This is how far soccer has come in America. On one of those mega sports days in the New York area — we have a lot of them, actually — a match between Argentina and Brazil on Saturday was definitely considered part of the mix.
Even though the match was only a so-called friendly, it put stars like Lionel Messi and Neymar in front of a sellout crowd of 81,994 fans at MetLife Stadium. Messi scored a hat trick for Argentina in a 4-3 victory, and Neymar was a factor on two goals for Brazil.
With all due apologies to great American rivalries, Brazil-Argentina just might be the great sporting competition of the Western Hemisphere, given the five World Cup titles for Brazil and two for Argentina, and a history of broken legs, racial taunts and even hints of a spiked water bottle during one World Cup encounter.
After Saturday’s match, the unofficial tally of all meetings — depending on how one counts exhibitions nearly a century ago — is now 34 victories for Argentina, 34 for Brazil and 24 draws.
On a day of sports events all over the region, racing fans had to do without a shot at the first Triple Crown since 1978 after the stunning withdrawal of I’ll Have Another on Friday, another blow to a highly blemished sport.
There was plenty of other action: the Yankees and the Mets in one of their annual interleague series in the Bronx; the Devils trying to stay alive in the Stanley Cup finals; the Grand Prix of track and field at Randalls Island; and the women’s 10-kilometer race in Central Park. Some New Yorkers surely chose to hunker down at home, watching all the big events available there.
It is well proved that New York can handle concurrent extravaganzas. The president could be on Third Avenue, and the pope could be on Sixth Avenue, and you might never know — unless you were unfortunate enough to be on the highway when a dignitary’s motorcade shut down a borough or two.
In this generation, soccer contributes to part of the sporting gridlock. The sport did not always capture such attention or respect. In September 1982, The New York Times assigned the great critic John Leonard to flit from the Giants game in the Meadowlands to the Yankees game in the Bronx to the United States Open tennis tournament in Flushing and then to the Jets game in the adjacent Shea Stadium.
Leonard asked for a helicopter; the editors granted him a limousine. The driver, knowing Leonard’s all-day mission, tried to change the subject to the Cosmos, the soccer team that was sinking into the tar pits of indigence. Leonard, a product of his time, quickly let the driver know he was not interested in discussing that foreign sport.
However, Mike Tanier had soccer on his agenda. Tanier, who covered six events for The Times in 24 hours last year, was aiming to outdo himself by sampling every event on the metropolitan area’s Saturday calendar — while blogging about it on nytimes.com.
After his romp from stadium to stadium, Leonard wrote an epic, referencing Eliot, Cervantes and, I think, Homer. Since the age of the Internet had not arrived, he was under no pressure to deliver snippets of prose on the fly as events were happening. Instead, he delivered his crafted opus for the Wednesday paper. I call that “The Good Old Days.”
John Leonard, alas, is gone, but one can only hope his driver was around to enjoy the Brazil-Argentina match. The two powers came here with a lucrative contract that obliged them to field World Cup-level squads; Brazil brought its Olympic team — young but talented as always. Messi and Neymar played the entire 90 minutes on a warm afternoon and more than fulfilled the legal terms.
Four and a half hours before the match, meat was grilling in the parking lot, Brazil fans in yellow T-shirts danced to music from a loudspeaker (a very loud speaker), and Argentine fans in striped shirts kicked a ball around.
Mickey Benchimol — who left Argentina in 1948 and has been an American citizen since 1955, playing, refereeing and organizing a youth club — admitted he was stunned at the $200 price per ticket.
“That’s more than I pay for the opera,” he recently told his wife, Nancy. But their son John said the tickets were a combined Mother’s Day-Father’s Day present, and 12 family members were heading for the Meadowlands. Mickey, the patriarch, did not make his legendary empanadas, but did go out and buy 40 for the pregame tailgate party.
The mood outside was benign, although the nations have had their share of nastiness, punctuated by a cooling-off period from 1956 through 1966. Participants are still debating whether somebody on the Argentina side tossed a water bottle spiked with a sleeping potion to Brazil’s Branco during a lull in a sultry quarterfinal in Turin during the 1990 World Cup. Branco has long maintained he felt logy for the rest of the match.
Soccer does have its shenanigans, including the reality of widespread scandals in Italy and concerns about violence and racism in the European championships in Ukraine and Poland. To date, there have been claims of racist chants at a Dutch practice and a scuffle among Russian fans, and it’s still early.
Things were calm inside the stadium as Messi, 24, the little master who plays for Barcelona in Spain, appeared on the same field as Neymar, 20, the oncoming master who plays for Santos in Brazil. The two had previously played against each other once, in Qatar on Nov. 17, 2010, when Neymar was removed around the 70th minute and Messi scored the only goal in the 92nd minute.
Pelé, the greatest Brazilian player, claims Neymar, who is signed to play in his homeland through the 2014 World Cup, has already caught up with Messi. Diego Maradona, the great Argentine player, insists Messi is the best player of his time and suggested Pelé was “stupid” for saying otherwise.
Neymar was active early on Saturday, his orange-and-white shoes flashing as he set up a goal by Romulo in the 23rd minute. Argentina was sluggish at first, but teammates unleashed lovely through balls to Messi in the 31st and 35th minutes, and he converted both with lethal moves.
Oscar of Brazil scored in the 56th minute, the aptly named Hulk put in a flub by the keeper after a Neymar corner in the 72nd minute, and Argentina tied the match in the 75th minute.
Then, in the 84th minute, Messi received the ball about 50 yards from the goal, took a long romp despite a defender riding him to his left, and fired a left-footed goal from 21 yards. He now has 82 goals this season, 73 for his club at Barcelona and 9 for his country.
“He’s the best player in the world,” said Mano Menezes, the Brazil coach. “He received four balls and scored three goals.”
In this new age, Neymar and Messi show up in the Meadowlands. Soccer fans would say, Our time has come.
No comments:
Post a Comment