Who was the head coach when Michael Bradley played in his first USMNT game?
When the team for the 2002 World Cup was named, Bradley was not on the list. During training and the first send-off game, a couple players got injured, resulting in Bradley getting a call from Head Coach Bruce Arena. With the understanding that he would not be placed on the World Cup roster, Bradley joined training camp. During the May 26th game against Venezuela, Arena sent Bradley to the fourth official to substitute for Ben Olson. Before he could get in, though, Carlos Bocanegra picked up his second yellow card. Arena called Bradley back from the half-way line and told him to replace Brian Ching instead. Arena changed his mind again, calling Bradley back to the bench once more, telling him to replace Olson. Then a new problem arose—Bradley was not on the official game roster. With a copy of the line-up that had been given to the media, U.S. coaches approached the Venezuelan coaches. The Venezuelans understood, the fourth official consented, and Bradley finally got into the game, by then in its 89th minute.
Lamar The Legend...
For whom was the U.S. Open Cup Tournament trophy
renamed to honor in 1999?
The tournament has been around since 1914, almost as long
as Lamar Hunt has been investing in professional soccer in
the U.S. Likely nobody has spent so much money on
soccer in the United States. Hunt, better known as the
owner of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs (and the man who
coined the term Super Bowl), owned the NASL’s Dallas
Tornado, which was the league’s longest operating
franchise in one city, lasting from 1967 until 1981. When
Major League Soccer began its organizational phase, Hunt
was there again, becoming the lead investor in teams in
Columbus and Kansas City. He later bought into MLS’s
team in Dallas and led the effort to build a soccer specific
stadium for the Columbus Crew and F.C. Dallas. For all
that effort, USSF put Hunt’s name on the trophy awarded to
the winner of the U.S. Open Cup.
What other NASL team was trying to lure Pele to play
for them?
In the NASL, competition to sign players was as fierce as
competition to win games. Unlike the MLS, recruiting
players was done without league coordination. That was
quite apparent when Lamar Hunt’s team, the Dallas
Tornado, went after Pele. Hunt met with Pele in Frankfurt,
Germany. There, Pele told Hunt that Clive Toye, of the
Cosmos, was already pitching the idea of playing in the U.S.
Two Shots Head 'Round the World
by Jamie Clary
Schoolhouse Rock, those Saturday morning mini-cartoons aimed at educating children who watched television instead of read books, had one episode about The Shot Heard 'Round the World. That episode explained that the phrase was a reference to the musket shot that began the Revolutionary War, the series of battles that earned the American colonies independence from mighty England.
When the two nations met in the 1950 World Cup, one shot--this one from a forward's head--again led to a remarkably successful underdog effort. The U.S. won 1-0 in the biggest upset in the history of the World Cup.
Due to the similarities, the 1950 header that scored the game's lone goal became known as The Shot Heard 'Round the World.
For 39 years that goal was the U.S.'s greatest highlight on the world stage of soccer. We changed that on November 19, 1989, when the U.S. earned a trip back to the World Cup with another stunning shot which led to another 1-0 upset.
Playing Trinidad and Tobago away in the final game of qualifying for the 1990 World Cup, the U.S. team brought home a victory by way of a Paul Caligiuri shot from 35 yards out. The phrase was then applied to Caligiuri's goal.
This later event deserves the title more, wrote soccer historian David Litterer, even though the rest of the world knows better the 1950 upset. "[The victory over Trinidad and Tobago] showed the world that the Americans were doormats no longer".
click here to buy a copy of The First American Soccer Trivia Book.