Kicker Conspiracy

That's it?

2008-06-13T21:21:00.002-04:00

When I heard that Sergio Ramos was photographed in a disco on his off day partying with a Swedish fan, I expected something far more scandalous than this. No wonder Aragones laughed.

The Magnificent Dutch

2008-06-13T19:27:00.004-04:00

All neutrals must surely rejoice at Holland's magnificent dismembering of France at Euro 2008 today. It wasn't just the victory of a superior team, it was the triumph of a brand of optimistic, swashbuckling attacking football that has largely fallen out of favor among the so-called elite teams.

There's nothing wrong per se with playing defensive football. Sometimes you're up against a superior team. Sometimes you need to keep it congested at the middle for tacticv. It happens. But when you are A) the manager of a skilled, top team, and B) you always play that way, there's a problem.

The reasons why a top team would choose to play that way against even lesser opponents have to do with the stakes involved. At the club level, the huge money of the Champions League encourages certain teams to take this approach. In England, the leading proponent of this kind of game is Rafa Benitez's Liverpool. This is a team with Fernando Torres, Ryan Babel, Steven Gerrard, and enough talent to really light up the pitch. Instead, Benitez's Liverpool play an defensive safety-first style, the principle being is that they can beat the lower and middle teams 1-0 and 2-0, and draw the others in the big four. That way you can keep getting Champions League football, and hope for a great run as they got in 2005. It's an awful philosophy.

But far worse than Benitez is France's Raymond Domenech. Even against weak opponents, Domenech's France play one striker, two very conservative defensive midfielders and fullbacks who limit their attacking forays. It got them in huge trouble against Scotland in the qualifiers, it got them an utterly turgid 0-0 draw with Romania, and, thank god, it got them absolutely clobbered today.

But it did get them to the World Cup finals two years ago. There were two reasons why that team is more effective than this team: Zidane and Vieira. Zidane's creativity and ability to hold the ball meant that the three other attackers got far better service than they are getting this year. And Vieira as a holding mid meant that if France did need to get a goal, he could go forward with effectiveness. But even this French team weren't always attractive to watch.

This French team doesn't have Vieira or Zidane. And its attacking has been turgid. Against the Dutch, they weren't helped by the bizarro substitutions. Gomis for Malouda? Where was Benzema? Where was Nasri? And why would you continue to play two holding midfielders when neither of them can attack, when they both have yellow cards, and when goal difference doesn't even matter for chrissake?

The only answer I can think of to that question is careerism. Coaches who play this philosophy never really get thumped and generally get a decent-ish win-loss ratio, meaning that when the end inevitably comes, they can get another job. Mild failure isn't a disqualifier for a coaching position, but abject failure is.

And the frustrating thing is that the French could be playing this game. They have players who can play the kind of game the Dutch played today. They used to play that way.

So in summary, it's good for the game that Domenechism met its Waterloo today against a Dutch squad who scored exquisite goals and were beautiful to watch. It was a triumph of daring and optimistic joy over craven caution and careerism. Exhilarating.

They showed the opening ceremonies!

2008-06-07T11:55:00.004-04:00

Cows on stilts! Swiss milkmaids with glitter on them! A gigantic moving human clock! "Tradition meets modernity," argued part-time art critic Derek Rae and who am I to argue?

(I'm not being snarky. I really enjoy opening ceremonies.)

Switzerland & Austria: Two Countries for Old Men

2008-06-03T19:34:00.003-04:00

The premise of this article is Euro 2008 seems to have more old (meaning, over 33 or so) players than is typical for a major tournament. I can't be bothered to look at the average age stats that indicate whether or not this is true, but I wonder if this will be a trend rather than an aberration. Fitness regimens and diets have been very strictly controlled by the clubs for about fifteen years now--about when many of these players started their careers--and many of these teams are increasingly savvy about managing their older players.

That said, none of that lot have anything on this guy.

Cannavaro out of Euro 08

2008-06-02T22:05:00.002-04:00

Italy were my pre-tournament favorite, but this is not good news. Cannavaro was titanic for this team in 06. Now Italy faces the prospect of having Marco Materazzi anchoring the center of their defense. Oy.

Hey this blogging thing is fun! I should try it more often.

Plastic People of the Universe.

2007-10-16T17:49:00.000-04:00

One off the key games tomorrow is England's trip to Russia. In a display of gamesmanship, the Russian federation has decided to play the match on a plastic artificial field in Moscow, the effect of which has been to send the English press into something of a tizzy. My guess is that will make exactly zero difference to the result, as the English game is based upon speed and flank play rather than precision play through midfield. It means Paul Robinson will have to be sharp and pay attention to wayward bounces, not that he has a chequered past with regard to such matters or anything.

Meanwhile John Terry was pronounced fit only to be hilariously ruled out of the match a few hours later. It happened so fast that the Guardian still hasn't adjusted the header of their web page to correspond with the news.

Some other games of note:

Kazakhstan vs. Portugal. The Portuguese normally travel less well than leftover French fries, but they did well enough against Azerbaijan last weekend. Now they go even deeper into the former Soviet bloc. I'll be routing against the Kazakhs on my usual grounds: viz. Kazakhstan is not in Europe and shouldn't even be in this competition.

Georgia vs Scotland. Not elementary for the Scots, since they are playing away and missing many key players though injury. A win puts them in a gilt edged position for their final game, so really they must attack the Georgians here.

Turkey vs. Greece. These countries love each other! A Greek victory all but seals the deal on their qualification but they'll have to do it in front of 90,000 Turks.

Sweden vs Northern Ireland. The Irish started out brilliantly, but faded down the stretch somewhat. They pretty much need to win in Sweden to keep their hopes alive.

US-Switzerland preview

2007-10-16T17:32:00.001-04:00

The US team returns to action tomorrow in a friendly against Euro 2008 hosts Switzerland with a largely European based team that's pretty inexperienced. Check it:

GOALKEEPERS- Marcus Hahnemann (Reading FC), Tally Hall (Esbjerg), Chris Seitz (Real Salt Lake)
DEFENDERS- Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham FC), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Dan Califf (Aalborg BK), Jay Demerit (Watford FC), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard de Liege), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock), Steve Purdy (1860 Munich)
MIDFIELDERS- Freddy Adu (SL Benfica), DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers), Michael Bradley (SC Heerenveen), Maurice Edu (Toronto FC), Benny Feilhaber (Derby County), Eddie Lewis (Derby County), Danny Szetela (Racing Santander)
FORWARDS- Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC), Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake), Preston Zimmerman (Hamburger SV), Sal Zizzo (Hannover 96)

Somewhere along the line, Bob Bradley add Taylor Twellman and Brad Guzan to the roster, apparently concerned about that five game losing streak that they've been carrying (which, to be fair, consists of those three Copa games, a loss to Brazil and an away loss in Europe.) I have to say that I'm not incredibly optimistic that they'll do so against a more than decent Swiss team at home. A shame really, that they aren't playing the other Euro 08, who, as Raphael Honigstein recently pointed out, are comically inept.

Am I right in thinking that this match was the last time the US played Switzerland? I miss Alain Sutter.

Cherry Bomb

2007-10-15T17:09:00.000-04:00

That subject line doesn't quite work; Venezuela's uniforms are a deep maroon. Likewise, this goal isn't perfect--look closely... you'll see it takes a lucky deflection off the wall!--but damn is it ever impressive. What a way to start your World Cup campaign.

France-Faeroe Islands

2007-10-13T11:15:00.000-04:00

is over already, after two quick French goals. Meanwhile Scotland-Ukraine is a must win match for both teams, currently 2-1, being played in front of 50,000 fans. But we can't be showing that on TV now, can we? Must have the latest action from the Faeroe Islands.

To add to the depression, even the little stadium in Torshavn has that irritating motion-filled electronic billboard in the background.

Great sporting events of our time,

2007-10-13T00:37:00.001-04:00

So it's a different world than it used to be. When I wanted coverage of European football in the 80s and early 90s, I used to have to rely on my grandfather, who, from his base in Cardiff, would send me copies of the Daily Express. Now I can read the internet and watch matches live on TV, the latter thanks to one of the more benign tentacles of the Rupert Murdoch empire: Fox Soccer Channel.

But when it comes to international soccer, FSC are so frustrating. Take tomorrow's European qualifiers for instance. They are doing live broadcasts of France vs the Faeroe Islands and Sweden vs. Liechtenstein. Their tape delay broadcast is Slovenia vs. Albania, both of whom are eliminated. Is it too much to ask for them to show a game that's both competitive and relevant? I mean, I like Liechtenstein as much as the next guy (okay, probably way more), and there once was that too funny time they drew Portugal, but really... this just isn't worth it. The good games are either on pay per view or not on at all.

And France vs. the Faeroes probably won't happen anyway, because there's a snowstorm or something in the islands. I'd like to believe that Domenech would screw up this game with his needlessly defensive formation just as he did against Scotland, but they'll probably just get a workmanlike 2-0 win if the plane lands.

I'm more likely to turn to Gol TV, where the South American 2010 World Cup qualifiers get underway. Yes, it is still 2007. I think. Anyway, Bolivia vs. Uruguay should have the intensity that the FSC games are lacking.

France-Italy, Spain-Iceland

2007-09-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

The current French team presents a problem for me. I love France, a beautiful country with extraordinary culture, society and cuisine. I have close relatives who live there. And France has produced some fantastic players over the last decade: Zidane of course, but also Thuram, Vieira, Ribery, Djorkaeff, Henry, etc. etc. I even liked Stephane Guivarch'h.

But I find the current French team incredibly frustrating to watch and it's mainly down to coach Raymond Domenech. They play with two defensive midfielders, usually only one committed forward, and outside backs who are very conservative in gettnig forward. The attacking players that they do have--such as Henry, Ribery, Nasri and Malouda--are so good that they often offset this philosophy. But nonetheless the philosophy is still there.

At least yesterday there was a good reason for it: they came to get a draw in Italy, and they got it. With ease. The problem is that they always play that way. I wish that Domenech would give Vieira a little more license to get forward, and get the outside backs into attack more frequently.

So yes, the big match yesterday was all a bit drab. Is it me or is the Italian attack looking very old all of a sudden.

I actually used to live in Iceland, so I was very excited to see them get the result in Reykjavik, although it's a shame about that tying goal. (In fact, I saw my first soccer game at that stadium: NY Cosmos vs Valur in the early 80s) With Northern Ireland losing in Latvia, it shouldn't make much difference to Spain; as long as they can stay within two points of them before their final match against the Irish in Spain, they're going to be favored to go through.

For Italy, it's more tricky. I think they have to win in the Ukraine.

I'm not dead yet

2007-09-08T09:51:00.001-04:00

So... um... yes. A five weeks or so without a single post. It was one of those things where for a while there wasn't much going on in the international soccer offseason, and then just as it got interesting, I got extremely busy.

In any case, it's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm looking forward to a nice slate of Euro qualifiers. As usual, there's the frustrating situation where the match I really have an emotional investment in--England vs Israel--is on US pay per view, and I'm hesitant to shell out the 25 dollars to watch Second Choice Steve (moniker crudely swiped from the Guardian) scrape out a dull draw. And as usual, FSC has managed to broadcast the mostly uninteresting games. But I'll be watching Italy-France on GOL TV today, which should be an excellent rematch. With Scotland matching them step for step so far, there's a very real risk one of these marquee countries won't make it to the 2008 championships, so there's every incentive for both teams to go for the win. If you're lucky enough to live in a Portuguese-speaking area of the US and get RTPi, you can also see Portugal-Poland. Portugal have a game in hand over the group leaders Poland, but if the Poles get a win today, the Portuguese will be in major trouble. I'll also see if sentimental faves Iceland can pull off an upset and get points from Spain.

So sit back, grab a favorite beverage, prepare to teach the offside rule to some member of your household... AGAIN, and enjoy.

Projected Napoleon complexes

2007-07-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

Several commenters on his article already make this point, but Michael Wilbon's assertion in his not-really-coherent comparison of MLS with NFL Europe that "[p]rofessional soccer isn't satisfied with being the most popular sport in the world; its international powers that be won't be satisfied until soccer has conquered the United States...." is telling. Conquest? What precisely is he talking about? FIFA and MLS want to continue the slow growth that the sport has experienced in the US over the last 20 years.

What nobody is planning is the displacement of other sports from the US sporting scene. That Wilbon and other commentators always see changes in terms of "conquering" is more indicative of personal insecurity than anything that is going on in reality. These frequent accusations of plans of conquest--followed by confident assertions that this will never ever happen--is just an extended plea for them not to have to cover or think about a sport with which they are not familiar.

Personally, I'd like soccer to grow a bit more so that I can see more frequent highlights, and to get the respect of the mainstream media so that I don't have to read columns like Wilbon's. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with the way things are.

Bunnies! Math is hard!

2007-07-19T19:22:00.000-04:00

Every so often, someone in the US soccer community facetiously suggests rehiring Bora Milutinovic as the coach of the US national team purely on the grounds that he's kind of funny. If that's a criterion we are considering (and we definitely should be!), than a better bet would be to nick Japan's coach, Ivica Osim. In a press conference prior to Japan's defeat of Vietnam, he noted that "it is pointless looking for unborn rabbits in the forest." Apparently, that's a proverb in Bosnia, where Osim is from. It's baffling in context, but somehow it's even more baffling out of context. First off, it implies that there are other, better places for looking for unborn rabbits. But I just don't get the analogy; I mean, why would anyone even think of looking for unborn rabbits in the first place? For something to be described as pointless, it has to have some nominal claim to having a point. But this isn't even in the realm of possibility.

Weird almost contradiction: first saying "There are several mathematic equations involved. You have calculators -- you work it out!" and then saying "It's not rocket science!"

