Without defensive lynchpins Tim Howard and Oguchi Onyewu, who missed Saturday’s match due to suspension and injury respectively, the US entered El Salvador’s hostile Estadio Cuscatalan with a major hole in their backline. A
hole the Salvadorians exploited with two well-taken goals – one in the 15th minute and one in the 72nd.
Coming back from two-nil down is always a daunting task. Coming back from two-nil down on the road in a qualifying match is a monumental task. But it was a task that 34-year-old
veteran Frankie Hejduk was more than willing to take on. The relentless right back turned up the intensity just when El Salvador relaxed into cruise control. Darting from his own box all the way to the offensive third, Frankie one-timed a perfect cross onto his teammate’s head to pull a goal back in the 77th. Then in the 88th, the scrappy defender out-muscled a horde of Salvadorians in the box to finish a header of his own and earn the US a hard-fought point.
The MNT, who have four points from two qualifying matches, now return to US soil to play Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday, April 1. If the guys learned anything from Saturday’s match, it’s just how difficult points are to come by in the final round of qualifying. So you can be sure they’ll have their A game come kickoff time in Nashville – 6:45 pm CT (ESPN2 and Galavision).
So whether you’re at the match or watching it with friends, let it be known that you DON’T TREAD ON THE RED!
Nikesoccer : March 2009
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Another week, another double – that seems to be Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s motto these days. Zlatan made it four Superfly goals in two games on Sunday, notching a penalty and an utterly exquisite chipped finish as he led another Inter drubbing at the San Siro. Measure that in goals per minute, and you’ve got the kind of figures that keep defenders awake at night.
Everyone knew they were fast, but even the biggest fans of the new Mercurials couldn’t have expected them to dominate 60-seconds of the weekend’s Arsenal vs Newcastle showdown quite so decisively. All Gunner fans saw was a streak of red and silver as Andrei Arshavin whipped in a killer free-kick for Nicklas Bendtner to finish at full stretch on 57 minutes. Before the clock had struck 58, Obafemi Martins’ opened his own Superfly account, rampaging the length of the field to smash his own debut goal in the new boots.
Two goals. One minute. That’s Superfly scoring speed.
It looked like Cristiano Ronaldo had dropped dynamite into his boots for the European debut of the Superfly last week. This weekend, it was the chance for elite players right across the continent to pull on the latest and lightest Mercurial boot, and show what they’ve got.
While CR7 was making it two in two with a textbook penalty at Old Trafford, Zlatan showed some Superfly magic of his own, bagging a brace at the San Siro to bring Inter Milan home at a canter. If any more evidence was needed of the Superfly’s featherweight ferocity, Alexandre Pato once again did what he was born to do, notching a second half double on the way to a 5-1 Serie A drubbing.
With Didier Drogba, Robinho, Franck Ribery, Adriano, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ben Arfa all donning the Superfly in the coming weeks, one things for certain: the business end of the season just got a whole lot tougher for defenders right around the world.
A Premier League hat-trick in his brand new Mercurial Vapor IVs. A World-first Mercurial SL strike on the biggest of European nights. And now a soaring header in his very first competitive match wearing the new Mercurial Superfly boots. With a hat trick of debut goals in the last three incarnations of his favourite footwear, no one seems to know how to push their new boots to the limit quite like Cristiano Ronaldo.
CR7 knew the World’s gaze would be on him for Manchester United’s crunch match with Inter Milan, so it was no surprise when he rose to the occasion within the first five minutes to win the crucial corner that put the Red Devils’ noses in front. And with the second half only minutes old, Cristiano sent the United faithful into raptures – and the tie beyond doubt – with a clinical header from Wayne Rooney’s exquisite chipped pass.
As the Old Trafford scoreboard flashed 2:0, another message was being broadcast around the globe from the feet of the World Player of the Year: the Superfly has well and truly arrived.
The designers and engineers at Nike HQ had done it before, and in 2004 they were asked to do it all over again. Their brief was as simple and as ambitious as ever: stop at nothing to create the fastest football boot the world had ever seen.
Four years later, the 100% carbon fibre Mercurial SL concept boot made its debut in Europe’s biggest club match, gracing the feet of Cristiano Ronaldo as he rose to head home Manchester United’s only goal in the European final of finals. Debuting the carbon fibre upper with a pink swoosh, Cristiano Ronaldo bagged his record-breaking 42nd goal of the season, helping his team to victory in Moscow.
