Mina and Dallas Defeat New York

May 25th, 2006 | By: Trent | 2 Comments »

I’m sure Ecuadorian striker Roberto Mina was crushed not to make the final World Cup roster for this summer. Mina, who plays for FC Dallas of MLS, was probably left out of the mix when Ivan Kaviedes got into Coach Suarez’ good graces. At any rate, prior to the Ecuador v. Colombia friendly in Giants Stadium on May 24, FC Dallas took on hosts Red Bull New York in a regular-season MLS match. FC Dallas has been the better team this season, and proved it again last night. All this despite the coach’s refusal to take my sage advice regarding Mina.

The lineups for the match, which ended 2-1 in Dallas’ favor, looked like this:

New York
Tony Meola
Jeff Parke, Carlos Mendes (Taylor Graham 65), Steve Jolley, Seth Stammler
Youri Djorkaeff, Mark Lisi (Mike Magee 79), Danny O’Rourke, Chris Henderson
Jean Philippe Peguero, Edson Buddle

Dallas
Dario Sala
Drew Moor, Chris Gbandi, Bobby Rhine, Greg Vanney
Richard Mulrooney, Ronnie O’Brien (Alex Yi 92+), Ramon Nunez (Roberto Mina 70), Simo Valakari
Carlos Ruiz (Mark Wilson 93+), Kenny Cooper

As you can see, despite the presence of 50,000+ Ecuadorian fans, the coach would not start Mina. Weak. Anyway, Dallas was losing 0-1 until Mina was brought off of the bench in the 70th minute for midfielder Ramon Nunez. Mina played more of a center forward position, while Kenny Cooper drifted agains tot the outside left.

Although he did not himself score, Mina’s presence made a huge difference to Dallas’ success. It will be difficult for MLS teams to account for Mina, Kenny Cooper and one of the most underrated goal scorers in world football, Carlos Ruiz. El Pescadito still has some sweet moves in front of the goal.

Anyway, I think Mina is a stud, and he and Cooper and Ruiz should make a formidible strike force all season along.

Tags: Carlos Ruiz, Ecuador, El Pescadito, FC Dallas, friendly, Giants Stadium, Kenny Cooper, Luis Suarez, MLS, New Jersey, Red Bull New York, Roberto Mina

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Comments

By Mark | May 25th, 2006 at 10:33 pm

I’ve seen Mina play in Dallas a few times. He’s got a lot of potential. Dallas is blessed with 3 excellent attacking options in Mina, Cooper, and Ruiz. Typically that leaves one on the bench.

You could see the Eddie Johnson trade coming a mile away because of the development of Mina last year. And now that Cooper has shown that he has as much potential as anybody, I wonder if Ruiz or Mina will get traded in the off-season.

By Trent | May 26th, 2006 at 10:41 am

An interesting thought. Cooper did look pretty good to me the other night. Ruiz is at least five years older than Mina and Cooper, and he could still be traded for some quality in return…but I think he’s still the ’superstar striker’, and that may come into consideration for the team. I’d hope that they’d hand onto Mina and Cooper both if they can.

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