Copa America final thoughts

2007-07-19T18:54:00.000-04:00

The dust has settled on Brazil's 3-0 victory over Argentina in the Copa America final--probably the only time in history when a Brazil tournament triumph has been seen as an upset--and the dominant narrative has emerged: Argentina bottled it. The word on the footballing street is that Argentina--and Riquelme in particular--can't handle the big occasion.

Perhaps. But it's worth noting that the Argentinian setup and approach to this game played right into the hands of their opponents. Argentina had Riquelme, Messi, and Veron in the attacking midfield with only Tevez up top, and relied on their fullbacks Heinze and Zanetti to provide the width. But with three holding midfielders, Brazil were easily able to contain the Argentinian midfield, and since Argentina so resolutely insisted on trying to play neat combos through the center, they were snuffed out time and time again. What they should have done is played Crespo up with Tevez and taken out Veron. This would have allowed Tevez to get in some wide positions and run at defenders. Argentina seemed unwilling or incapable of getting the ball to wide areas in dangerous positions, something that would have stretched the comfortably bunkered Brazil defense.

Give Brazil credit: they were organized and had two excellent finishes. One has to feel sorry for poor Ayala; rarely has an international career finished with such a sad performance (although even as I type that the words "Claudio Reyna" come to mind.)

The bad news about this, of course, is that we have to deal with another three more years of Dunga-ball. Still, at least the 0-0 draws will be livened up by his completely stylin' shirts.

US-Austria

2007-07-14T22:48:00.000-04:00

A frustrating match against a well-coached Austria team who deserved the win. The first thing that struck me is that the US looked very tired in this match. Adu, Altidore (not surprisingly), Zizzo and especially Szetala looked a little wilted. The US seemed a step slow to every ball.

There were other ways in which things might have been better. The service from the wings was, aside from the Adu cross for the goal not what it might be. And there were too many misplayed balls all over the park, even when they were under comparatively little pressure.

As I say, a tired game. But overall, a successful tournament for the US. Altidore, probably Adu, and maybe Zizzo and Szetala get European contracts out of this performance.

US-Austria coming up

2007-07-14T13:07:00.000-04:00

The almost entirely substance-free US Soccer preview of today's U-20 quarterfinal against Austria has no info on the most important question: will Altidore be ready to play. The comments thread at Soccer Insider suggests he will probably sit and come on if needed, which sounds like the right policy to me.

UPDATE: And yet... the FIFA Match tracker of the game lists him as a starter.

Feeling down (under)

2007-07-14T12:43:00.000-04:00

I haven't blogged too much about the Asian Cup. It's only televised here in the US on Setanta, and so I've been hesitant to comment too much on the matches I haven't seen.

But one of the big stories of the Asian Cup so far is the poor form of Australia. After drawing with Oman in their first game, they took their game to a whole new level, losing 3-1 to Iraq. (Iraq!) Now this story implies strongly that Aussie coach Graham Arnold has lost the locker room prior to their must win match against Thailand.

It was the right decision, I think, for Australia to abandon the silly Oceania Football Confederation and join the AFC. Their chances of getting to a World Cup are far better in that confederation's format than they are taking their chances against Iran or Uruguay in a playoff. Still, in terms of their team, I wonder if the switch came at the wrong time. Kewell, Viduka and Neill are clearly past it, and it's not immediately apparent if the next generation will be as dangerous as the early-mid 00s Australia team clearly was. As a prelude to their qualifying campaign for 2010, this could hardly be a less propitious performance.

Interestingly, the OFC website still lists Australia as a member, making them seem kind of like that friend you have who insists that his ex-girlfriend is going to call back any day now to apologize for dumping him.

Jogo Boringo

2007-07-12T20:07:00.000-04:00

Paul Doyle tells the harsh but fair truth: Brazil have been surprisingly tedious during the Copa America, the Chile game notwithstanding. It's amazing the way that Dunga's personality as a player seems to have infected the entire national team. Hopefully the excellent Argentinians will beat them in this weekend's final.

What's potentially alarming for Brazilian fans going into next year's World Cup qualifying, is that Brazil seem to be a pretty ordinary team with two extraordinary players: Kaka and Ronaldinho. If one or both of them gets an injury, the Brazilians look eminently beatable.

P.S. If you haven't done so, please do yourself a favor check out the Argentina-Mexico highlights. Two simply delightful goals.

The saddest country in the world is shaped like a tear....

2007-07-11T23:17:00.000-04:00

It's been a tough week for Uruguay, so much so that I'll refrain from the usual juvenile orc references. First, they unluckily tumbled out of the Copa America on penalties after twice coming back against Brazil. According to Uruguayan coach Oscar Tavares, this was largely to do with the Uruguayans getting a crummy locker room. Sounds a bit implausible to me, but hey, I'm no tactician.

Tonight, the USA bounced them out of the U-20 World Cup 2-1 in extra time. The Uruguayans were quite unlucky here, as they really had the better of the play. Choosing a high tempo game to harry the US on the ball worked really well, and there were stretches where they really seemed to dominate. But the effort they expended left them a bit gassed in extra time, and without the really dangerous Luis Suarez on the field, they didn't offer as much of a threat after the US equalized.

Best moment: when Cardaccio got yellow carded for essentially just being an unbearable dickweed. Such a shame the ref didn't spot his elbow on Szetala (which Danny totally embellished, by the way) or whatever it was he did after the whistle that so incensed Michael Bradley.

An ugly win for the US, but you kind of knew that a letdown was coming, I think. Hope the injury to Altidore is not as serious as it seemed.

Catching Up

2007-07-10T12:16:00.000-04:00

Due to a combination of work, travel, and sheer laziness, I missed about a week of blogging, a week during which the US national team's future either looks very rosy or very bleak. Your perspective literally depends on which direction you look.

Down south, the US meekly fell out of Copa America by falling 1-0 to Colombia. Bob Bradley sensibly gave everyone who hadn't seen the field yet time against Colombia but the performance was more or less the same.

What do we take from the Copa? The point of the whole exercise was to gain experience even as we get obliterated. The problem is that such gains are pretty much intangible; it's hard to say whose future play will benefit by this tournament and by how much. I agree almost entirely with Steven Goff's big picture take on the Copa and the Gold Cup, possibly with the exception of his opinion on Marvell Wynne who, with the right coaching, could take his game to a higher level. I think that Wynne is essentially Frankie Hejduk ten years ago, and that the right sort of development could see him as a future factor for the US.

Up north, the U-20s have gone from strength to strength, beating Brazil 2-1 and winning their group. They face the Uruk-hai in the round of sixteen on Wednesday. It's hard to handicap this match, but assuming that the young Uruk-hai share their older compatriots' propensity for mindless violence, I think the US will be up against it. They'll need to make the most of the inevitable free kicks that their opponents concede and be prepared to use Altidore and Szetala's strength effectively to hold their own.

So a tasty set of international games this week as the U-20 knockout games start tomorrow and the Copa semis begin tonight. Anyone know if the Asian Cup is being broadcast anywhere in the States?

Ask and ye shall receive

2007-07-04T00:13:00.000-04:00

My previous pessimistic malaise now seems a touch foolish: at the U-20 cup, the US just stomped on Poland 6-1. Freddy Adu got a hattrick. Even the US Soccer website is down in disbelief.

Clearly the difference-maker in this match is that I wasn't actually able to watch the game. There's a repeat tomorrow at 6:30 that I'll try to catch, assuming that my powers to make favored teams suck just by watching them doesn't work backwards in time.

The good points...

2007-07-03T14:44:00.000-04:00

were the play of Feilhaber, who continues to make a starting place for himself in the best XI, and Clark. I like the idea of a D-mid who can actually make the odd thing happen on offense from time to time.

But to go back to accent-shuating the negative, I also caught twenty minutes of the US U-20 draw with South Korea, a twenty minute stretch where they were getting their asses handed to them. Truly a bad week for US soccer.

On the other hand this result keeps alive the possibility of a North Korea-South Korea final round match, which would be too cool for words.

USA-Paraguay

2007-07-03T14:30:00.000-04:00

My match report is here. This match was far more frustrating than getting tonked by Argentina, because really and truly, we could have won this.

I don't need to dwell on the abysmal finishing (three and maybe four or five chances that paid professionals should expect to put away.) Let me just say that this tournament is revealing how little depth there is in attacking midfield for the US. Beyond Donovan, Dempsey, Beasley and Convey, there's a vast gap. Against Paraguay, we were forced to start essentially with four defensive/holding midfielders. Olsen used to be a right mid, and he would run through a brick wall for you, but he's not an attacking midfielder any more... the fact that we need him to play on the right is telling. Kljestan was simply awful on the left. Mapp and Gaven can't seem to raise their games to this level (in the latter's case, to any level.)

A modest proposal: for the Colombia game, why not start Herculez Gomez at the left mid. Yeah, it probably won't work, but he can't be worse than Kljestan or Mapp. Better still, play 4-3-3 with Gomez and Johnson on the flanks. Oh, and I'd bring in Guzan for Keller. Keller has added little at this stage, so why not give the young'un experience?

U-20

2007-06-29T20:59:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile, in the Northern hemisphere, the FIFA U-20 World Cup is about to start. If you're keen on seeing some of the talent that will be breaking on the world football scene in a few years, clearly this is the tournament to watch. In doing so, you'll be joined by hundreds of scouts from top clubs. So if Josy Altidore and/or Freddy Adu have excellent tournaments, they could find themselves with fat European contracts.

Standing in their way are Brazil, Poland, South Korea, and the fact that their squad is coached by Thomas Rongen. Oh and perhaps also their boyish impulses in a city with a vibrant night life. However their prep for the tournament has been strong, including wins against Chile and a closed door match against New Zealand.

The US will play their matches in Olympic Stadium, which I had thought been condemmed, but can apparently still host events with a relatively minimal risk of concrete blocks falling. I passed by it on my trip (on the way to the Botanical Gardens) and took the above picture; I love the way it looms like a claw over east Montreal. Apparently, ticket sales are good--I've utterly forgotten where I read this, but apparently they're the second highest for a U-20 World Cup.

On respect

2007-06-29T19:53:00.000-04:00

I agree entirely with Dan's big-picture analysis of the Argentina result. The discussion raises an issue that's often discussed by US fans and commentators: the issue of the US getting respect on the international stage. There are those that argue that gaining this respect is an important thing, and that results such as last night's, where our C-team got stomped, don't exactly help.

I have never understood this argument. "Respect," whatever that means, yields no tangible benefits to US soccer and quite possibly could cause some harmful effects. For instance, I want players who line up against the US to have in the back of their minds a preconceived notion that we are not a good team. That might cause them to only give 80%. Likewise, it wouldn't be good if MLS lost the vast majority of its top players.

Besides, frankly who cares what people in other nations think of our team? The only thing that matters is overall success. And if experiences like this years Copa raise our chances of future success in World Cup qualifying, then I'm all for them.

US-Argentina

2007-06-29T19:18:00.000-04:00

I'm reminded of the words of Bob Barrenger, Alec Baldwin's character in State and Main, who dazedly gets out of his car moments after a dangerous accident:

"Well... that happened."

It's a hard game to evaluate for US fans, something that's reflected in the strange Sams Army ratings, which give individuals higher ratings than the team. Certainly you can't fault the effort: the US fought hard in midfield and gave over sixty minutes of excellent defensive soccer. And I think ultimately the younger players on the field--I'm thinking here of Bornstein, Feilhaber, Clark, and Wynne--grew from this experience.

I'm most disappointed in a couple of things. I think the US attackers were pretty passive when they got to the final third. Mapp, Johnson, and Twellman would all hesitate, take a second too long, or not send the right early ball. Clearly, the thought "We're playing... Argentina..." entered players' heads with some frequency.

The case of Johnson is a particularly frustrating one, since clearly the Argentine defenders knew he could do some damage and double teamed him as much as they could. He had some great touches and smart plays, but lacked a real killer instinct. Bradley should show him the tape of this game and say "look what you did, but think of what you could have done."

Secondly, I think Keller's skills have declined from a few years ago. I think he could have been swifter in getting to the free kick that led to the first Argentina goal, and that he was not always as commanding in his area as he might be. I'm already much more comfortable with Howard in the net for the Americans, and I think that Hahnemann is probably the likely backup going into 2008 qualifiers.

I can't help but notice that things started to swirl down the toilet the moment Eddie Gaven was brought on for Olsen. Probably, Olsen was gassed, as he was chasing everything out there on offense and defense. But he also provided a lot of defensive cover on that side, and the US seemed to have a better shape when he was out there. Gaven looked just lost. It's possible that Bradley was forced into this substitution, but if it was tactical, it was absolutely daft. It says a lot about our current lack of depth in the attacking midfield that Gaven is in this squad at all.

For their part, Argentina did a masterful job in breaking down the US defense in the second half, and making the right runs to split us apart. They are on a higher plane.

I do think, however, that this US team can get results against Paraguay and Colombia. Clearly the Paraguay game is a must win if we are really thinking of the second round. But given the stated aims of our participation in the Copa. I'd be satisfied with good play and a draw against an obviously dangerous Paraguay.

Ramblings on soccer, hockey and sports journalism

2007-06-28T11:10:00.000-04:00

I think the most interesting thing about studies like this one is less the actual comparison and more the choice of metrics. You could probably compare the Gold Cup final ratings favorably to those of lots of different well-known sports. But the fact that the writer chose to compare them to the Stanley Cup is an indicator of their similar positions in the American sports landscape, and of the fact that they are competing for the same pool of advertising and endorsement dollars. Person for person, soccer is probably more popular than hockey in the United States right now, but the popular perception is the reverse. Articles like this will work towards changing that perception.

