Citing creative differences, Tiffeny Milbrett has announced that she will no longer play on the U.S. national team, as long as April Heinrichs remains head coach. The popular striker, who’s scored 99 goals for the U.S., said she feels stifled in Heinrichs’ structured, extremely tactical style of play. Not what Heinrichs wanted to hear, with her squad heading into Olympic qualifying Feb. 25-29 in Costa Rica. (The U.S. men, as you may recall, were ousted from Olympic qualifying last week in Mexico.)
This Wednesday was 2004’s first big day of international play, as some 140 national teams were in action around the world. The U.S. looked to be out of their class in Holland, and were lucky to lose just 1-0 to the powerhouse Dutch, in one of 22 exhibition games involving just about every European side. Elsewhere, qualifying for the 2006 World Cup kicked off in Asia and the Caribbean. (Notably, in Asian Group 2, Palestine played its first WC qualifier ever, beating Taiwan 8-0, and Iraq scraped out a 1-1 draw in Uzbekistan.)
It was a weekend of crosstown rivalries in England’s FA Cup. In London, two-time defending champ Arsenal beat Chelsea 2-1 – the fourth year in a row they’ve ousted Chelsea from the world’s oldest club tournament. And Manchester United‘s American goalkeeper Tim Howard was named man of the match as United beat crosstown rivals Man City to reach the FA Cup quarterfinals.
European Champions League play resumes next Tuesday-Wednesday, Feb. 24-25, with 16 teams vying to get into the quarterfinals. The ESPN Deportes network will cablecast seven of the eight games (en Espanol); those of us without digital cable can see Chelsea at Stuttgart, live on ESPN2, Wednesday at 1:30pm. For “the complete” list of the European matchups, and results from yesterday’s international games, see Soccer Watch online.
This article appears in February 20 • 2004.