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Dirty Tackle - World Soccer

Dirty Tackle

Sun Jun 26 10:24am EDT

Tim Howard pulls a Drogba, calls Gold Cup ceremony a disgrace

By Brooks Peck

Tim Howard pulls a Drogba, calls Gold Cup ceremony a disgrace

One might think that losing 4-2 after starting a cup final against your biggest rival with a 2-0 lead would be sole focus of any and all post-match rantings from the losing team. But U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard found time to do his best Didier Drogba impression over the language in which CONCACAF conducted the post-match trophy presentation after his side did just that.

"CONCACAF should be ashamed of itself," Howard said. "I think it was a f***ing disgrace that the entire post-match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass if we were in Mexico City it wouldn't be all in English."

According to ESPN, Howard then regained a bit of perspective and said, "But that's not why we lost the game. They've got some special players who put us in some bad situations."

Howard is right, though. They wouldn't have conducted the ceremony in English if the final was played in Mexico City. Because, like most everyone in the predominantly Mexico supporting crowd at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night, people in Mexico City speak Spanish.

At the same time, Howard is also wrong. Though the ceremony was mostly done in Spanish by emcee and Univision commentator Fernando Fiore, he did use English throughout. Particularly when presenting the U.S. with the runners-up medals (see video below).

But who is to blame for CONCACAF's marginalization of English speakers? The same man who sparked Drogba's rant by helping Barcelona past Chelsea in the 2009 Champions League semifinal: Tom Henning Ovrebo.

OK, maybe not.

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