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Klinsmann should call his good ‘friend’ Kobe Bryant for advise on how to recover from injuries as Kobe’s treatments go from wild to extreme
OT: World Cup
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Klinsmann should call his good ‘friend’ Kobe Bryant for advise on how to recover from injuries as Kobe’s treatments go from wild to extreme
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How did they come up with that one??
I'm sure most of that distance was covered while the Germans were playing keep away.
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On further watching, the Ghana goal vs Portugal might be one of the top goals of the tournament due to the pass. A bending ball with the outside of the foot. Essentially the same as Ronaldo's pass against us - just a screwball instead of a curve. Brilliant. They had some class goals in this thing with the back heel pass against us and a couple great finishes against Germany.
Van Persie's header against Spain and the Australia volley out of the air against Netherlands might be 1-2.
Van Persie's header against Spain and the Australia volley out of the air against Netherlands might be 1-2.
intlzncster
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Absolutely no idea how that is measured. They talk about it every match.
intlzncster
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I know Van Persie's looked the coolest, and took a lot of skill, but from this player's perspective, Tim Cahill's volley is one of the hardest things to do technically in soccer.
On the run. Ball coming from behind you, over your shoulder. Having to use your non-dominant foot. Ball coming completely across your body. Picking the ball cleanly out of the air. Redirecting it accurately, keeping it down and on goal.
It's so freakin' hard to do that, especially allowing it to come completely across your body like that.
Video of the goal
Apparently it's sophisticated video-tracking software on a bunch of cameras, but apparently very accurate. Bradley was actually 2nd in per-game distance last World Cup as well. Dude is fit.
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I thought the most impressive part of Van Persie's header was that he managed to control a cross which was basically played in from midfield, hit it at around the 18 on the dead run, and get it over Casillas, who was off his line, but still under the cross-bar. Cahill's volley was nice but Van Persie gets the edge from me.
intlzncster
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Funny write up on the USMNT. Rest of the article was ok, but the US bit was hilarious to me:
4. How far can #belief take the #USMNT?
OK, fine, it came down to Cristiano Ronaldo. Fine. The United States men’s national team’s path to the knockout stages of the World Cup was let’s just say considerably eased by the most carefully moussed head in world football, while the eyebrows attached to that head arched superciliously and the mouth attached to that head pursed with distaste and the brain inside that head fantasy-popped a million pastel collars. The USMNT didn’t technically need Ronaldo’s goal against Ghana to clear its path out of the group, but the Real Madrid star’s left-footed goal abated what was starting to feel suspiciously like panic. Fine. Credit where it’s due. Ronaldo might not be the most likable figure ever to self-brand his own line of gigantic rhinestone belt buckles, but this is the World Cup. If your squadron of hard-fighting patriots is going to lose 1-0 to the German Mannschaft, you might as well find some comfort in a guy named after Ronald Reagan.
All things considered, it was one of the weirder imaginable runs to the round of 16 for the American team. The results got progressively worse (a win, then a draw, then a loss), only they did so in ways that felt progressively more triumphant (we played badly in the win, then really well in the draw, and then escaped the group in the loss). Literally all of our players broke their noses. We wound up celebrating after losing to Germany, which is exactly the kind of non-regulation historical shenanigans that make the Greatest Generation think soccer is for ballerinas and communists.
And you know what? It makes no difference. We’re through to the last 16. We get Belgium next, which should at least give us a chance to stomp some actual ballerinas. (I’m sorry, but “Eden Hazard” is a name that was born to be followed by “as the Sugar Plum Fairy” on a theater marquee.) Whether we can win is a different question. The Belgians field a small army of European club stars, from Chelsea’s Hazard and Romelu Lukaku to Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany. They entered the tournament as a dark horse favorite. Everyone’s saying that they looked vulnerable in their group-stage matches, and that’s true, although the way people are saying it does kind of tend to overlook the fact that the USMNT spent the majority of its group-stage matches one Beasley or Gonzalez or Beckerman clearance away from being goal-scored-on back to the Stone Age.
We could win this game. It could happen. The narrowness of Belgium’s attack will play into the USA’s defensive strength in the center of the pitch. Clint Dempsey is so haunted and broken and grimly determined at this point that I wouldn’t bet against him in a gunfight, much less a soccer game. It’s also possible, and indeed to be hoped, that Jurgen Klinsmann will surreptitiously field Ronaldo as a naturalized American winger called “Kyle Perfecto.” You’ll recognize him by the portrait of Abe Lincoln shaved into his left temple.