However, this issue of popularity and perception of popularity is a tricky one. For a start, as I suggested above, the perceptions are often wrong. Witness the disproportionatly extensive coverage given to boxing in English-language media in America.

But I also feelt that the issue of popularity itself is overblown. Sports commentators see popularity as the only criteria for judging the worth of a sport. You might think that that's obvious, but it needn't be. For instance, coverage of art, or movies, or books isn't solely driven by the perceived popularity of what they're reviewing. But sports is different. A sporting event's entire worth is based purely on the perceived popularity of it. Now you might say, well, that's because sports are big business, and it's all about money, etc. And that's true. But it's also true of the movie industry, or the book industry. And yet, there is a professional commentariat who judges movies and books independently from economic factors.

That doesn't exist at all in sports, except in isolated cases (NPR's Only a Game, for instance).
Very few media outlets cover sport because it happens to be simply good sport, judged by standards other then the perception of how many people watch. I'd love to see a sports journalism grounded on something resembling aesthetics, rather than on a popularity contest, one that both encourages "sport vs. sport" articles that make the business of sport a sport in and of itself, and yet justifies itself by mindless repeating that football and baseball are the most popular sports and that it will be that way until the end of time.

Back to the article itself. One on hand, I suppose these numbers are surprising. But on the other, I can't help but feel it's not quite a fair comparison. The Stanley Cup only had one American team, and not a great hockey town at that, while the Gold Cup final probably was watched by every Mexican-American sports fan.

A sweet goal

2007-06-28T10:59:00.000-04:00

... by Nery Castillo to pull off an upset win against Brazil. This guyis going to give us fits over the next five years or so.

Copa America!

2007-06-27T15:47:00.000-04:00

No sooner does the Gold Cup end then lo! the Copa America is upon us. Does the fun ever end?

For fans of the US national team, the answer is yes, on Thursday night when Bob Bradley's experimental squad face a fully loaded Argentina. Remember, as we get thumped badly, that the whole point of this match--indeed the whole point of us entering the tournament--is that we get thumped badly by some world class players. With that in mind, there's really nothing to lose in this game. Kick back, grab a beverage of your choice and abandon all hope, and who knows? Maybe they'll sqeak a 0-0 draw or something.

Meanwhile on the first day, Peru beat Uruguay 3-0. The match report makes this read like a colossal upset, but after Brazil and Argentina, I really don't think there's a huge quality difference between South American squads.

Bolivia drew with the hosts Venezuela 2-2, in a battle between authoritarian socialist nations. I watched half the match and was kind of pulling for Bolivia because of the Jaime Moreno-Joselito Vaca (remember him? Dallas Burn!, the Metrostars!)--MLS connection. There's always a big disparity between how effective Bolivia look and how effective they actually are. In this match, as in the friendly against Ireland in spring, they moved well off the ball and found each other in dangerous positions, but there's not exactly a lot of end product. Their shooting is really bad; even the first half Moreno goal was fortuitously deflected. In that respect, they're kind of the Arsenal of South America, but while Arsenal have the talent to finish matches off, I suspect that Bolivia lacks a big dominant striker. (Some better central defenders would help too.)

US-Mexico

2007-06-25T13:20:00.000-04:00

Me at 45 minutes: "You know, I really can't get worked up by this. It's basically a glorified friendly: it'd be nice if we could come back, but really it's meaningless.

Me at 80 minutes: "YES!!!!!!! USA!!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!!"

So against all prior expectations, yesterday's Gold Cup final was quite a match. It was genuinely dramatic, had a simply stunning goal by Feilhaber, an almost equally stunning save by Howard, and a few quite stunning in their own way misses, the jewel of which was Beasley's. I can't find a You Tube clip of his miss but if someone posts it you really must check it out. It was a textbook lesson in how not to score a goal from two meters away.

Ultimately, it was really the only satisfying half of soccer the US played at the Gold Cup. Bradley's substitution of Clark for Mastroeni at half time was a master stroke. Clark stayed deeper in the midfield than Mastroeni, and consequently the US did better at containing Castillo, who was all over them for most of the day. It also allowed Feilhaber to move forward and become more influential.

And of course the best part of all this is that is made the Mexican team unhappy. A small detail from Steve Goff's match report about Mexico's ever-classy coach.

The Mexicans howled in protest at the time of the foul as well as after the match. Coach Hugo Sanchez stalked the officiating crew upon the final whistle and mockingly applauded the trio following the awards ceremony.

That'll show 'em! He told the press that "The team that plays best doesn't always win" To be fair, the Mexicans really did pick up their game today; obviously Castillo and Guardado were excellent. Blanco was very generous in defeat, saying that the US deserved to be the best team in CONCACAF.

All in all, this was a splendid way to finish up a somewhat anemic tournament.

P.S. My idea about switching Dempsey and Donovan turned out to be totally pants. Bradley was quite right to switch them midway through the first half.

The most dangerous lead

2007-06-22T14:51:00.000-04:00

Over at Dan's place, he's taking on one of the biggest soccer cliches of all: the peril fo the 2-0 lead. Invariably, whenever a team takes a two goal lead, the play-by-play commentator ominously notes that 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in soccer. Bretos did it last night.

I think a lot of the thinking behind the "2-0 is the most dangerous lead" stuff has to do with the psychology of perception. Consider the following two scenarios.

A: Joe Public is beating Real Madrid 1-0 and totally dominating the game. Suddenly, Real score a freak goal in the 80th minute and the game is tied 1-1. Probably Real is relieved to get anything out of the match, so they spend the last ten minutes bunkering. Certainly they won't be threatening Joe Public any more.

B: Joe Public is beating Real Madrid 2-0 and totally dominating the game. Suddenly, Real score a freak goal in the 80th minute and the game is 2-1. Real start to believe that they can do it again, so they start sending numbers forward and the Joe Public defense is under pressure. They aren't dominating any more

Now obviously, if you're a coach, you would rather have scenario B than A. But B sure seems a lot worse somehow. In scenario A you dominate for the whole 90 minutes, whereas in B the perception is of a more even game regardless of what it says on the scoreboard. I think that's why it's a particularly popular trope with play by play commentators who are understandably focused on trying to "read" the play on the field. (That and the fact that they want to stop you from changing channels when you think that the match is over.)

Fun fact: did you know that the Germans have a special name for the goal that makes a match a one goal game? Yes, it's called an Anschlußtreffer. Your homework assignment is to use the word correctly in a non-football context.

Oh and I forgot to mention

2007-06-22T14:33:00.001-04:00

That last minute goal... totally legal. What a terrible call from the linesman. Canada had every right to feel gutted.

What might have been

2007-06-22T14:19:00.000-04:00

By the way, the wire report on the Mexico-Guadeloupe match that I linked to below reminds us that technically, the Guadeloupien team could have included Thierry Henry, Lilian Thuram, and William Gallas as well as Jocelyn Angloma. If you got in your time machine and played around with a few variables (making Guadeloupe a full FIFA member and electing Jean Marie Le Pen premier of France would probably do it), you'd have had a killer team in 1998 or so. It would have certainly made it out of the CONCACAF qualifying group that year.

USA-Canada

2007-06-22T13:37:00.000-04:00

Pretend, for a moment, that the USA is located on the continent of Europe, and that we get to play in the European Championships. If we had just won 2-1 in the semi final of Euro 2008, no matter how fortunately, then I'd be over the moon. How we got there wouldn't have mattered much to me.

So why does our 2-1 victory over Canada in the semifinals of our own continental championship feel so dispiriting? I guess it's ultimately because the Gold Cup really means nothing to us; it's just a series of glorified friendlies. I'm not even sure you can blame CONCACAF or Jack Warner or anyone else for it; it's just a logical consequence of dominating the region along with Mexico. Maybe my free shirt has been chemically treated to make me care more the next time the tournament rolls around.

Anyway the game itself was fairly poorly played by the US. Frankie Hejduk, god bless him, scored a terrific goal but it seemed like an aberration in a game where the US just plan didn't generate very much. They spent a lot of time in the Canadian half, but couldn't generate a lot of chances, and didn't do well finishing the ones they had. Part of the problem is the poor service from the wings--Hejduk's crossing was particularly bad in this regard--but also another weirdly passive performance from Eddie Johnson.

One thing I would try if I were Bob Bradley is switch Dempsey and Donovan's positions. I think Donovan works better as a second striker than in the right of that box midfield, where he has to make a choice between isolating himself from the game or sacrficing natural width. Striker is not Dempsey's best position, although that being said, it says a lot about our performance that he's been the best of our strikers this tournament.

Comic highlight: Donovan falling over after beating the keeper... simply magic. A not distant second: Bradley fils' red card tackle. Darkest moment: Bocanegra's tackle on De Guzman.

We'll see if the US can lift their game against brave minnows Mexico, who valiantly slew mighty football power Guadeloupe 1-0 in the other semi, and who in general have had a similarly anemic tournament to that of the US. But in a way, I'm more looking forward to Copa America, where the US will have an experimental squad, against more dangerous opponents. In that difficult crucible, we might find some importnat ingredients for the start of qualifying next year: especially at striker and attacking midfield.

Gold Cup semis

2007-06-21T15:56:00.000-04:00

In about three hours, the first of the Gold Cup semifinals kicks off as USA plays Canada. I'll be pulling for the country of birth of course, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Canada wins this tonight. I think that if the US has the same lackadaisical finishing and general languidness they've had throughout the tournament, Canada will go through, maybe on penalties. Having an evening kickoff might help, as will having Feilhaber back. However Ives Galarcep says that Feilhaber won't be there, and that Bradley will prefer the more defensive Bradley-fils. Maybe. But Bradley also said that the US was more comfortable in 4-4-2, and if you have Mastroeni, do you really need another holding midfielder? I suspect Mastroeni and Feilhaber are central, with Dempsey and Twellman up top.

As for the other game, surely Guadeloupe can't beat Mexico as well? God, that would be awesome. I assume that 4-0 Mexico would be a more realistic prediction

Vive les Guadeloupiens!

2007-06-17T22:20:00.000-04:00

Bonsoir from Montreal! It's Real Madrid who have captured the world's headlines of course, but while you're out at your local tapas restaurant in your number 23 shirt, raise a glass of sangria for Guadeloupe, who improbably swatted down Honduras, guaranteeing a semi-final date against Mexico. The article raises the too funny possibility that if Guadeloupe win the Gold Cup, they won't actually be able to play in the Confederations Cup, since they aren't actually FIFA members. Apparently, this will cause the FIFA-9000 super computer to suffer a critical systems error, which will precipitate a massive implosion that will level Paris and render the Earth uninhabitable. Either that or they'll just award the Confed Cup spot to the runners up.

June grooms loom

2007-06-17T00:28:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, love is in the air for the English national team. John Terry, Michael Carrick, Gary Neville, and Steven Gerrard are all getting married this weekend. At first I thought this was a somewhat bizarre coincidence, but I guess it makes sense, inasmuch as they don't exactly have many free weekends in any other part of the year.

That's not to say that the individual weddings themselves aren't bizarre, mind you:

Today's wedding between Steven Gerrard and Alex Curran will be a three-day event featuring the three essentials for any footballer's big day: golf, fish and chips and spa treatments. Other food options include curry.

Quite. I can't decide if it would be funny-ironic or just plain unpleasant to be at a wedding where Lionel Richie sang.

Apropos of none of this nonsense, I'm travelling over the next few days, so posting will be wireless dependent.

US-Panama

2007-06-17T00:03:00.000-04:00

My full match report will be posted on the mothership later this weekend, but a few isolated thoughts.

I'd like Panama a lot more if they didn't combine some pretty intense physical play with whining incessantly every time they are called on it. Throw in the rolling around on the ground after every contact, and you have an unpalatable brew. In trying to throw the US off their rhythm, I think they managed to psyche themselves out instead. Hilariously, the Panamanian coach was still at it after the game, claiming that the referee was thirty yards away and the penalty was unfair. Son, I was a hundred fifty yards away and it looked pretty obvious to me.

That said, they're a dangerous team, and maybe deserved better in this game. They got their best results when they picked up on Bornstein, who looked shaky when put under direct pressure. Not the best outing for him. If Panama stop the ref-gaming, they'll be a fun team to watch when qualifers begin. Perez in particular was always a threat.

It was another kind of drowsy performance for the US. Donovan and Twellman seemed to be competing for who could waste the most chances. Most of the team seemed to be at 80% speed. Even Mastroeni's shin-crunching tackles were doled out with langor. I'd kind of like to see the US fall behind against Canada just to see how they would respond. Has the US even been behind in the Bradley era yet? I forget.

When it comes to swag, CONCACAF beat MLS hands down. After supplying my 2007 stationary needs earlier this week, there were free t-shirts for the quarterfinals. I even stole an extra one, since they were littering the press box. My wife said they look hideous, but I think this electric blue works for me.

DaGlaswegian

2007-06-16T15:39:00.000-04:00

Via SoccerTimes, DaMarcus Beasley, who is about to take the field for the US in a few miuntes, is apparently about to move from PSV Eindhoven to Rangers, who are essentially the PSV Eindhoven of Scotland. In as much as he seemed prefer being a top player in an ordinary league to being a squad player in midtable obscurity in England, this seems like a good move for him. Guaranteed European soccer every year, don't cha know.

As a fun bonus, we also get some Jamar Beasley news--apparently he's the MVP with the indoor league Detroit Ignition. MVP! Jamar Beasley! Maybe Real Salt Lake should grab him too. Hey Checketts, where's my comission check?

Oh! Canada.

