June 12, 2002
Last time out. Fresh off their first regular-season home loss in 73 years, the Rhinos journeyed to Virginia for back-to-back clashes with Southeast Division foes Hampton Roads (1-1-7, 5 points) and Richmond (5-2-2, 24 points). Forward Greg Simmonds hit the state like an angry hurricane, scoring in each of the 2-0 wins, while Tropical Storm Stoian added a goal and an assist.
Up next. Rochester (5-1-2, 21 points) returns to Frontier this Friday for the first of its only two home matches this June. They'll be playing the Atlanta Silverbacks (9-0-2, 41 points) in one of those classic Something Has To Give battles. See, Atlanta has one of the league's best offenses, ranking second with both a 2.27 goals/game average and a 3.73 points/game average (their +11 goal differential is third-best). Meanwhile, as we all know, defense is king for the Rhinos --- Scott Schweitzer & Company have the A-League's second-lowest goals allowed/game average (0.75).
As if that weren't exciting enough, the Silverbacks will be bringing a handful of ex-Rhinos (Carl Fletcher, Carlos Parra, and perhaps even the oft-injured Jamal Mitchell) to do their evil bidding, which probably involves the consumption of grits. Atlanta's high-powered offense, which just notched back-to-back wins against Charlotte last weekend, is led by midfielders Brian Piesner (4+5=13) and Jordy Broder (3+5=11), as well as forward Izzy Moleka (5+0=10), while their more-than-capable back line is anchored by A-League Defender of the Year Gilbert Jean-Baptiste.
Around the league. Simmonds is turning into a scoring machine, but so is ex-Rhino Eddy Sebrango, who found the back of the net for the second match in a row (and the third time in Montreal's first five matches). The Impact came out of their home-and-home weekend against Pittsburgh with a win and a draw. Over in Milwaukee, John Wolyniec had the game-winning goal (and added an assist) as the Rampage roughed up Cincinnati, 3-1.
Toronto finally opened Centennial Park Stadium and celebrated by going two whole matches without receiving a red card (the team had six in its first seven matches). The Lynx must have passed their ejection tendencies off to Charleston, who took a pair of 1-0 wins from the Lynx this past weekend and saw defender John Wilson sent off after he punched Toronto's Shawn Faria right in his Canadian mug. No give-backs, Charleston!
World Cup. Yeah, we all know the win over Portugal was stunning, but let's put the United States' performance (to date) in perspective. Only three of the 31 other teams have scored more goals (Brazil, Spain, and Germany). At press time, they have one more than Italy, three more than Argentina, and four more than defending champs France.
This might be the hardest to believe --- there are three teams gunning for a record worse than the US's miserable performance in 1998. China, Saudi Arabia, and Poland may all go 0-0-3, and none of those three countries have managed to score even once.
The faux World Cup. Speaking of The Cup, The Score commandeered City's GameCube for an entire weekend to run a massive simulation (over 16,000 matches) using FIFA 2002 in a dimwitted attempt to figure out which teams might perform well. Sure, some of the rosters weren't really up-to-date, and we didn't factor in injuries (like Zidane and Armas) or other recent wackiness (Keane), but we still got a lot of really accurate results (like Carlos Llamosa leading the US in scoring and Tunisia making it into the second round). For the record, Germany won it all; the other three teams in the final four were Argentina, France, and Paraguay; and the Golden Boot winner was a tie between Russia's Valery Karpin and Paraguay's Roque Santa Cruz (to date, they have two goals combined)..
Read the last issue of The Score here.