There was another big soccer game yesterday. It was the second annual Showdown in Chinatown at Roosevelt Park in Manhattan. Steve Nash and Claudio Reyna, formerly of the US National Soccer team, partnered for the charity match. We’ve got to hand it to them for putting together one of the coolest charity events going. There were a ton of international soccer stars on hand plus a handful of notable NBA players. Last year’s 8-on-8 game attracted around 2500 on-lookers. Nash’s team won 9-4 the first edition of the Showdown so Claudio Reyna was looking for a little revenge.
Lineups included: Claudio Reyna (US Soccer), Steve Nash, Tony Parker, Grant Hill, Chris Bosh, Javier Zanetti (Inter Milan), Salomon Kaou (Chelsea), Adrian Mutu (Fiorentina), Marc Stein (ESPN basketball writer), Ryan Babel (Liverpool), Mathieu Flamini (AC Milan), Edgar Davids (retired, Juventus & others), Quincy Owusu Abeyie (Spartak Moscow), Martin Nash (Steve’s brother who also plays professionally for the Vancouver Whitecaps), Ivan Cordoba (retired, Inter Milan & others)
It was rainy in New York but the conditions improved enough to play. The matchup was Claudio Reyna’s Team Blue against Steve Nash’s Team White. Chris Bosh was on Team Blue and didn’t really look like he had played soccer before (rocking running shoes). Tony Parker opened up the scoring and was clearly a capable soccer player. That makes me wonder how good Thierry Henry is at basketball. As we tweeted a couple weeks ago, Henry was hanging out with Parker at the Spurs practice facility. I’m not really sure how Marc Stein got invited to play — but he wasn’t the worst player on the field.
CB4 rides the pine
Chris Bosh ended up stealing the show with his (poor) footballing efforts. Last week, Bosh was in Toronto walking the red carpet at the MuchMusic Video Awards. But the Showdown in Chinatown would end up being a much less glamorous affair for CB4. First, he scored an own goal to make the score 2-1. Some Euros next to SI’s Pablo Torres were snickering after that one. He was further embarrassed when Grant Hill nutmegged him later in the game. That was just cruel. Reyna tried to set Bosh up a bunch of times but he couldn’t convert. When Bosh did get his first shot on goal, he earned himself a standing ovation from the crowd. You gotta hand it to the guy for gutting it out and putting on a show. You can check out some of his miscues in the video below at around the 1:00 mark.
Unfortunately for Bosh, cameras were rolling
Tony Parker scored two goals to win the golden boot among the NBAers. Grant Hill was the other non-footballer to register a goal — unless you count Bosh’s tally. Word on the street was that Kelly Ripa was there with her family and that Hasheem Thabeet showed up later in the game. Despite having the Bosh handicap, Claudio Reyna’s Blue Team ended up winning by a final score of 8-5. After the second edition of the Showdown in Chinatown, the series is now split 1-1 between Nash and Reyna. Thanks to Marc Stein, Pablo Torre, MLS Insider, and This Is American Soccer for the info. You can check out the rest of the pictures and a few more bits of information below.
Tidbits:
- Jason Kidd and Raja Bell were scratched
- Baron Davis was scratched (and replaced by Chris Bosh)
- Grant Hill was a fan of Dutch star Johan Cruyff (he played for the Washington Diplomats from 1980-1981 and average attendance was over 19K that year) /wiki/Washington_Diplomats
- Thierry Henry started on bench due to injury
- Thierry Henry ended up playing in black hightop Reeboks
- “Ball skids man.” – Grant Hill on the slippery conditions
- “I apologize if I hit any of y’all.” – Grant Hill to people on the sideline
- “Egdar Davids is a ball hog.” – Fan
no pic of him getting jacked in the throat?