2007-06-16T15:23:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I made a lot of Gold Cup predictions, but the one I was most confident of was that the Canada-Guatemala game would like watching an expanded version of Heaven's Gate: violent and more or less unwatchable. Therefore, I dallied before coming to Gillette. I mowed the lawn. I did some dishes. I walked out to get a zeppole. So when I arrived I was rather shocked to find that Canada dominated this game, winning 3-0, and outshooting Guatemala 8-1 in what was essentially a home game for the Chapines. Go Canada! I just heard the press conference, and the Guatemalan coach sounded utterly stunned.

I think Canada has a decent shot in 08 qualifying. They have a good young squad. Toronto FC is going to give some squad players some decent match experience. They'll probably have Radzinzki back for qualifying--he's past his best but still can do damage in this region. What they'll need to do is demonstrate they can get results in Central America.

Your goal hero today was Ali Gerba, whom I had never heard of, but who apparently once played for the late Miami Fusion.

Past, Present and Future

2007-06-15T17:52:00.000-04:00

Stepping away from the Gold Cup for the moment, you might find this Guardian article on the relationship between British and American soccer interesting. Needless to say, I agree with most of it. But there's one issue that was raised in the comments that comes up from time to time in discussions of soccer in the American landscape: the idea that the NFL, MLB, and NBA will always be the most popular sports in this country.

The notion that the popularity of sports is somehow stratified for all time baffles me. Fifty years ago, the big three sports in the US were baseball, boxing, and horse racing. One hundred fifty years ago, cricket was more popular than baseball in the US. Now, those three sports are essentially niche products. (A topic for another blog would be the weirdly disproportionate coverage of boxing in the US--the US sports media are fundamentally reactionary, in the literal sense of the word.) In short, things change, albeit pretty slowly.

When sports change popularity, they tend to do so because of technology and demographics. In both those categories, soccer has momentum. Technologically, the internet has been an incredible boon, because of its elimination of the news gap between Europe and America and because of its beneficial effect on microcommunities more generally. Thanks to changes in broadcast technology, there are also more television outlets for soccer than they used to be. Demographically, there are many factors in soccer's favor: increasing Hispanic population, the much ballyhooed youth culture, and the weird hipster factor.

No, I don't think soccer will be the most popular sport in the US in ten, or even fifty years. But yes, I do think there's every chance that within our lifetimes, the US sports scene will change significantly, and soccer may be a beneficiary of that.

The tradition continues

2007-06-15T17:45:00.000-04:00

This tournament may not have have the same heritage of your basic European Championships or Copa America. But the Gold Cup does have one very proud tradition: defecting Cubans. I recall Lester More being a pretty useful player... if I were Real Salt Lake, I'd be sending out my underworld contacts.

US thoughts

2007-06-15T17:23:00.000-04:00

The unbeaten Bob Bradley era continues apace. But it's a really hard thing to judge where this team is right now. Trinidad and El Salvador were both colossally poor (to be fair to the Trinidadians, they weren't able to send their whole team because of a pay dispute.) and the US were really only bothered against Guatemala, who employed their classic strategy of trying to cripple their opponents. I hope Panama and the winner of the Canada-Guatemala semifinal are able to give them a better game.

The player whose probably done the most good for himself is Benny Feilhaber. Despite seeing only limited time for the Hamburg first team, he's improved a great deal as a player since last I saw him in the U 20 World Championships. He's become a fine distributor of the ball and has excellent vision and positioning sense. Probably the best bet for the US going forward is to pair him next to a hard man like Mastroeni, in the Italy Pirlo-Gattuso vein. Michael Bradley may become that player, but he isn't there yet, I think.

Also having good Gold Cups are Clint Dempsey, Michael Parkhurst, Frank Simek and Jay Demerit, although it should be added that the latter three haven't faced serious tests yet. I was particularly impressed when the inclusion of Demerit completely killed off the Guatemala game at the time when the Chapines were looking mildly dangerous.

It's not been so good for Oguchi Onyewu, who most fans, I think, had basically pencilled in as an automatic starter for the US up until this year. Onyewu needs to go back to a stable situation, whether at Standard Liege or elsewhere. Clearly, his career uncertainty has disrupted him somewhat.

As for the others, well... there isn't a lot to say because they really haven't needed to elevate their games at all. Yeah I know Beasley scored the two goals, but he still seemed in second gear to me. It'll be interesting to see who Bradley starts in the final if we get there; that should be an indication of what he considers to be our best XI right now.

Gold Cup First Round Review

2007-06-15T16:54:00.000-04:00

CONCACAF in 2007 is kind of an interesting confederation. You have two teams who are quite a significant distance ahead of everyone else, and then a bunch of teams who are more or less indistinguishable from another. Costa Rica hit its peak in about 2001 or so, and the current edition of the team seems no better than Honduras, Canada, or Guatemala. Throw in a fully stocked Trinidad and Jamaica, and you'll have an interesting World Cup qualifying tournament next year.

For the time being however, all we have is the Gold Cup, with its anemic 8 from 12 group phase. So it's hard to say whose been excelling here. The US is 3-0 but have looked more comfortable than impressive (I'll save my US thoughts for a future post). Honduras has looked pretty good, even considering that their big win was against Cuba. When they get David Sauzo back for World Cup qualifying they might be a force. Panama has, at the least, maintained its progress it produced in the last cycle.

Here are my quarter-final predictions.

Canada-Guatemala. Like Fox Mulder when faced with some be-tentacled creature spawned from sewage, I want to believe in the Canadian national team. Sure they have no strikers per se, but they have some guys with experience at high levels, more European-based players, etc. The difference, of course, is that the aforementioned be-tentacled creature turns about to be real, while Canada do things like losing to tiny Caribbean islands who aren't really countries. However, Guatemala has looked pretty ordinary in the games I've seen. So I am going with blind belief: 1-0 to Canuckistan. Whatever the score, this match will not be one for the purists.

USA-Panama. I see no reason why the US can't continue their sleepy progress through this tournament against Panama, a team that never seems to bother them in the way other Central American teams do. 2-0 USA

Mexico-Costa Rica. I haven't actually seen any Mexico games this tournament, so I can't accurate diagnose what their problem is. That hasn't stopped me from taking great glee from their loss to Honduras. I'm not sure this Tico team has what it takes to replicate that result. So put me down for a 2-2 tie and a Mexican win on penalties.

Honduras-Guadeloupe. So I was going to write an "Explain Guadeloupe to me" post. You see, Guadeloupe has Jocelyn Angloma, who was capped for France, and I couldn't understand why he was allowed to play for Guadeloupe. But I forgot about the infallible power of Wikipedia, whose entry on Angloma helpfully explains that Guadeloupe aren't FIFA members, and consequently can play Guadeloupean citizens. So theoretically, Lilian Thuram could play for Guadeloupe if he fancied a summer vacation. Failing that, I say 3-0 Honduras.

Return of the Conspiracy

2007-06-12T18:39:00.000-04:00

After a break of a little less than a year, I've decided to restart my international soccer blog, Kicker Conspiracy. I ran ir for about six months prior to the World Cup and then took an extended break, partly for personal reasons (too much work) and also for practical reasons (not enough international soccer). But now both those situations have remedied themselves, and so here I am!

Another factor in the relaunch was the announcement that ESPN would broadcast Euro 2008 matches here in the United States. The US's performance in the World Cup was poor, but World Cup 2006 generated a certain degree of momentum in terms of the way soccer is covered and discussed in the US. It was the first time I can recall when soccer was considered not so much as a cute foreign curiosity, but as an actual sport in which we as a nation had an investment.

So anyway, a quick restatement of purpose is in order. This blog will predominately cover international soccer. It's not that I don't like club football--in fact I cover MLS for American Soccer News and I love the EPL--but, I gotta have some limits. I'll talk the most about CONCACAF and UEFA, the areas I know best, but I'll try to say something about the other regions as well. I'm also interested in the relationship between soccer and culture, so there'll be a post or two on that from time to time.

Right now I must dash; I'm at Gillette Stadium for the US-El Salvador Gold Cup match, about which I'll post more later. Thanks for reading and please comment copiously! (Unless your a spambot.)

Testing

2007-06-04T18:26:00.001-04:00

A test post for the return of Kicker Conspiracy!

ZZ's top

2006-07-10T23:59:00.000-04:00

Real life got in the way of blogging over the last couple of weeks of the World Cup, and I didn't get to talk about half the things I wanted to discuss--the rehabilitation of Klinsmann, appaling Portugal, that Grosso goal, etc. But I would be remiss if I didn't take a few minutes to discuss l'affaire Zidane, the incident that will be the defining moment of this World Cup in the public memory.

So many things about the moment were extraordinary. Its perpetrator, of course. Its sheer violence. The unexpectedness of it all--few viewers, I suspect, noticed anything untowards between Materazzi and Zidane prior to this incident. The fact that it happened in overtime in the World Cup final, for heaven's sake.

But what made this so unbelieveable to the entire world, I think, is the way it was such a U-turn in the narrative we all built up around this World Cup. For the predominant story that emerged in this tournament was the one-last-time, mock-the-clock efforts of the French national team. Zidane epitomized it--the former hero playing in his last games ever. That he was so bad prior to the Cup only intensified the story by making his performances against Spain and Brazil all the more compelling. And now clearly this story was going to end in a glorious conclusion. ZZ scored the first goal with an impudent chipped penalty. Italy equalized but in the second half, the French were carrying all the play. On some unconscious level, we all expected that Zidane would score or make the winning goal. It was going to happen.

And it so nearly did. Think of how different everything would have been if Zidane had placed that injury time header to either corner instead of right above Buffon. It would have been one of the great moments of sports in the 21st century so far. The script was written, but a fine Buffon save denied it.

And then the narrative was turned on its head. In a flash, he went from being the universally beloved hero to the indefensible villain. Can you think of a movie where the hero takes such a remarkable an abrupt moral U-turn? Today in Slate, Robert Weintraub likened the moment to a completely un-Hollywood ending, and he's exactly right. That's why hours later, myself and so many other fans were slack-jawed in disbelief. Did we just see that?

Of course, there's another tantalizing aspect of this story: the question of motive. What precisely did Materazzi say to cause Zizou to melt down? Rumours--and they're all we have for the moment-- are divided between something sexual (the "your sister is a prostitute" story) and something political. It's the latter that's the most intriguing: did Materazzi call him a terrorist? Or did he, as suggested on the New Republic's blog, call Zidane's father a harki, the term for Algerians who fought on the side of the French in the Algerian war for independence?

If it's a political thing, my suspicion is that history is going to judge Zizou kindly. Unlike the fabulous Cannavaro, Materazzi is an anonymous oafish defender, and proof of a racist comment will cast him as the villain--indeed, a montage of his previous hackjobs is currently one of the most watched videos on YouTube. The precise premeditation of Zizou's assault will seem justified, a blow for honor and justice against provocation. I'm not saying this is right, but I think it will be seen that way if the racism explanation is believed.

The rehabilitation of Zidane has already started with his comical naming as the tournament's best player. The moral victor of that award was of course Fabio Cannavaro, who has had a stunning tournament, and is certainly the best player in the world at his position at the moment.

I don't want to take this point too far, but there's distinctly a figurative quality to all this. The triumphant French team in 1998 was seen as a synecdoche for modern France--multicultural and unified. Zidane's story in 2006 is a symbolic mirror to the French political situation in 2006. Surface unity and an uncomfortable sense of Frenchness give way to sudden violence after (racial?) provocation.

In terms of sports, it was a pretty good game, better than the last Cup final for sure. But in terms of drama, it was almost Shakespearean.

Anyway, this is it from the Conspiracy for the time being. Thank you for reading my coverage. I might resurrect it in 2007 as the international game heats up... we'll see. Take care.

Stomp!

2006-07-01T21:59:00.000-04:00

Oh my. Really the English loss to Portugal was so archetypal that it verged on satire. England, playing well, has a star controversially sent off, pluckily soldiers on with ten men, and then finally succumbs to the inevitable penalty shootout.

A few thoughts. At first, I thought Rooney's podiatric incursion into Ricardo Carvalho's joy department was unintentional. Then, looking back at the replay, I began to have my doubts. And after all, it is Wayne Rooney, whose potato-like head clearly harbors unsepakable thoughts. Now I really can't decide. And adding to the general confusion is the fact that no one really knows what the red card was actually for. Was it the stomp or the meaningless shove on Cristiano Ronaldo? It was incredibly indeterminate.

I think that Sven should have used his third substitution earlier, and brought on someone for Lampard, whose tiring was not helping his general uselessness in extra time. Knowing that they surely would tonk it in penalties, I'd have brought on Theo Walcott, and told him to play in the midfield and run a lot. Why did Sven bring him anyway? That particular gambit was useless, since he didn't play a minute.

Portugal sucked. A man up and they didn't really try and push the game; in fact, they were rarely threatening in any way. I'd say they might be better if Deco was back, but he hasn't been that impressive so far in the Cup. Hopefully France will put them to the sword, like they did Brazil.

Speaking of which... yeah, Brazil. Why precisely were they tournament favorites again? They studiously avoided any team of quality in their pre-Cup warm ups. They trundled through a not very difficult group after being pushed by Croatia and Australia. And when they played their first quality team, they folded like an origami artist. They were by far the worst of the quarter-final teams, including Ukraine. Why did they suck so very much today?

The fault may lie with Parriera moving Ronaldinho too far forward and bringing in Juninho, but really I think the defensive midfield let them down today. The Brazilian system depends on two holding midfielders who can hold the game up, disrupt their opponent and square the ball to their stars so that they can attack. Gilberto Silva was totally missing in action today; he could do nothing about Zidane. Ze Roberto went on some marauding runs, but didn't clog up the middle. Maybe Juninho messed up the roles, with Ze Roberto thinking he should get out to the wings. Either way, it was a dismal performance from the so-called practitioners of the beautiful game.

