qualifiers, but his toughest obstacle will not be Venezuela.
In order to surpass Zico and Romario, both with 11 goals, the Orlando City player will have to persuade Brazil coach Dunga into letting him play.
The Brazilian manager called up Kaka to replace Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho, who got injured before he could make his debut in World Cup qualifiers. The other main absence in Brazil’s squad is the team’s star, Neymar.
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena will host the CONCACAF Gold Cup playoff between Mexico and the United States to determine which team will travel to Russia for the Confederations Cup in 2017. USA manager Jurgen Klinsmann will look to erase the memory of his team’s failure over the summer at the Gold Cup while remaining undefeated against Mexico.
Europe is populated with incredible Latin American footballers like Lionel Messi, Edinson Cavani, Neymar, Luis Suarez, James Rodriguez, Radamel Falcao and past legends like Diego Maradona, Falcao (the Brazilian one), Diego Forlan and Hugo Sanchez. Rarely do people think about Latin American goalkeepers in Europe, but there's a sizeable population of them.
On the trail of Uruguayan Ladislao Mazurkiewicz and Brazilian Claudio Taffarel, an interesting group of goalkeepers from Latin America shines in European leagues right now.
When we were strapping young youth soccer players, our coaches would tell us not to argue with the ref. They were adamant about this: no arguing with the ref, under any cicumstances. No matter how bad the call was, no matter how wronged we thought we had been, we were not allowed to argue with the ref.
Now, we know why. Our coaches probably thought they were teaching us about sportsmanship or something, but they were really teaching us not to get shot, which, we think, is at least as valuable if, not more.
The prodigal son has returned, and then he left again two months later.
Brazilian club Fluminense announced Monday that they had terminated Dinho's contract at his consent, ending his second homecoming.
Not that they will miss him very much, as far as on the field production is concerned. Ronaldinho couldn't manage to score or assist a goal in nine appearances with Fluminense.
It has been a long road for Ronaldinho. Yet, the two-time FIFA World Player of the Year might be facing one of his toughest ever challenges in his second return to Brazil. The newest trial posed to Ronaldinho is to turn an apathetic Fluminense squad back into a winning club.
For Pete's sake, Neymar, do your taxes.
The Brazilian striker has had assets totalling $47.75 million frozen by a Brazilian court due to tax evasion charges.
Neymar makes about $14 million in salary and $17 million in endorsements. That is enough money for someone to live on even if he pays his taxes.
Mexico tied Argentina Tuesday, 2-2, in a lively match that got more interesting as it went. Mexico took a 2-0 lead into the 85th minute via a Chicharito Hernandez penalty kick and a nice shot from Hector Herrera, but Sergio Aguero and Lionel Messi proved too much for Mexico to contain near the end. Here are our takeaways.
It was mostly positive for Mexico, given they drew with one of the best teams in the world.
They played 85 minutes of solid soccer.