If we make it to the quarterfinals, we’d likely play Argentina, which, hoo boy, OK, but let’s say Messi eats some bad churrasco. The biggest win in U.S. soccer history would then lead us to a possible semifinal against Mexico, which we would obviously win 2-0. That would land us in the final against Brazil, where we would lose 3-0, because even my absurd fantasy has limits, but there would at least be enough bad calls that we could blame the referee.
I guess what I’m saying is this: The United States men’s national soccer team is the best soccer team in the world.
http://grantland.com/features/world-cup-questions-knockout-messi-neymar-suarez/
4. How far can #belief take the #USMNT?
OK, fine, it came down to Cristiano Ronaldo. Fine. The United States men’s national team’s path to the knockout stages of the World Cup was let’s just say considerably eased by the most carefully moussed head in world football, while the eyebrows attached to that head arched superciliously and the mouth attached to that head pursed with distaste and the brain inside that head fantasy-popped a million pastel collars. The USMNT didn’t technically need Ronaldo’s goal against Ghana to clear its path out of the group, but the Real Madrid star’s left-footed goal abated what was starting to feel suspiciously like panic. Fine. Credit where it’s due. Ronaldo might not be the most likable figure ever to self-brand his own line of gigantic rhinestone belt buckles, but this is the World Cup. If your squadron of hard-fighting patriots is going to lose 1-0 to the German Mannschaft, you might as well find some comfort in a guy named after Ronald Reagan.
All things considered, it was one of the weirder imaginable runs to the round of 16 for the American team. The results got progressively worse (a win, then a draw, then a loss), only they did so in ways that felt progressively more triumphant (we played badly in the win, then really well in the draw, and then escaped the group in the loss). Literally all of our players broke their noses. We wound up celebrating after losing to Germany, which is exactly the kind of non-regulation historical shenanigans that make the Greatest Generation think soccer is for ballerinas and communists.
And you know what? It makes no difference. We’re through to the last 16. We get Belgium next, which should at least give us a chance to stomp some actual ballerinas. (I’m sorry, but “Eden Hazard” is a name that was born to be followed by “as the Sugar Plum Fairy” on a theater marquee.) Whether we can win is a different question. The Belgians field a small army of European club stars, from Chelsea’s Hazard and Romelu Lukaku to Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany. They entered the tournament as a dark horse favorite. Everyone’s saying that they looked vulnerable in their group-stage matches, and that’s true, although the way people are saying it does kind of tend to overlook the fact that the USMNT spent the majority of its group-stage matches one Beasley or Gonzalez or Beckerman clearance away from being goal-scored-on back to the Stone Age.
We could win this game. It could happen. The narrowness of Belgium’s attack will play into the USA’s defensive strength in the center of the pitch. Clint Dempsey is so haunted and broken and grimly determined at this point that I wouldn’t bet against him in a gunfight, much less a soccer game. It’s also possible, and indeed to be hoped, that Jurgen Klinsmann will surreptitiously field Ronaldo as a naturalized American winger called “Kyle Perfecto.” You’ll recognize him by the portrait of Abe Lincoln shaved into his left temple.
If we make it to the quarterfinals, we’d likely play Argentina, which, hoo boy, OK, but let’s say Messi eats some bad churrasco. The biggest win in U.S. soccer history would then lead us to a possible semifinal against Mexico, which we would obviously win 2-0. That would land us in the final against Brazil, where we would lose 3-0, because even my absurd fantasy has limits, but there would at least be enough bad calls that we could blame the referee.
I guess what I’m saying is this: The United States men’s national soccer team is the best soccer team in the world.
http://grantland.com/features/world-cup-questions-knockout-messi-neymar-suarez/
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intlzncster said:
Yeah - mentally I was thinking "1-2 in either order" but I didn't type it that way. After I posted, ESPN had a show where they did the top 10 goals of the group stage and they debated it for a little while. They took RVP 1, but a couple of the panelists disagreed and complained that they didn't get to vote on it. (Jermaine Jones was 5).
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That was a sweet goal. If I tried that shot, I would have blown out my plant leg (right) trying to twist around to the ball and if I somehow got my foot on the ball at that angle and speed, I would have either broken my nose hammering it into my own face or I would have skied the ball into the second deck. And that is why Cahill is a professional soccer player and I am a unpaid U8 soccer coach and arm chair coach of the USMNT.
intlzncster
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In fairness, that's a pretty important position right now.
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If winning doesn't, what, then, would prove it was a good decision? It's like saying, "St. Joes missed its chance and Florida and Kentucky had bad games. It worked out, but let's not act like benching Calhoun and starting Giffey was a good decision."