And Ronaldinho is clearly the flop of the tournament. World Cup 2006's anointed star did almost nothing to justify the billing.

Really, it's been an immensely disappointing knockout stage so far. Too many timid coaches refusing to commit numbers forward and too many red cards that have forced the hands of some potentially more adventurous teams. The France win over Spain and the Argentina win over Mexico will be remembered as exciting, but the quarters have been dreadful, especially considering all the enthralling soccer that has been played at that stage over the years.

Refereeing

2006-06-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

The big controversy in this World Cup is the refereeing. Mind you, the big controversy in the last few World Cups has been the refereeing, but this time, apparently, it's serious. And there have been some very dodgy calls--the red card and penalty in today's Italy-Australia game to name but two examples.

But the primary evidence for the refereeing crisis is yesterday's Netherlands-Portugal match. Potentially a classic, it was instead a foul-tempered affair that set a record for yellow and red cards shown. Even renowned idiot Sepp Blatter jumped on referee Valentin Ivanov after the match:

"I consider that today the referee was not at the same level as the participants, the players. There could have been a yellow card for the referee," Blatter told Portugal's SIC television channel.

Not at the same level of the participants??? WTF game was he watching?

Listen, the ref could have done more to manage that game, and the red card on Boulahrouz was questionable. But frankly almost every other card on every participant was deserved. Both yellows on Costinha were justified, and the second was so unimaginably stupid that he should have a multi-match ban just for being a plonker. I understand Deco was pissed after Heitinga refused to give the ball back after kicking it out. But that first challenge was horrendous, and, yes, he clealry deserved the second yellow card for kicking the ball away. What's more, Portugal got off easy. Figo should have been red carded for the headbutt.

And the Netherlands were disgraceful. So many of their players took dives at the slightest contact, especially Van Bommel, who should also be facing a ban for unsportsmanlike behavior by exaggerating the effects of Figo's headbutt. (One of the many potential benefits of video technology.) No one will miss them.

So Blatter and the ABC-ESPN commentariat should lay off Ivanov and instead criticize the players who left him with little choice after a thoroughly foul (but admittedly engrossing) game. The only winner in this game was England, who now get to face a tired and Deco-less Portugal in the quarters.

Day of desolation

2006-06-26T21:37:00.000-04:00

Wow, I found it a lot easier to blog when there weren't any, you know, real games going on. After watching two or three games a day, I find myself needing to do those real life things that get neglected when a World Cup is on, and consequently the Conspiracy has been a bit ignored this weekend. Being debilitatingly bummed after the USA's dismissal didn't help.

Anyway speaking of bummers, god help you if you watched Ukraine's penalty kick victory over the Swiss today. This complete and utter tedium that this game generating was, in and of itself, fascinating, so much so that it generated a wire article solely devoted to how dull it was. Football365 called it "the worst game in World Cup history."

So how did this game, played at the highest of stakes, get to be so bad? Basically, both sides wanted to counterpunch, and neither were willing to be the one to force the play. Consequently, too few players got forward to support the attack. Couple that with a basic lack of quality, and the result was awful. It's really a shame you couldn't have told both teams at the final whistle, "right, if neither of you score in extra time, we're going to let Mexico go through in your place, because they were great and you were awful." Then you'd have seen some play.

It's a shame that coaches and players have become so afraid of losing that they're unwilling to actually go out and win a game. If I were the Swiss coach I'd have thought, "you know, we will never ever get a better draw than this in the last 16 of the World Cup. Let's go out and make our country proud." But instead he told them not to lose. Crazy.

Of the four teams today, it was ironically only Italy who were committed to the attack. Knowing their would surely be outlasted by Australia in extra time, they committed some numbers forward, and got a bogus penalty as their reward. bad luck for the Aussies who fought hard and maybe deserved better.

USA vs Ghana

2006-06-22T21:39:00.000-04:00

Cut and pasted directly from an e-mail I sent after the game. Viva Australia!

Oh that was horrible.
Bad call or no bad call, what the F**K was Bocanegra doing on the play leading up to the penalty. All he has to do is knock it into touch and have the US regroup for the throw in. Instead he skies it and heads his own ball into the penalty area. Reyna's error on the first goal was also stupid; he should have slammed the ball up the field. Those were rec league defending errors.
In general, I thought the selction was totally wussy. In a game where you need service and you need a win, why do you put out that lineup? Why do we wait until the 60th minute for a second striker? If Arena didn't trust Johnson, go with Wolff who has speed, experience and some nice touches. Why have Bocanegra on the back line in the first place when you've trained Lewis as a left back? Start Lewis behind Beasley, let Beas go forward on runs and draw defenders and let Lewis serve the ball to two targets. Sure it's a riskier lineup, but you know, we _needed to win_.
And the frustrating thing was that Ghana was nervous as f**k in the beginning. If we had played a high pressure game in that first half, we'd have never let them get into a rhythm. Arena used to tell his teams to do that... what happened?
And the other frustrating thing is that Italy won! 1-0 would have sent us through!
So bad coaching and bad playing. Dempsey did well in this cup and so did Convey, Cherundolo and Conrad, but that's about it.
My suspicion is that Arena is out, with the candidates to replace him being Jurgen Klinsmann, Steve Nicol, and whoever gets fired in the next week or so.

England, Mexico, etc.

2006-06-21T14:40:00.000-04:00

So far, the last games in the group phase haven't produced nearly the drama as they have done in the recent past. Groups A & C were over after two rounds, and the underdogs in B & D--Trinidad and Angola--just didn't have enough quality to come up with the goods when they needed to. (The case of Angola is particularly galling, because I had my "Angola Miracle" headline all ready. Sure, I could save it for the future, but the aural pun on Angela Merkel just doesn't work if the Cup's not played in Germany.)

Consequently, England, Sweden and Mexico have gotten through to the next round despite each of them spending much of the tournament playing like ass. For instance, England played precisely one good half against Sweden, but they squandered that by some really comical defending and general lassitude in the second half. Now they face a knockout stage without Michael Owen, who tore an ACL in the first minute against the Swedes. Sven-Goran Erikkson is taking heat for having brought too many holding midfielders and not enough strikers, and rightfully so.

The bright side for England is that Hargreaves played well as a holding midfielder, allowing Lampard and then Gerrard to play their natural attacking game. My guess is this means that Sven will go 4-5-1, with Rooney as the lone front man. What he should do is play Aaron Lennon, take off Lampard, who's looked blah in the group stage, and give Beckham license to roam. Too often, Beckham was isolated on the right side, with his teammates not finding him with the ball. Having Lennon over there will open up space for Beckham to hang back and distribute, which is what happened when Lennon was brought on vs. T&T.

Mexico looked good at times during their 2-1 loss to Portugal, but there were moments of unmitigated stupid: Bravo's penalty miss, Marquez's handball, playing Marquez in the the middle in the first place, etc. They were lucky a better team than Angola wasn't there; Ghana or Ivory Coast would have gotten out of this group. And it's really galling for me as a US fan to know that Mexico won the seed of this group just over the US. We could have gone 1-1-1 and played poorly just as well as the Mexicans can.

In any case, the real drama is going to happen tomorrow with groups E through G.

Match day 10 & 11 review

2006-06-19T22:35:00.000-04:00

Normal, everyday life caught up with me in a big way over the last few days, so my viewing on Sunday and Monday was sporadic (better, I thought, to pace your self for the last set of group games this week.) Here are some isolated thoughts from the last six games.

Is it me, or has Ronaldinho not shown up for the Cup yet? Everyone is talking about Ronaldo--fat, fat, fat... but no one has pointed out that Ronaldinho has not been a shadow of the player he's been for Barcelona. I can't figure out if he's tired after a long season, if he's having trouble working with Kaka, or if he's just saving himself for the games to come. In any case, he certainly has not been all that. I could say the same thing for Adriano, until he popped up to score the nice goal that put away Australia.

I suspect that there's not much to worry about for the Brazilians. The most important thing is that you get through to the next round... you can worry about playing well later. Same goes for England for that matter.

Speaking of the next round, you have to fancy Australia for the last spot in group F. All they need is a tie against the Croatians and they are through... and based on how they played against Brazil, they're more than capable of getting it. My guess is that their biggest enemy will be weariness. They expended a lot of energy in the Brazil game, and I think there's a fair chance of them coming out flat, especially with so many semi-injured players on their squad.

France... still lame. They can feel aggrieved that that goal didn't go in (I'm pro video replays, by the way. Allow one replay request per game on each team and let the ref and the 4th official view. Only hidebound traditionalism prevents them from doing it.) On the other hand, they're kind of in a good position here, since they have to play against an eliminated Togo in the last game. Go at them hammer and tongs and you're automatically though to the final round, and if Korea and Switzerland tie (a not unlikely result) and you can snatch the group on goal difference. It's that possibility that made the second Switzerland goal against Togo today so important. Those nudniks Davis and Messing (remind me to blog about my burgeoning Shep Messing hatred later) were saying the Swiss should sit on the lead. But that second goal gave them the advantage in goal difference. Now a tie definitely gets the Swiss through, and might give them the group if France can't beat Togo. Interesting stuff.

It was a shame that Tunisia couldn't hold on to their lead, but once they let the Raul goal in, the rest of the goals didn't matter. They still need to beat Ukraine to go through to the next round; a tie would have done them no good.

Match day Nine review

2006-06-17T20:23:00.000-04:00

Have you ever seen one of those "Emotion" refrigerator magnets? It has a set of about 25 silly faces on them, each corresponding to a different emotion. You're supposed to put a little magnetic frame over the emotion you're feeling that day, so for instance, if you feel cheerful, you put the frame around the little cheerful face.

I bring this up because if I had such a magnet right now, it couldn't capture the weird mix of emotions I'm feeling about the USA's 1-1 draw with Italy. It's a blended cocktail of pride, relief, and anger, with a shot of exhaustion poured in at the end. (Which I realize is not an emotion. Please excuse me; I'm a bit of a basket case at the moment.)

I think it's good at this point just to look at the scoreline for a moment and not think about what actually happened in the game, which the Guardian have called "one of the most surreal matches in World Cup history." Every US fan would have happily taken a 1-1 draw against Italy. In fact, the notion of us even drawing a major power like Italy in a World Cup would have been unthinkable even five years ago. So it's an incredible result just from that perspective.

To think that we did it 9 on 10 for half the game is simply extraordinary. What a performance by the players. As a team, they looked less exhausted than the Italians at the end (Reyna being the big exception. I expected Olsen to come on for him, but I think Arena didn't want to risk a last minute injury and go down to 8.) Keller... massive. Onyewu... massive. Donovan... one of his best games for the US. He brought stability just when the US needed it and ran tirelessly. Convey and Dempsey were great before their inevitable sacrifices. Conrad... made his World Cup debut by coming in against a world power with only eight other teammates. Incredible.

There's really no need to say this, but the refereeing by Jorge Larrionda was flat out shitty. The Mastroeni red card was the call of a coward, afraid he had given too much of an advantage to the underdogs. The second Pope yellow was justified but the first wasn't. Nesta did bring the ball down with his hand in the box quite clearly. The Beasley call is a difficult case... under the current interpretation of the offside rule the goal counts, under the former it's offside. Little wonder Wikipedia has semi-protected its entry on Larrionda; apparently someone was already calling him a wanker before the match even finished. (Apparently Larrionda is a parrot-breeder. I hope they go all Hitchcock on his ass when he gets home.)

This is one of our best results in a World Cup, and one we can build on. The permutations of group E scenarios are labyrinthine, but basically we have to win and preferably big. Later on, I'll try to speculate on how best we should do that.

I feel guilty that I can't say more about Ghana's splendid 2-0 win over the Czechs. I was having a few people over for the Italy game and spent most of the Czech game helping to prepare lunch. But I did see the two goals... egad, do Ghana look good. It will be a remarkably tough game with the US on Thursday.

US-Italy preview

2006-06-17T00:32:00.000-04:00

Dear god... is it that day already? After the Czech performance, I'm anticipating this game with a creeping dread. Oh, they'll play better, do us proud, etc. But they'll lose by a goal anyway.

Check out Steve Long's preview at ASN; it has a very nice tactical analysis. I can't add anything more, except GO USA!!!!

Match Day Eight review

2006-06-16T23:40:00.000-04:00

Last night, I looked at the World Cup schedule that is affixed to my filing cabinet with a magnet and I saw the morning match was Argentina vs Serbia-Montenegro. It did not exactly set my pulse a-racin'. You see, I really dislike Argentina, and have done ever since I was a young boy in England and Diego Maradona destroyed my childhood innocence by scoring the Hand of God goal and proving to me that cheaters sometime prosper. (And yet, and yet... that second goal was unarguably gorgeous. My second lesson that day was beauty and evil go hand-in-hand.) And Serbia... well Serbia is totally unexciting. Their front two consists of Mateja Kezman, who just sucks, and Savo Milosevic, who looks not unlike an artist's rendition of a Pithecanthropus.

So when I got up this morning, I distinctly dawdled. I brewed some coffee, checked e-mail and realized that if it came down to a choice between doing some work or watching Argentina-Serbia... well, there really was no choice. I turned on the TV. It was about the 25th minute, and Argentina, predictably were already a goal up. And within five minutes, I saw one of the most incredible goals I have ever seen.

Normally, wonder goals tend to fall into two categories: the blast from 30 yards or more, a la Tomas Rosicky, or the mazy run that beats multiple defenders, a la the aforementioned second Maradona goal against England in 1986. This one was different. Here's the totally apt description of the Guardian's Barry Glendenning in his live minute-by-minute report:

Sweet mother of Jesus, how the fuck am I supposed to describe that? The goal of the tournament so far by Cambiasso, and quite possibly the greatest goal that's ever been scored.

