While his career almost began with Manchester United until a work permit was denied, Nery Castillo’s career has seen him take the path less travelled.
Castillo started his professional career at the age of 16 with Olympiacos in Greece, scoring 30 times in over 100 appearances. But around this time, things started to get a bit interesting.
Televisa launching Spanish language soccer channel Planeta Futbol for Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries, featuring Premier League, Mexican tournament matches and La Liga.
Image via Lexblog
Dan Frosch from the New York Times has a great read about New Mexico’s Edgar Castillo and his decision to play for Mexico instead of the United States.
What I liked seeing was the acknowledgment of US Soccer President Sunil Gulati and US Head Coach Bob Bradley that while they missed out on Castillo, they held on to San Luis’ Michael Orozco.
With former World Cup player /Colombian Wilmer Cabrera now filling the void of Hispanic Coaches in the younger US Soccer system as Head Coach of the US Under-17 National Team, along with former MLS Veterans Raul Diaz Arce and Marco Etcheverry involved with various US Youth Teams, hopefully we’ll see less and less players lost or passed over because of the lack of opportunities that Castillo had.
On a separate note, what does the success of Castillo and Orozco in Mexico say about the type of players that “America” is producing before they get to the college of MLS age groups.
image via NYTimes
Comedian and Sven Goran Eriksson look-a-like Derek Williams has put Mexican clubs on alert after fooling Club Universidad Nacional’s Ricardo Ferretti into giving the faker a tour of the facilities.
Williams sent the club fake documents from the Mexican Federation to gain entrance to the club, where Ferretti gave the lookalike a tour of the facilities and access to training.
The best part, Williams has two beautiful women with him the whole time and posed for pictures afterwards.
The Mexican Federation has issued this statement, “At the moment the real Eriksson is in the United States. The person claiming to be him is only a lookalike. This shows a complete lack of respect.”
As for the fooled Ferretti, he took it pretty well. “To be honest I was quite amused,” Mr Ferretti said. “The fake Eriksson told me that he was watching my players ahead of his next call-ups, and I believed him.”
image vie BBC
Mexican National Team Star Oswaldo Sanchez was arrested Sunday morning in Chicago and charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and resisting arrest the morning after Mexico’s 4-nil drubbing of Peru at Soldier Field.
Police were called to the downtown Westin Hotel for a disturbance due to guests complaints about a loud party. Sanchez was reportedly arrested for not leaving the premises despite being told to do so multiple times by police.
You’ve really got to wonder what kind of fallout will be felt on this one. With the Mexican National Team playing friendlies and qualifiers in the United States so often and throw in multiple Mexican club participation in SuperLiga and Champions Cup, this is one outcome you’re definitely going to want to keep an eye on.
image via FootballWallpapers
With all the talk in the United States being about Jozy Altidore’s $8-10 Million move to La Liga’s Villareal, Beans and I were talking about how it seems like it’s a great time to be from either Mexico or the United States if you’re a young player nowadays.
Freddy Adu making huge strides after joining Portuguese side Benfica.
Michael Bradley being joint top scorer for the 2007/08 Eredivisie season with Heerenveen. Now the question is, where will he end up?
Two of the best “younger” Mexicans, Omar Bravo and Andres Guardado teaming up at Deportivo La Coruna.
Danny Szetela going on loan to Serie B side Brescia from La Liga’s Racing Santander.
Who’s next?
Maurice Edu?
Chris Seitz?
image via Njmg
The second goal from Messi is outrageous.
Watch closely as he gets away from 3 defenders at the top of the 18, passes the ball, gets his feet taken out from under him, gets up without complaining quickly and sprints to the top of the six to use the inside of his left to kiss it far post, past the statue standing in goal known as Osvaldo.
The biggest difference in the match was Argentina’s reactions to loose balls in the box, movement off the ball and Mexico’s struggles with clearing the ball out of their defensive third.
UPDATE - Official.
“It” has replaced Hugo “the Dreaded” as the head boss of Mexico after the owners of the 18 first division clubs unanimously voted for the Swede.
Looks like Sven is already pretty fluent in Spanish. One less worry!
image via DailyMail
So there has been crazy speculation and chatter that Sven, aka “It”, is going to take over the National Team of Mexico. I have read numerous reports about this, but I haven’t really heard anyone ask why. Why would Mexico reach out to Sven? I can’t imagine Sven has a particularly good understanding of the Mexican game, the culture, style of play, etc. I know Sven can speak a number of different languages, but I’m not sure Spanish is one of them. Also, it must be asked, what has Sven really accomplished lately? I know he won a bevy of trophies when he was manager at Lazio back in the day, but what he hasn’t won much since.
Read more after the jump
UPDATE - While it hasn’t been set in stone YET, it’s looking as if Mexico and Chivas star Omar Bravo will sign withLa Liga side Deportivo La Coruna. Bravo is the 2nd player to score 100 goals for Chivas and would be a FREE signing for La Coruna (9th place finish) after playing out the last year of his contract. Cha-Ching!!!
Deportivo La Coruna and Mexico winger, Andres Guardado will be on the sidelines for a month after picking up a muscle injury. After being one, if not THE dopest wide player to come out of Concacaf, Guardado has quickly established himself in the La Liga side.
The 20 year old has been highly influential for Coruna this term with 5 goals in 22 matches so far, and is well worth the 7 million Euro paid to Guadalajara’s FC Atlas.
image via CNN
You’ve got to have some pretty big balls to throw a big ass drum at a cop’s head, knowing fully well that’s it’s gonna do some damage.
Looks like the Veracruz faithful weren’t too happy about finally getting relegated and decided to take it out on the Po-Po.
Bad, bad, bad idea…
