Revenge is a Dish Best Served Studs Up

Alright, since The Rooster keeps sending me racist, jinoistic messages about El Tri and their crop of young studs who play a lovely brand of futbol, I thought I'd offer a retort, something beyond the usual "Go Back to Mexico!" and "Mow My Lawn!"

I was once on a team that lined up opposite a bunch of Jamaicans, real Jamaicans, black and everything, not white suburban kids who liked Bob Marley. They had this dude in the middle of the park who absolutely dominated us with his quickness, vision and skill. We lost 4-1, but it was far worse than that. the next time we played them, we game-planned specifically for that guy, switching to a 4-5-1 and having a usual left back in the center to man-mark their play-maker. In addition, we put out the call to chop him down physically.

That's exactly what should happen tonight. Dos Santos and Barrera should go down hard (at least) once early. Real hard. Then often. With multiple subs, you can get the yellow cards out of the way and bring on someone else. It's like having a bunch of Brian Scalabrines on the team. Back them off a little, slow the pace of the game with multiple re-starts, raise some fucking welts.

Surely, Klinsi knows this, probably, in fact, remembers when Germany did this exact thing to the US in 2002 World Cup. Jens Jeremies annihilated Yank play-maker Claudio Reyna--who is also in camp!--within the first five minutes, rendering him impotent for the remainder of the match. We have guys like Heath Pearce and Zach Loyd in the team. What else are they going to offer but a little thuggery?

So there is the game plan. Get Gio rolling around on the turf like he's trying to put out a fire on his person. And yeah, we beat the Jamaicans in that second game. Completely reversed the scoreline. Took them out physically, which led to them disintegrating mentally. Same thing can happen tonight, though probably not much chance of El Tri sparking fatties at halftime.