The play started when an Argentine defender intercepted the ball about 35 yards away from his own goal. The ball was passed to another player. And again. And again. All the while the play was making progress down the left flank. Most of the passes were after one and two touches at speed. The Serbians never touched the ball. I watched the replay on ESPN Classic and I counted 24 consecutive passes--not along the backline mind you, but between the flank and the center in the Serb half. It culminated in Sorin passing to Cambiasso outside the box. Cambiasso passed to Crespo inside the box. He drew two defenders and blindly backheeled into the path of Cambiasso whose-time shot was perfectly placed beyond a stunned Jevric.

If you didn't see it, your homework is to download this goal and watch it. Seriously, do it. You won't regret it.

It almost seems incidental to say that Argentina mauled Serbia 6-0 to guarantee advancement. It could so totally have been more, they were that good. Some in the press are calling it one of the greatest team performances in World Cup history. I wouldn't go that far--it was against Serbia after all--but they looked simply awesome, even better than the Spanish. Wow.

I was sad to see the Ivory Coast lose 2-1 against Holland and thus get eliminated. They attacked and attacked after going two down, and although they got a goal back from Bakary Kone, the Dutch held on after some clever substitutions from Van Basten. The Ivorians deserved better; they were an exciting team and would have gotten results if only they had drawn another group. Hell, they'd be dominating Group B.

And what is there to say about the 0-0 draw between Mexico and Angola, aside from a barely surpressed chuckle? (I don't remotely feel bad about this; all Mexico will be laughing just as hard when Italy puts the US to the sword tomorrow.) Mexico attacked and attacked but were repelled through a combination of their own ineptitude (missing Borgetti really hurts) and some improvised defending on the part of the Angolans.

The Angolan goalkeeper Joao Ricardo is an interesting case. Here's a guy who is quite frankly the worst keeper in this Cup by far. His sense of positioning can be generously described as unconventional and every cross into the box is a new adventure. He doesn't even have a team. But he reminds me of Doctor Zhivago's description of Lara Antipova's nursing skills in his letters home (in the movie at least, I haven't read the book), when Zhivago says something about how Lara does the wrong thing all the time, but somehow it ends up being the right choice in the end. Whenever Joao Ricardo goes way off his line, he somehow gets a hand to the ball, even though he shouldn't. His deflections seem to work out. And so against Portugal and Mexico, two top ten teams, he's given up a single goal. And if Angola can get a win against Iran, and Portugal beats Mexico, the Africans are in the second round, where Ricardo's idiot savant goalkeeping will probably face Argentina from the get go. Oh dear.

Match day Sven review

2006-06-16T00:07:00.000-04:00

Ah, that was totally unintentional, I promise! But having made that typo, I couldn't go back and correct it.

Would they have fired Sven mid-cup if Trinidad had kept it scoreless (or if John Terry hadn't made that desperate goalline clearance from Stern John)? Hard to say. But goals from Crouch and Gerrard made sure that England beat the Soca Warriors to go through to the second phase. Egad, were they ever dire for most of the game though. The putatively world class midfield of Gerrard, Beckham, Cole and Lampard seemed flummoxed by a organized defense, and it was only after Rooney and Lennon came in that they made any progress.

Rooney actually looked pretty good, especially considering how unfit he must be. There was one dangerous moment only a minute after entering where he seemed to get trodden on... you could feel a whole nation cringe.

So even though England have looked god-awful in their two games against not-so-great opponents, they are through to the knock-out phase, and will win the group with a draw or better against Sweden. Fortunately for England, Sweden have also been god-awful. Just when you thought they would be the new France and go the whole Cup without scoring, they finally popped one in against Paraguay. (By the way, the new France is... uh... France.) It was like the relief you feel when you finally pass a gallstone; you'd have been mistaken in thinking they had won the World Cup when Ljungberg finally scored.

You know, Trinidad has a not inconsiderable chance of getting out of this group. Consider: England will want to produce a more emphatic performance against a quality team to give them confidence going forward. Trinidad will be playing a beaten Paraguay. And they have nothing to lose; they've already achieved their goal of producing a respectable Cup performance and have made their country proud. My bet is that Benhaaker allows Yorke and The White Guy the freedom to get into more advance positions against Paraguay. With Glen starting alongside John from the start, and Edwards back in midfield... yeah, they could totally do it. Go Trinidad!

Wouldn't a Trinidad-Ecuador round of 16 match just be a little slice of heaven? I thought the Ticos would really attack Ecuador today, and although they did, they just weren't very good at it. Ecuador (do they have a nickname?) are doing the simple things very well: they're staying organized, making themselves available for passes and generating chances. And Edison Mendez has been excellent, involved in everything attacking play Ecuador has produced.

The Ivan Kaviedes Spider-Man mask celebration: 1/4 funny, 3/4 extremely oogy. I mean he pulled it out of his shorts....

Farewell Poland! Farewell Paraguay! Farewell Costa Rica, with your coach who looks just like Harry Dean Stanton!

Match Day Six review

2006-06-14T23:50:00.000-04:00

So yes... Spain, muy bueno. I was particularly impressed by David Villa, who was a handful everytime he had the ball. The Spanish were continually making runs for each other and playing as a team. I know it's early days yet, but it made me momentarily feel smug about my prediction that the Spanish would win the whole thing. The match was definitely marred by the ridiculous penalty and sending off... the most ludicrous call I've seen so far in the finals. Apparently, the Ukranians intend to blame their poor play--and click on this link if you even think for a millisecond that I am making this up--on some loud frogs.

But even as they are stymied by Spain and amorous amphibians, Ukraine have got to feel good that the Islam Bowl ended in a 2-2 draw. I watched the first half of this only, and was little impressed by either side. I thought the Tunisians had a touch more class about them, but not really enough to get out of the group, as I had picked them to do. The draw favors the Saudis, who will get to play the demoralized Ukraine next and save their Spanish mauling for the end, when the Spanish might be comfortable enough to send out their B team (i.e. Raul up front.) Anyway, a shame I missed the second half because the ending was quite dramatic. Unfortunately, the draw helps neither team.

You know, the G1 vs H2 round of 16 game is going to be a real crapshoot. That's where you could get an unfancied team reaching the quarters.

The second set of games got underway with Germany's last gasp 1-0 victory over Poland. Reading the Guardian's minute-by-minute report, you'd have thought this one to be a stinker, but really it was very watchable, played at a breakneck tempo, even if the quality wasn't always there. To their credit, Poland really came out to play, and looked several times better than they did against Ecuador. The substitution of Odonkor for Friedrich seemed to be the key; it brought Schweinsteiger inside and provided acres of space for Odonkor to operate (later, Klinsmann replaced Schweinsteiger with central mid Borowski, and gave Odonkor even more space.) It was just a matter of time before he produced a moment of quality, although it came with seconds left.

Some news of note for tomorrow's games. It looks like Rooney really will play against T&T. This, for me, seems like a fundamentally bad idea, but who am I to question Sven-Goran Eriksson's sound footballing judgement? (For those not familiar with the England team over the last six years, that was sarcasm.)

Also, it looks like Olaf Mellberg and Freddie Ljungberg have been fighting again, which, you may recall, they did in 2002 as well. We can only dream that there is footage as hilarious as there was last time round, when Ljungberg wildly tackled Olaf, who promptly grabbed him by the throat. Good times.

The pain from Spain falls mainly on Ukraine

2006-06-14T10:53:00.000-04:00

What's scary is that they never really reached top gear. Ouch.

USA post-mortem

2006-06-13T18:23:00.000-04:00

And rarely has the term "post-mortem" been more apropos, as the US coaching staff tries to bring themselves back from the dead in group E. The state of the US camp is best conveyed by Steve Goff in his report today in the Post, which you should definitely read if you haven't already done so. The money quote, re: DaMarcus Beasley:

"If he's any kind of player and man, he understands [that he did not perform well]," [Arena] said. "If he doesn't, he's not going to be able to help us in Games 2 or 3, either." (Emphasis mine)

Youch.

So what changes will Arena bring in? Reading between the lines, I don't think he will mess with the back four. Arena said that "[d]efensively we actually played quite well," and I'm not sure you really get any value in replacing Pope or Lewis with someone else. The only change I could possibly see here would be Chris Albright, but I think Arena will resist it for the time being.

It's hard not to get a sense from the interview that Beasley will be benched for Italy. My guess is that Convey will remain in the left of midfield. On the right, I think it's time to unleash Clint Dempsey upon an unsuspecting world. He's totally untested at this level, but he has the strength and energy the US will need in this match.

My second guess is that Johnson will start alongside McBride, with Mastroeni being benched and Reyna as the sole defensive midfielder. I'm not sure what I think of such a switch, because we play better with someone suporting Reyna in the center. But we need goals, and in getting them, we'll have to take a chance in the back. If this happens, Reyna will need to play destroyer as much as provider.

We'll see if we get more hints as the week progresses.

Match Day Five Review

2006-06-13T17:00:00.000-04:00

The least compelling day so far, I'd say; there was some good flowing soccer at points, but there was a lot of choppiness and imprecision.

The big winner of the day was certainly South Korea, who not only got the must-win victory over Togo, but also exactly the result they wanted from the France-Switzerland match. For all their supposed chaos, the Togolese looked very spirited and organized, at least until the second half, when they had a problem coping with the Koreans' speed on the ball. Obviously the red card and subsequent goal was the turning point, after which it was only a matter of time before the Koreans used their space to take the advantage. It was kind of cool that Ahn Jung-hwan, the floppy haired striker who did so well in 2002, scored the winner from a very nice strike.

In a result that anyone living under a rock for the last five years might have called an upset, France drew Switzerland 0-0. Raymond Domenech decided to play Franck Ribéry, but he did so on the left of a 4-5-1 system that really ill-suits France. First off, Thierry Henry is not the best solo striker in this kind of set up (although admittedly he pulled it off a few times for Arsenal this year), since he likes to pull wide to the left and dribble at defenders at pace. I'm really not sure that Zidane is the ideal attacking midfielder for this formation either. Eventually Domenech brought on Saha, but it made little difference.

Frankly, I think Domenech is going to have to make a hard decision and drop either Zidane, Vieira or Makelele. Zidane simply is not playing well, but my guess is that he's basically untouchable. I'd therefore take out either Makelele or Vieira, who basically just get in each others' way anyway, and play either Saha or Trezeguet alongside Henry. I think maybe bringing someone a bit better than Wiltord on the right might help... perhaps Dhorasoo?

Honestly, I think Korea are going to fancy their chances against this French team on the 18th.

And then, the long awaited Brazil-debut. There were flashes of the kind of skill that make them the fantasy figures of so many hardcore soccer-geeks, but overall, they were not all that, and will look to improve against group leaders (?!) Australia this weekend. The Crouton defense kept them at bay fairly easily for much of the match, aided by the fact that Ronaldo was essentially immobile and that a frustated Adriano kept checking back to midfield to get a touch of the ball. They need a moment of individual brilliance, and fortunately they got it from Kaka, who, goal notwithstanding, was Brazil's most influential player. To their credit, Croatia played them tough and generated some chances, but as time went on, you could see they were simply too knackered to pull off the comeback.

UPDATE: Re: France, the writer of this AP article pulls no punches in the headline. Most amusing.

A more profound Match day 4 review

2006-06-12T22:55:00.000-04:00

After the US game I went and had a nice multi-hour sulk. Consequently, I missed the Italian victory over Ghana. As revenge for this transgression, the demigod who looks out for Italian interests made sure that the pasta I ate gave me a righteous stomach ache in the evening. A more prosaic explanation is that it was not a good idea to eat so soon after my stomach was in knots.

First off, credit to Australia for their last minute victory over Japan. It was a cracking game, played at a nice tempo and it really could have gone either way. I disagree with fourth-string commentators Davis and Messing about the "obvious" foul on Schwarzer for the Japan goal; it seemed like Schwarzer made a right mess of it, advancing when he shouldn't have and running into the Japanese attacker. In any case, the Australians were absolutely gutsy when it counted most, especially Tim Cahill, who was half-crocked. I really don't think they will get out of this group, but they will go down fighting.

So were the Czechs that good or the US that bad? The truth is always somewhere in between; I would put it at 25% the former 75 % the latter. Certainly, the US were the worst team I've seen play so far. The Koller goal was a breakdown on every portion of the pitch. I don't think Onyewu was really to blame for the brilliance of Rosicky on the second. But throughout the match, Mastroeni and Reyna were overrun by Koller and Rosicky.

Offensively, we looked half-hearted and hesitant. Everyone was useless and there was a general lack of creativity. The Czech defense were rarely bothered by the one-on-one talents of Donovan, Beasley or Convey.

Simply put, we played terribly and were therefore dominated. Easily the worst performance since the Iran game in 1998, and perhaps worse than that, since in that match we could somewhat legitimately claimed bad luck. Reyna's shot could have gone in, but it would have been a patently undeserved equalizer, and one suspects it wouldn't have changed the end result.

Arena publicly ripped into his players after the game, which I'm never a big fan of coaches doing, but I can't help but agree with him this time. (A curiously scrubbed post-match chat sheet is on the USSF website.) Steve Goff catches Beasley ripping back. So much for our pre-Cup amity.

I'm guessing Arena will ring in a few changes for the Italy game, but I'll save the speculation for a new post tomorrow.

US vs Czech Republic review

2006-06-12T14:18:00.000-04:00

Utter crap.

