Mystery man of the tournament
HONOLULU – So the real question is: Who is Bare and how the heck can Major League Soccer sign him?
The Gamba Osaka striker was in incredible form during the Pan-Pacific Championship, scoring four times in the final as his team demolished the Houston Dynamo 6-1.
His play was as confusing to the Houston defenders as his postgame press conference, which involved two translators (Portuguese to Japanese to English) and shed little light on the man of the tournament.
The Dynamo will be pretty happy just to forget all about him, but coach Dominic Kinnear was philosophical after the defeat.
"At 2-1 we were still in the game," he said. "But once the third (goal) went in, it all got away from us."
So does this mean the Japanese J-League is way stronger than MLS? Or just that one team, and one man, caught fire on one night?
Probably the latter. However, MLS teams will only benefit from being exposed to varied competition in events such as this.
Sadly for those who have spent the past week here, Hawaii's status as the host destination is in jeopardy due to unspectacular crowd numbers and concerns of the Aloha Stadium artificial turf.
Sydney is already being mooted as a possible venue next year. Boss, have you lost some weight?