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UConnDan97
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I think what WOULD have proven it to be a good decision was not having to rely on someone else's play to advance us through. Which is exactly what happened late in the game as we were all sweating out the Ghana-Portugal result. Had Ghana broken the 1-1 draw instead of Cristiano Ronaldo, this would be a very different conversation today. We would have had no answer to help us get back that tie with 10 minutes left in the game against Germany.
But like others have said, we got through, we're playing against Belgium in the knockout stages, and let's look forward from there. Hopefully, Jozy is healthy and Dempsey hangs 3 on the Belgians...
intlzncster
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In that situation sure. But, benching Calhoun and starting Giffey was clearly a good decision based on objective analysis.
There's a ton of factors that play into it. Sample size and luck being two of the biggest.
If the Heat benched LeBron for a game, and somehow managed to beat the Spurs, you couldn't claim it a good decision. Just pure luck.
intlzncster
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I keep having dreams of the US tied in OT. Klinsmann reaches deep into his bag of tricks and inserts Julian Green(!!!) into the mix up front. The tired and slow footed Belgian defense can't keep up with his pace. The US starts to press the issue up front and JG eventually breaks through to poke one home on Thibault. The country goes nuts.
At this point, I wake up briefly, note the wet sheets, and comfortably fall back to sleep with a smile on my face. Could happen.
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Before the tournament, I would have said the chances of Green playing any significant time was about as high as Spain not making it to the knock-out round. So at this point, anything can happen.
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Strummer said:
If one of the attacking players we had on the bench made an impact. Giffey produced. So far, Johannson and Davis have given us absolutely nothing. Wondo didn't play long enough to rate. Germany was able to mark Dempsey out of the game since we didn't have any support. Belgium could probably do the same if someone else doesn't step up.
To be fair, I think a case could be made that Yedlin has done that - made the run that started the Dempsey goal against Portugal, although his cross was deflected by the first defender and just bounced in a good direction. But he is a right back that we threw up top for lack of better options.
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Very interesting. It tells me a lot of people are making predictions that are not supported by statistics but rather 'gut', and often a rehash of popular opinion. I suggest anyone with the time and interest to sift through the FIFA stat page you link to above, before making too many more predictions on what might happen going forward. An example, Netherlands fouls the most (68) - i.e most aggressive(?). Another example shots. The USA is on the bottom half of the shot attempts count, but is very efficient in that most are on target - i.e so going forward if we can create shot opportunities we tend to find the target and eventually score. Interesting also that the bottom half includes teams like USA, Chile, Costa Rica and Algeria who are still in, while the top half includes teams that are out of the knockout stage. And while I think Costa Rica is a legit favorite against Greece and might win, please stop regurgitating the idea that Greece is offensively handicapped given that they are in the middle of the pack in terms of shots and attacking. Yes, Greece has only 2 goals, but having played with 10 men in one game and hitting the woodwork 4 times the most of any team(tie) may have something to do with that.
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whaler11
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Well would Ghana scoring and the US 'losing' proved it was a bad decision? I don't see how when your binary result is predicated on what other teams that can somehow validate what you chose.
It's bad decision because it's a bad decision. If Seattle benched Wilson for the Super Bowl and they still won does that make it a good decision?
intlzncster
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They Netherlands pressures so hard up front that that is probably one of the main reasons they lead in fouls (I'm looking at you Arjen Robbin).
intlzncster
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I see we are playing the same game. See my post above.
intlzncster
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Yep. I'm still shocked that Italy, Spain, England, and Portugal are all going home early. If anyone bet that result before the tournament, they are either a liar, or a hell of a lot wealthier.
whaler11
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I'd be pretty careful referencing statistics off a small sample when
A: quality of opposition is all over the map
B: the formula for getting out of the group leads to different motivations relative to the utility of a draw
whaler11
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Exactly. You can't judge the quality of your decisions or your process solely on outcomes.
If you take your rent money to the gas station and buy a ton of lottery tickets, winning doesn't validate stupid choices.
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All I know is this:
I listened to the Ghana game while in the car heading from Wisconsin to Chicago.
I watched every minute of the other two matches.
I have never paid this much attention.
I enjoy this team and how hard they play. They have flaws but will fight. And I feel like Klinsmann has the right temperament for these guys.
As a very marginal soccer guy, I will watch the USMNT any time they play going forward.
I listened to the Ghana game while in the car heading from Wisconsin to Chicago.
I watched every minute of the other two matches.
I have never paid this much attention.
I enjoy this team and how hard they play. They have flaws but will fight. And I feel like Klinsmann has the right temperament for these guys.
As a very marginal soccer guy, I will watch the USMNT any time they play going forward.
intlzncster
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What a match so far! This is how the world cup is supposed to be played .
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