US vs Czechs preview

2006-06-11T23:57:00.000-04:00

Here's the ASN preview, courtesy of yours truly. For a fine discussion of the czech options, see this forum on SAGexile, the thinking fan's alternative to Big Soccer.

My stomach is in knots, so I'm going to try and get some sleep now.

Match Day Three review

2006-06-11T23:10:00.000-04:00

Are they even calling them "Match Days?" I think I stole that from the Champions League.

Never mind, I'd rather do this than write about each match individually (I'll do that in the knockout stage.) Especially since I don't really have much to say about Postcolonial Bowl I. Portugal looked pretty bad after the first ten minutes or so, but Angola didn't have the class to hurt them, or the ambition to try something radical like play two strikers. It was pretty tame, the worst game so far. And to think their last match had four people sent off. Never mind, perhaps Togo will kick France in le nuts collectif.

The ESPN commentators were bandying around a rumor that the rest of the Dutch squad was displeased with Arjen Robben's ball-hogging during their 1-0 victory over Serbia-and-until-very-recently-Montenegro. I suspect that this might have just been Ruud van Nistelroy being bitchy, because very clearly the strategy was to look for Robben at every opportunity and have him unsettle the S&M (yes, ha-ha) defense. Snieder and Cocu would hold the ball just enough to draw pressure, so that they could play Robben through in space. It was one-dimensional, but when you're one dimension is an in-form Robben, who needs more?

But will that strategy work against better opposition than the Serbs? I think against Argentina they might want to have other options in the attack as well. One thing I would do is shift Van Persie slightly so that he plays behind Van Nistelrooy, rather than to his right. VP had a great combo with Robben on the goal, but generally they were too far apart on the field.

So much for my prediction that Iran would beat Mexico. But up until the 75th minute it was looking pretty good. Iran was, I felt, the more dangerous team for much of the first half, and when La Volpe burned through all his subs by minute 50, I really thought Iran would take them.

But around about the 55th minute, something weird happened. Iran held back from their pressuring and started to lay off the Mexicans and let them play. When Iran did get possession, they did not commit numbers forward. By the 70th minute I was thoroughly perplexed. Here was a game that they really had the ability to get a result in. Were they tired out?

I don't think so. I think they were just told to play for the draw. Which was the worse thing they could have done, because it gave the initiative back to a Mexico team who really were a bit rattled. With the time to settle down, they applied some pressure and waited for the Iranian defense to blunder. They didn't have to go gung-ho in the attack, but they needed to keep possession by making themselves available for the ball, and to disrupt the Mexicans by defending high up the field. When both those things stopped, the team caved. It was either exhaustion or a shocking bit of coaching by Branko Ivankovic.

UPDATE: In comments, donjuego thinks I don't give enough credit to Lavolpe's second-half tactics, and is absolutely right when he says that Lavolpe's switch to counterpunching proved to be critical. My point was that to have success against a counterpunching team, you can do one of two things: you can either A) punch more strongly or B) lay off altogether and pack the defense. The Iranians did the absolutely wrong thing, which was to try something halfway between the two. As a result, when they were in possession, they didn't commit enough numbers forward, when the Mexicans were giving them space. Consequently they gave up the ball easily, and those who did commit upfield didn't bother pressuring. In any case, Zinho did a nice job of dissecting the Iranian defense and might have done so even if they were more disciplined.

Useless + 10

2006-06-11T11:53:00.000-04:00

Let's talk commercials for a moment while I wait for Mexico-Iran to start. You've undoubtedly seen the Adidas + 10 ads where the two kids play a pick-up match with a bunch of stars. In one version, Jose selects Beckenbauer, and lo! a digitized version of Der Kaiser appears. In the other version, the other kid picks Michel Platini and the same thing happens.

Anyway, in the second version the other kid distinctly picks... Jermain Defoe. At first I thought I misheard, but when I saw it a second time, yeah it was definitely Jermain Defoe.

WTF? If you had the entire history of football from which to pick your squad, would you pick Jermain Defoe in your first 11? In your first 111? I'm so betting on Jose.

Match Day Two review

2006-06-10T19:01:00.000-04:00

It looked like it was going to be so easy in the first five minutes of England's 1-0 victory over Paraguay. They had been scoring those kind of free kick goals over and over in last two friendlies, and the Paraguayans looked simply shellshocked. In a way, I think losing their goalkeeper to injury actually helped, because the long break allowed them to get their heads together.

When they resumed play, it was a different match. Paraguay was applying high pressure to the English when they were in possession and disrupted the play nicely, causing many--too many--turnovers. The problem is that there was really not much they could do when they got the ball. Roque Santa Cruz was simply unfit. Nelson Valdez was energetic, but not really classy. Parades dove a lot.

By the middle of the second half, the English were too beat to do anything but defend. They needed to get the ball on the ground and dribble at the Paraguayans to get some free kicks, but their constant giveaways and a recalcitrant referee really stymied that possibility. The English press are going to get hot and bothered by this result, but frankly, a win is a win, and a win with no major injuries or red cards is even better. It could have been a lot worse.

Which brings us to Sweden. There are certain games between putatively mismatched teams where you're sure the so-called "better" team is not going to find a way to score, and there are games between mismatched teams where you just know the weaker team is going to cave. I really thought that this match was going to be one of the latter, up until injury time. That it wasn't was down in large part to Shaka Hislop, who really put in the game of his life. And did you ever think Dwight Yorke could be such an effective defender?

Personally, I put it all down to Christian Wilhelmsson's unpleasantly 80s hair. Rarely have the mullet and the rattail been combined to such nauseating effect.

Intriguingly, this makes the last match of the group stage meaningful for both teams. Trinidad will feel they stand a chance against Paraguay, and Sweden may be in a must-win situation against England, especially if they draw the Paraguay match, which could well happen.

I only saw the last 60 minutes of Argentina-Ivory Coast, but it was clear that Riquelme was the player of the game. Everything went through him, and the Ivorians simply had no answer in the midfield. It was tempting fate for Pekerman to being off Crespo and Saviola so soon, but after a rocky ten mintues where they gave up that Drogba goal, they were back in control.

Soccer smarts

2006-06-10T18:52:00.000-04:00

As someone who's recently acquired a graduate degree, I couldn't help but be interested in Slate's article on how soccer is the new game for young American male intellectuals. Best sentence:

There's also a frisson of underworld glamour in soccer writing.

And oh, I'm feelin' it.

Match Day One review

2006-06-10T08:46:00.000-04:00

Normally, of course, opening day matches are low-scoring games. But they're often funny results, with Senegal beating France last time and (best of all) cameroon dispatching Argentina in 1990. Yesterday's match was neither low-scoring nor an upset.

Watching that first Lahm goal provided me one those thrills that only international soccer can provide. Four minutes in, so much tension, and the left back--the left back!--provides a total golazo. Whatever you think of the German team, Klinsmann's reaction was wonderful.

So are the Germans that good or the Ticos that bad? The ESPN team kept hammering on about Germany's new offensive strategy, but the problem isn't that they were playing too little defense, it's that the defense they were playing was executed poorly. Both times (yes, Marcelo Balboa, both times) Friedrich was a step off on the outside trap.

Mind you Costa Rica also had two defensive howlers, both on the Klose goals. Take away all the defensive blunders and it would have been 2-0 Germany on two monumental goals.

Ronald Gomez looked pretty useless. I really think they should have brought Winston Parks.

As for Poland-Ecuador... a friend of mine is Polish and in 2002 I had a great deal of fun mocking her team's ineptitude (until they beat the USA, at which point I had a fair amount of crow to eat.) Looks like 2006 will bring more of the same from Poland. Ecuador had a classic counterpunching game plan and executed it perfectly.

England-Paraguay in a few minutes, so I'm going to wrap this up. More later today,

The night before

2006-06-08T23:35:00.000-04:00

What can I say? It all starts tomorrow and I am thoroughly excited.

The big news for the hosts is that Michael Ballack has been ruled out of the opener with the Ticos due to a calf injury. (I'd hyperlink it, but the appropriate buttons seem to be unavailable to me for the time being.) I think this makes doodle-squat worth of difference, and the hosts will win more or less comfortably. Poland vs Ecuador tomorrow is a fascinating match-up; both teams will feel they can and must win this match. I think it's going to be a jittery error-filled encounter and a probably a draw.

So while we're at it, here are my quite ill-informed pre-tournament predictions:

Group A: Germany and Poland. Too many factors are going against Ecuadro and Costa Rica, and I think Poland will make it through this group.

Group B: England and Sweden. It won't be a formality before the final game; I think Paraguay can pick up a point off Sweden. But the Swedes always do well against the English, and I think another draw will carry them through.

Group C: Holland and Argentina. S & formerly M are all defense and no bite. Ivory Coast will battle valiantly to no avail.

Group D: Portugal and Iran. You read it here first: Iran stuffs Mexico in their opener, Their squad is experienced, comfortable playing in Europe and well coached. A subsequent win against Angola pulls Iran through to the last 16, leaving us with the prospect of a European visit from Ahmadinejad.

Group E: USA and Czech Republic. And really what were you expecting? Italy gets held by Ghana in the first game and beaten by US and Czechs. Yeah, you know you want it,

Group F: Brazil and Croatia, Three Brazil wins and a buttload of draws. Croatia on goals scored.

Group G: South Korea and France. The conventional wisdom on this Korea squad is that they don't travel well, but I don't see how this group can hurt them. The French class of 1998 will scrape through this, but will be eliminated in the 16.

Group H: Spain and Tunisia, The Tunisians will be your African team of the year. They can beat the Ukraine, and they'll have a nice draw in the round of 16 (perhaps a tasty postcolonial encounter with the French!) The Spanish coast.

And the final will be...

Spain beats Holland. I liked the Dutch a lot formerly, but I think their injury issues will hurt their long-term cohesion. Everyone is going to assume that Spain will bottle it this year as they always do. But they have a world-class side, have had promising results and a virtual coast through to the quarterfinals. I say they win it and beat Brazil along the way.

I'll be trying to post brief match reports for every match I catch, which will be... well, all of them. So good night, and enjoy tomorrow's games!

Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft

2006-06-08T00:22:00.000-04:00

I just saw the FSC coverage of the US making friends in Hamburg, attending a city ceremony in their honor and giving a shirt to the mayor. Good for them. (They did better than Australia, who apparently dissed a similar event at Oehringen.) These players and coaches are ambassadors of our country and it's good to see them being gracious guests.

It'll be interesting to see how the German neutrals in the crowd (who will be the majority in every match) will support the Americans. In Korea, another country with a large US military presence, they were loathed. On one hand, the US are underdogs and Germans know many of the US players, on the other hand... well... George W. Bush. So we'll see.

Please don't foul me

2006-06-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

The anointed star of this World Cup, if you haven't noticed, is clearly Ronaldinho. His toothy mug is all over the media, including the New York Times Cup special last Sunday. Earlier today, he made a plea for strict refereeing when the tournament starts, because he fears that he and his Brazilian chums will be the target of repeated fouling.

He didn't say it, but my guess is that Ronaldinho is really worried about Australia. Last weekend, they hacked their way to a 1-1 draw with the Netherlands in a "friendly" match that left three Dutch players injured. Clearly, Guus Hiddink's plan for Brazil is to disrupt them as much as possible, and weather the free kick storm that will ensue. It sure won't be jogo bonito, but that sort of strategy sometimes works.

Rooney and Cisse

2006-06-07T21:26:00.000-04:00

Ack, it's been a frustrating day here at the Conspiracy. Blogger was down during the day, and then a storm sent down my DSL, which made it difficult to follow the two important stories of the day:

First off, today was the day of Wayne Rooney's metatarsal scan in Manchester. The official results will be announced tomorrow, but Rooney, who left the hospital with an obvious smile on his face, took a plane to Germany in the evening to rejoin the English squad at Baden Baden, a pretty clear sign that he's been given the go-ahead to play in the World Cup. Indicators are that he'll be ready for the knockout stage, but apparently Erikson is toying with the idea of giving him some playing time against Sweden.

What makes this saga so fascinating is the undisguised animosity between the FA and Rooney's club Manchester United. Apparently there was two hours of disagreement between England and Man U doctors over interpreting the scan and what precisely it means. And according to the article I linked above, Alex Ferguson is consideringlegal action against the FA if Rooney gets injured again. In other words, this saga is about more than Rooney's chances of playing in the Cup; it is a new front in the ongoing club vs. country war.

The other news is bad for France. Djibril Cisse broke his leg in a 3-1 victory over China today and is out of the Cup. It's a terrible blow for Cisse right on the verge of the World Cup. But it's also a blow for France who were probably going to start him alongside Thierry Henry. That role will probably fall to David Trezeguet, whom I've always felt was a bit pants, but who has apparently scored truckloads of goals when I haven't been watching.

No word yet on who Cisse's replacement will be. France have about 27 hours to decide, before the squads are locked. They already have a bunch of strikers on the squad, so it could be a midfielder... Ludovic Giuly perhaps?

UPDATE: No, it's Sidney Govou, who subbed in at Euro 04 as well.

Double super secret background

2006-06-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile, over in the American camp, weird things are happening. Not merely content with having a closed-door warm-up match against Angola, Bruce Arena demanded this his team wear plain shirts to obsucre the players' identities and asked that his players not talk too much about what happened.

According to reports, the US won 1-0 courtesy of a Brian McBride headed goal. Here's what else we know.

Reyna played, and was apparently influential.

Angola had a player sent off at the end of the first half.

Tim Howard played in goal in the second half

Eddie Lewis played a little at left back and left mid.

After the game, Arena denied he was getting all secret agent-y:

"Angola was just practice," he said after a training session opened to the public. "Why should it be open? We don't have the public facilities for people to be there. We're playing with 15 players.

