It could've been different, but it wasn't. Today once again proved that if you're the American team, you can't sit on a draw.

The United States were actually able to take advantage of the match early when Charlie Davies turned Juarez and put the ball around Ochoa. His pace has become a deadly asset for the United States and he should have a good season with Sochaux in Ligue 1 this year.

Not long after the goal Mexico found a way to threaten and score. Israel Castro hit a thunderbolt which left Tim Howard with no chance, he was never the most likely goal scorer, in fact he's only scored seven times for Pumas, but that was a goal anyone would be proud of. Cuauhtémoc Blanco played a role in the build up.

Somehow after the goal three American defenders found a variety of ways to get booked. Onyewu for handball, which was probably smart considering he was well beaten if the ball had gotten by him and DeMerit and Bocanegra for late tackles. That made the defending complicated for the remainder of the match.

Early in the second half Javier Aguirre took the chance to introduce Carlos Vela into the fold and it wound up paying dividends. Though he wasn't directly involved, it seems the Americans find it extremely difficult to deal with the Arsenal man.

Mexico's winner came when Juarez made amends for his early mistake with a storming run up the right that set up Miguel Sabah. No previous Mexico manager has even cared about the current Morelia man, but he's in a real purple patch as of late and Aguirre's faith in him won Mexico the match today. He's scoring a goal every two games for Mexico, a fabulous return for anyone.

There was some controversy in the match, Nery Castillo was incredibly testy and probably could have been sent off, or at the very least cautioned for grabbing Charlie Davies head as he lay on the ground after cramping.

It must be said that Mexico deserved the win, they outplayed the US outside of the first 15 minutes. It was a win they desperately needed as it, at least for now, moves them into third ahead of Honduras for the last automatic qualification spot. Honduras is at home to leaders Costa Rica tonight, while the Soca Warriors visit El Salvador in the other fixture.

Mexico v United States - CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying

This is the most important and the fiercest rivalry in North American sports. I know some people are likely to take issue with that statement, but don't let your own loyalties cloud your judgment, this is the absolute zenith, it does not get any bigger than this on our continent.

Many things contribute to the rivalry between Mexico and the United States, not least culture and geography. No matter what some misguided people in either country will tell you, the two are sister nations, forever interwoven within the very fabric of the other and it's not just a recent thing, it was ever so. The fact that the United States will very likely field Jose Fransisco Torres, a Texas-born Mexican-American, in this match is proof of that.

Mexico has long been the dominate, nearly undisputed power in CONCACAF, and they have not taken well to the recent rise of their neighbors to the north. Despite winning 5-0 in last month's Gold Cup final at the Meadowlands, many Mexicans still feel the sting from a 2-0 American win during the 2002 World Cup in Korea Republic. But they still have one trump card, the Azteca. The Americans have never won at the vaunted stadium and as such it has begun to carry a mystique about it which makes the stadium itself a factor in the match. It's more than the 110,000 fans right on top of the players, more than the elevation and the pollution in Mexico's Federal District, more than the green of El Tri, the "Colossus of Saint Ursula" is in and of itself the twelth man.

As if either team needed anymore motivation for the match, Mexico's qualification hopes may well hinge on the result. Currently El Tri site fourth in the CONCACAF Final Round -- a playoff spot with South America -- only a single point ahead of a resurgent El Salvador side who face minnows, though newly buoyed, Trinidad & Tobago this week. Be assured that the Americans would revel in having played some part in Mexico missing the World Cup.

Somewhat, okay, very, controversially the English feed for the match will be on the relatively little known Mun2, a sister-network to Telemundo, who hold the Spanish rights to the match. NBC Universal has worked to make sure the match will be accessible to as many people as possible, as expected, they're using this as an opportunity to introduce Mun2 to a wider audience. If they're successful in doing so we could end up seeing more soccer on Mun2, and that's a good thing for the viewing public. Plus I'm addicted to The Chicas Project now, wait, I didn't say that.

DC United v Real Madrid & Seattle Sounders v Barcelona

Two more friendly matches from the "summer of soccer" and I have to say that despite the results I was pleased by both. There was a sellout crowd in Seattle and a nice crowd in Landover -- the match was too big for RFK -- for the DC match. Hats off to both sides.

I don't hate Seattle! I actually think they're very good for the game and genuinely hope they're able to build upon what they currently have.

W-League and PDL Champions

Congratulations must go out to the Pali Blues and the Ventura County Fusion who won the championships of the USL W-League and USL Premier Development League this weekend, respectively. Both teams come from the LA area and show what a great pedigree the area has for the game. While it's mostly known for being the only city with two MLS teams the city offers much more than that in terms of soccer and it really shows. This is the second championship in two years of existence for Pali, and the first for the Fusion. Credit must also be given to the Chicago Fire who are truly one of the most complete clubs in the United States, their reserve team finished as PDL runners-up.

Dani Jarque 1983-2009

As you are all aware, Espanyol's captain Dani Jarque passed away this weekend after suffering a heart attack. At only twenty-six Jarque tragically leaves behind a pregnant girlfriend. It serves as a wrenchingly sad reminder of just how precious life is. May he rest in eternal peace.

NBC Universal has announced that it will offer a free preview of Mun2 during the August 12th World Cup Qualifying match between Mexico and the United States at the Estadio Azteca.

Also, NBCU has announced that Phil Schoen and former United States defender Marcelo Balboa will handle commentary duties on Mun2, Telemundo's primarily English language sister channel.