A carbon fibre plate. An injection moulded outsole. A carbon fibre upper, hand-moulded in Italy. No corner was cut in the making of this boot, no expense spared. As CR7 showed on that memorable Moscow night, the only things getting trimmed were the hundredths of a second it takes the very best players to get to the ball, strike it, and run to their teammates to celebrate a hat trick of European titles.
It’s the first rule of working as a Nike designer: never believe those who say you can’t improve on perfection. After years of development work – and the input of Mercurial athletes from R9 himself to the latest brilliant Brazilian – the Mercurial Vapor IV is living proof that the definition of ‘perfect’ never stops changing.
When the seal was broken on Cristiano Ronaldo’s new shoebox in January 2008, you could hear the groans from defenders all over the world. The most in-form player on the planet was hard enough to stop, without adding a new weapon to his arsenal – and it took CR7 a mere 88 minutes to sear his orange peel Vapors into the fans’ memories with his first ever Manchester United hat trick. Five months and 20 goals later, CR7’s boots contained the first winger ever to win the European Golden Shoe, and the seventh consecutive Merc wearer to take the title of English Premier League top scorer.
Everyone knows a boot is only ever as good as the foot inside it. And with the likes of Ronaldo, Zlatan, Drogba, Robinho, Pato, Ribery, and Walcott, all donning the MVIV, it’s clear that this boot is as good as it gets.
The facts speak for themselves: the Mercurial Vapor III took speed to a whole new level. Sleek as a sports car. Equipped with the traction of high performance tyres, for full-throttled changes of direction. Aided by an anatomical heel lock to hold feet moving quicker than ever.
Once the Nike lab had finished with their new baby, the MVIII was a full 0.45m ahead of the average football boot at the end of a 10-metre course. That’s the stride of a defender, the lunge of a tackle – or the handspan of the keeper whose despairing dive is a fraction too late. As R9 proved at the biggest tournament of 2006, that’s the difference between the good and the all-time great.
In his third massive international performance of a career spanning 12 years, Brazil’s Ronaldo overtook every great goalscorer in the pantheon of football by notching his 13th, 14th and record-breaking 15th goal on the world’s biggest stage.
Call it genius, call it ruthlessness, call it sheer belief – whichever way you tag R9’s striking performance, it was just another example of his Mercurial essence.
If the first two incarnations of the Mercurial were all about R9, the Mercurial Vapor II was the boot that announced CR7’s arrival at the highest level. While the original ‘Phenomenon’ was routinely slotting home 20-odd goals a season in La Liga, his Portuguese namesake was setting the English Premier League alight in the same boots – and earning the right to wear Manchester United’s legendary number 7 shirt.
Grace, guile – and the all-important Mercurial ingredient – goals. All these qualities made the young star’s rise through the United ranks as quick as his lightning fast feet. By the time the fans’ votes for the World Special Young Player of the Year in of 2005 had been counted, their verdict was clear: a new star had been born. And his weapon of choice was the Mercurial Vapor II.
When our designers at Nike HQ first decided to pour their energy into developing the lightest boot in the world, there was only ever going to be one candidate to wear it. Brazil’s Ronaldo – the original ‘Phenomenon’. Winner of consecutive World Player of the Year awards in 1996 and 1997. Winner of the 1997 Ballon d’Or for Europe’s best player. Owner of a trophy cabinet so full of the game’s highest honours that it creaked under the strain of silverware. R9 was about to lend his talent, his vision and – most of all – his mind-blowing speed to developing the fastest boot of his generation.
Fast forward a few months, and the anticipation of the finished boot is too much even for the man himself. The official launch is still weeks away, but Ronaldo emerges from the lab with the very first Mercurial disguised as a Tiempo boot, wreaking havoc on Serie A defences before his opponents even know what hit them. As if that would have made a difference.
On French soil just a few weeks later, R9 uses the biggest stage in the world to announce the Mercurial’s official arrival. A ball drops 20 yards out. A foot flashes. The net bulges. And the marriage of the world’s greatest players and the world’s fastest boots has begun.
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