Mexico's Women's National Team Beats the US in Major Upset

The US Women play Costa Rica for the 3rd place match and must win that game in order to play Italy, in order to qualify for the 2011 World Cup AND for the 2012 Olympics. (USWNT match report).

Carli Lloyd & Natalie Vinti/photo Roberto Fernandez/US Soccer

Apparently, Mexico played a solid match and enjoyed lots of support from the home crowd (in Cancun).  This is the US's first loss in a qualifying match in CONCACAF - and it's the first time Mexico beat the US in 26 matches. The latter team has been looking great - really solid, and won this match with guts and an organized defense.

As scared as I am for the US women, this is great news for the international women's game.  These things should be nail biters.

Is it too much to ask for an extension of the US/Mexico rivalry to the women's game?

Meanwhile, there is barely a peep in the press here about Brazil's 4-0 defeat of Venezuela in their first match of the women's Copa América - the region's qualifying tournament. In the Southern Cone, Brazil's women's team is at once totally dominant and almost totally neglected by the media. (Please share links to coverage of this tournament.)

Anyway: all of this ought to draw attention to the lame fact that women's teams are playing right now to qualify for two international tournaments, one of which is nearly two years away - How on earth is that acceptable?