Today Mexico handed the United States nothing short of a savage, savage beating at The Meadowlands. After seven years of hearing gloating chants of "Two-Nil!" the Mexicans finally have a chant of their own.

5-0.

While watching the match I was attempting to figure out a way to explain it, as I watched I continued to ask myself how it happened. I didn't know, there was no way to explain it, Mexico simply hammered the United States. Each goal was a lesson in how to play football, how to pass, how to run, how to dribble, how to play off the ball, and how to finish. The penalty could be disputed, but there was no doubt that Jay Heaps grabbed some of Gio dos Santos' top in the process. Giovanni made a meal of the shirt tug, but Heaps should've known better. To be honest, he was a bit of a bomb scare every time he stepped onto the field and he ended his Gold Cup by being sent off stupidly.

It's hard to place blame for the loss, the score was 0-0 at half time and the Americans seemed to be in control, but sometime shortly after the start of the second half a very important component fell off somewhere, and whatever it was, it was missed big time.

Sadly this beating, and it was nothing short of that, will take some of the gloss off of the Confederations Cup run in the eyes of a newer fan who may not fully understand the difference between the teams that played. This was without any doubt our B, or even C team. But we can't make excuses, we simply can't lose 5-0. We can't lose 5-0 anywhere. Not at Azteca, not at Saprissa, and especially not in the United States. It's embarrassing.

We heard a lot about the superior American athletic ability, the superior American strength, and the superior American fitness, and we were shown again why those facts are brought up so much. The inferior American artistry. Yes, we have artistic players, but it's been exposed once again that we aren't producing enough of them. In South Africa we had Benny Feilhaber, Landon Donovan. Charlie Davies, and Clint Dempsey. Men who can paint beautiful pictures with the ball. At the Gold Cup we had Kyle Beckerman and Stuart Holden, both of whom were superb until the final, but seemed overwhelmed by the fact that they were playing Mexico. In this country we value strength and muscle, it's pushed on our young athletes from a young age. We force fed vertical leaps and 40 times until our ears bleed from an overload of numbers. Strength and speed are wonderful, and you absolutely need players who have those things, but we neglect the artistic side of the game. The side of the game that makes Argentina and Brazil so great. This needs to be fixed.

Today Mexico showed us, five times, why this matters so much.

Next month we have to travel to Mexico City, to the feared Estadio Azteca. Yesterday we were actually favored to win this match. Today? No. We have a lot of thinking, and a lot of work ahead of us.

Well, I guess it should be "Hi, Mun2", considering Mun2 ("mundos") is primarily English speaking network.

Why am I writing about Mun2? Well, if you're asking that than you obviously aren't aware of the situation concerning the Mexico v United States World Cup Qualifying match on August 12th.

Usually US National Team matches are broadcast on ESPN2 (or sometimes they feel generous and put them on ESPN), at the very least ESPN Classic. But that isn't the case for this match, and that isn't the fault of ESPN actually. Since Mexico is the home team the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Asociación (or FEMEXFUT, which is equally a mouthful) controls who owns the rights to broadcast the match and they have a deal with NBC Universal through Telemundo, both rights -- Spanish AND English. This is where it get interesting.

Supposedly NBC outbid Disney (ABC & ESPN) for the World Cup but the USSF had a word with FIFA about how ESPN supports MLS and therefore deserves the rights to the World Cup more than NBC. Needless to say, NBC wasn't, and isn't, happy about this. The rumor is that ESPN approached NBC about buying the English rights so they could show the match, which is expected to be in high demand given the ferocity of the rivalry and the Americans recent Confederations Cup success, NBC said "How about naw?", or something like that.

So, instead of the match being broadcast in English on ESPN it will be broadcast in English on Mun2, Telemundo's baby sister, and I do mean "baby" - Mun2 is in 30 million US homes. Telemundo has yet to decide who will call the match for Mun2.

This has caused a fair bit of controversy in American soccer circles, obviously. Hardly anyone gets Mun2 (though many get Telemundo, who will broadcast the Spanish feed). There's even a petition (linked) to get the match moved to one of NBC's seven-gazillion other networks, namely the USA Network.

People have a right to be angry, but you can't exactly fault NBC. If the World Cup rumors are true they really got screwed. Plus they obviously want people to be more aware of Mun2's existence, it doesn't seem like a bad channel to be honest. It's kind of like MTV.

If you've gotten this far, I love you. Mun2 is on Dish Network 838 and DirecTV 410, I believe the latter requires a subscription to a Spanish language package.

I should blog more, I know. I kind of feel bad because I told Gil that I would earlier this year, but the year hasn't been easy for me. At the moment the doctor says I have bronchitis, so, we'll see. Thanks for reading anyway.

The first of the two ties takes place at 7:30PM EDT in Washington, DC's Robert F. Kennedy Stadium between DC United (USA) and Pachuca (Mexico). Luis Montes struck twice in the 2nd half of the 1st leg to give Pachuca a 2-0 lead.

The other tie is tightly balanced at 0-0 and will be played at Estadio Ricardo Saprissa at 10:10pm EDT, located in San Jose, Costa Rica's San Juan de Tibás neighborhood between Deportivo Sapissa (CRC) and the Houston Dynamo (USA). As I previously wrote, Houston had chance to win the 1st leg but failed to score and made it hard on themselves. Houston is a very talented team, talented enough to win in Costa Rica, but it's a very tall task. Saprissa, three times winners of the Champions Cup, are well seasoned in continental play and their fans make the Estadio Ricardo Saprissa a hard place to play. This should be a fabulous match.