"It's a pretty simple game. There will be no secrets in the tournament. We all know each other."

Clearly though, Arena is keen to ensure that group E spies don't check them out too closely beforehand. This could be just some mind games. I do wonder, however, if the detail that Lewis played in midfield is a sign that we experimented with a 3-5-2, which would, frankly, be something of a surprise.

Meanwhile, Arena's caginess about lineups and tactics also applies internally. As Steve Goff reports, DaMarcus Beasley is getting a little frustrated about not knowing whether or not he'll be starting against the Czechs:

"It's a little irritating not to know, but I think Bruce is going to have some decisions to make."

It's hardly a 1998 style player revolt, but it is the first sign of any discontent I've seen so far in the US camp.

England vs. D'Yer Maker

2006-06-06T13:53:00.000-04:00

Took the opportunity of the last free weekend before the World Cup to do some housecleaning, but I did manage to catch England's 6-0 demolition of Jamaica on Saturday.

Obviously, one would do well to remember the quality of the opponents (The US dusted Jamaica 5-0 at almost the exact time before the Cup four years ago.*), but England was confident and comfortable. Beckham looked in good form once again and Gerrard played well in central midfield with Lampard. And Peter Crouch looks, well, great. (Aside from the missed penalty.) Quality of the defense notwithstanding, he was accurate on his shooting and passing and positioned himself fantastically, making runs at the right time. Maybe he will be the English hero for this World Cup.

Meanwhile, Wayne Rooney--remember him? He was two English heroes ago-- is back in training with the team, and was spotted executing a scissors kick, by photographers from The Sun. English fans are now officially excited.

* Check out the Sams Army team rating of the Jamaica game I linked to. Now remember today's date. I swear I didn't do that on purpose... maybe Satan is coming after all.

Friday is for friendlies

2006-06-02T17:09:00.000-04:00

Two big ones today.

Germany beat Colombia 3-0 in what was apparently a lively and confident performance. Just as the win over America in March erased the hangover of a previous loss to Italy, so will this ameliorate that tie with Japan earlier in the week. With as much of a battering as this team has gone through in the home press, this was an important result to achieve in order to get some stability for that Costa Rica game in a week's time.

And Italy were held 0-0 by Ukraine. It stretches their unbeaten run to five matches, says the wire report jauntily, but surely this is another disappointing result for the Italians, who looked so good until fairly recently.

Man, I would so totally take 0-0 against the Italians on the 17th. But maybe I'm being too pessimistic.

Insert "scoring" pun here

2006-06-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

This story is odd. Paraguay midfielder Clarence Acuna apparently tried to secure a--ahem--date with a Swedish photographer by having his translator call her in the middle of the night. (His translator! That reminds me of the episode in the first Blackadder series where a Spanish princess communicates with a translator during an amorous tryst with Baldrick.) Apparently, she reported him, and now he faces a ban from FIFA.

Taking the story at face value and assuming Acuna did nothing abusive or illegal, why precisely does FIFA have the authority to ban him? Put quite bluntly, it's hardly any of their business what the players get up to at night, provided it's not illegal. Acuna's coaching staff should decide what penalties, if any, he should incur.

2006-06-02T11:20:00.000-04:00

Jere Longman has an optimistic assessment of the Czech team this morning, suggesting that they are too old, too injured, and too defensively brittle. I confess that I've thought all those things over the past year, but I also fear that I could be dead wrong. The combination of Nedved and Rosicky will be the toughest part to handle.

Meanwhile, as John Nicholson reminds us, everyone's World Cup prep has sucked in some way.

England

2006-06-02T00:19:00.000-04:00

The New York Times generally has abysmal soccer coverage, but a couple of days back they ran a nice summary article of the England team, which you should check out. (I found this courtesy of their rivals at USA Today, whose SoccerSweep blog you should also check out.)

Ewwww...

2006-06-01T23:47:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of those free-lovin' hippies at the California base of Soccer America comes this report that Michael Ballack and Oliver Kahn threatened to sue a German sex shop for marketing vibrators with their names on them. Kudos to the crack SA editorial staff for not omitting the crucial details about the size of the offending objects.

What strikes me as bizarre about this story is this: why would anyone think that the endorsement of Oliver Kahn would encourage people to buy a sex toy? I mean, seriously, Kahn has to be one of the least sexiest humans ever. Just look at the guy:

Aroused yet? Thought not. If you passed legislation requiring his picture to be displayed in every bedroom in the world, the human race would die out in a generation.

UPDATE: But at least one attractive young woman disagrees with me:

Perhaps it's his stylish striped shirts.

Beer and madelines, more like

2006-06-01T23:27:00.000-04:00

The aforementioned Angus MacKinnon is now officially my favorite wire agency soccer writer. Not only does the title of his article on Joe Cole project upon the diminutive Chelsea and England midfielder moments of Proustian anamnesis, he also describes Cole's improved defensive skills to a "Damascene conversion." Maybe I could get MacKinnon to guest blog for the Conspiracy.

Panic on the streets of...

2006-06-01T22:34:00.000-04:00

... Munich and Milan, as Germany and Italy can only garner draws against putatively inferior opponents: 2-2 with Japan and 1-1 with Switzerland respectively.

Japan were two up with a quarter hour left against the Germans, who managed to scrounge two
late goals. The result has rekindled the fires of criticism that have been buring Jurgen Klinsmann's feet for months now.

The Italian situation is difficult to diagnose. There are rumors that the match fixing scandal are affecting morale in the Italian camp, but it's worth remembering that Italy always looks listless and unimpressive at the start of major tournaments. Sometimes, they continue to look so once the tournaments are under way, but quite often they don't. And sometimes they whine when results don't go their way, and so it was against the Swiss, whose tackling was too rough for the sensitive flowers of the Azzurri

England-Hungary

2006-06-01T00:18:00.000-04:00

The British press seemed to think it was all a bit miserable, but I was impressed with England's 3-1 victory over Hungary. (Note on the link: how did a man named Angus MacKinnon get to cover England games?) After a boring first thirty minutes, the English controlled the entire game. Owen is still not in form, but this is only the third real match he's played snice coming back from injury.

The match was a reminder of why David Beckham is so important to this team. It may be difficult for those outside of the UK to believe, but quite a lot of fans have called for Beckham to be replaced over the last cycle. Not only did he set up the two goals, but his dangerous crossing and set pieces generated all of England's quality chances, with the exception of the Crouch goal, which came from Joe Cole on the left. Beckham won't beat anyone on the dribble a la Aaron Lennon, but when he's on his game he can shatter opposing defenses.

The Peter Crouch goal was very impressive, and I wonder if we're going to see Sven try pairing him with Owen from the start against Jamaica. And while the purists may scoff, I enjoyed his Kraftwerkian goal celebration. With their proud history of skepticism towards stuffy British institutions, it's no surprise that the Guardian liked it too.

P.S. I share a birthday with Steven Gerrard! Thank god it's not with Jermaine Jenas.

Fickle French Fans

2006-05-30T14:06:00.000-04:00

Despite having booed their team during their winning send-off match in the Stade de France, apparently over half of French fans think their team will reach the semis. Confusing.

However, there is a factor that I didn't mention during my last French post, which is that one boo-ee, Fabien Barthez, plays for Marseille, hated enemy of local team Paris Saint-Germain. Still, if you're going to let your club preferences influence you so much, then why would you bother going to a national team match in the first place. And Dhorasoo plays for PSG, so maybe there's something else going on here.

Another interesting wire article provides some context for French failure at World Cup 2002. Their story seems remarkably similar to the US story in 1998.

More friendlies today, including England-Hungary, which is on TV in the US on FSC. So far, the Czechs have beaten Costa Rica 1-0, and Poland has unimpressively lost at home 1-2 to Colombia, who aren't even participating in the Cup. Group A is looking more and more cupcake-y with every passing day.

Sweet cruelty

2006-05-30T00:13:00.000-04:00

No matter who you support, it's always a terrible thing when someone can't go to the World Cup because of injury.

Wait, did I just say "always?" My bad. I meant "mostly." Because there are those rare occasions when someone picks up a heartbreaking injury that prevents Cup participation and it's just thoroughly awesome.

Handball, my ass. Or rather, Gregg Berhalter's chest.

Weekend results

2006-05-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

My internet at home has been going a bit wonky, so I haven't been posting quite as much as I would have hoped on the subject of the weekend friendlies, a couple of which I was able to watch:

France 1-0 Mexico. This was really the marquee match of the weekend. It was a tense, coiled affair, the sort of match that seems like it was always on the brink of bursting into life, only to settle down when the players remembered this was a warm-up and they shouldn't get injured. Florent Malouda scored a nice winner before halftime, although I was perplexed by his auto-erotic nipple-stimulation goal celebration.

What amazed me about the match was how utterly useless Zinedine Zidane was. Everyone has a bad game from time to time, but Zizou, who earned his 100th cap, was awful. Every pass he made was misdirected (Seriously. Every pass. I stopped keeping track after five in a row.) It's almost as if he thought right before the game "Wouldn't it be funny if I played like a total yutz in my last game in the Stade de France." It was so unbelieveable that it must be an aberration; his World Cup has got to be better than that.

Somewhat classlessly and perplexingly, the French crowd booed their own players, even while they were winning. Amongst the victims were coach Raymond Domenech, midfielder Vikash Dhorasoo, and keeper Fabien Barthez (okay, in his case I can kind of understand.) Understandably, the players are pissed off. Win notwithstanding, it hasn't been a good week for the French team.

Portugal 4-1 Cape Verde Islands. Through geographic proximity to a sizable Portuguese community, I get RTPI, and therefore get to see most Portuguese national team games. Not too much to tell here; Portugal understandably dominated, although they still look vulnerable on defense sometimes, even with a wholly revamped backline from the one Brian McBride laughed at in 2002. That said, it's worth mentioning how much better this team is than the 2002 version. They have Deco, they have Cristiano Ronaldo, they have Maniche... this team is not going out in the first round, and indeed they could go very far.

Matches I didn't see:

Ukraine 4-0 Costa Rica. I knew the Ticos don't travel well, but damn.... If a Shevchenko-less Ukraine smacks you like this, you're doing something pretty wrong. Bet they wish they hadn't fired Steve Sampson now!

Ghana 4-1 Jamaica. The tone of the wire articles on this one suggest this was a sign of the danger of the Ghanian team. Perhaps, but I think it's also a sign of an off-season Jamaican team on vacation. (Just like they were in Cary, North Carolina, right? Touche.)

Germany 7-0 Luxembourg. So the Luxemburgers didn't win after all. Poopie. Defender Robert Huth twisted an ankle in this one, by the way.

Croatia 2-2 Iran. And Croatia only got the draw on a last-minute penalty. Iran will pose problems this year.

US-Latvia

2006-05-29T15:55:00.000-04:00

... match report is here, penned by yours truly.

All in all, as comfortable a victory as 1-0 is ever going to get. It was fascinating to see both teams collectively run out of gas at about minute 70 and watch the match come to a grinding halt, but that's just fine with me; an 89th minute injury to McBride or somebody would have been too much to bear. Really, the dynamic of these games is excrutiating. You want your team to play hard, but every tackle makes you wince, much more so than opposing shots on goal.

Steve Goff at the Post presents a set of unresolved questions from these three matches:

· Has the oft-injured John O'Brien, who absorbed several hard challenges without incident Sunday, displayed enough endurance to regain the prominent role he held four years ago? And if so, where would he play?

· Is Landon Donovan more effective as a scheming midfielder or a withdrawn forward?

· Has the enigmatic Eddie Johnson earned Arena's trust to start alongside McBride on the front line?

· And what to do with team captain Claudio Reyna, currently sidelined with a hamstring injury?

Here are my guesses based on these three matches.

1) I think JOB will be primarily used as a sub. You want to have Mastroeni in the center of the field and you need to have Reyna. That leaves little room for JOB, assuming the other two are fit. If Mastroeni or Reyna have knocks, JOB plays.

2) I think he's more effective in the midfield, but I think it will be determined based on who the fifth attacking player in the lineup would be. If it's Convey or Dempsey, he's up front. If it's Johnson, he's in midfield.

3) I really don't know. I think McBride and Johnson, with Donovan behind, gives opposing defenses a lot more to think about than any other configuration. But is Johnson in enough form? Personally, I would take the gamble.

4) If he's fit he plays.

UPDATE: In his match report, Grahame Jones eschews optimism and instead traffics in his trademark crabbiness.

Much better

2006-05-28T12:34:00.000-04:00

... play from the US, as they beat Venezuela 2-0 on Friday night. It was hardly perfect--there were a few clear chances squandered and a couple of bumpy patches. But overall it was never uncomfortable; you never got the impression that the Venezuelans were ever going to win this game. And the increased energy from all participants was heartening.

Bobby Convey was clearly one of the stars on Friday. I wonder how close he is getting to taking DaMarcus Beasley's starting position in the attacking midfield. Convey was beating players on the dribble, crossing well, and generally being unpredictable, while Beasley's eprformances for the national team have been fairly anemic. The Beas will probably get his chance tongiht against Latvia, but if it doesn't work for him, it's possible that Convey could be starting against the czechs on June 12th.

The thing I thought was the worst aspect of the AMericans performance was their center midfield. Olsen did not impose himself as much as he should have, either as a ballwinner or a holding midfielder. And Josh Wolff as an attacking midfielder is a work in progress.

Tonight, Arena's starting options are limited, since he'll want to rely on those who played on Friday as little as possible. Also, Berhalter won't play, since he isn't yet match fit. I'd expect Lewis, Cherundulo, Pope and either Conrad or Bocanegra in the back, O'Brien, Beasley, Donovan and Mastroeni in the midfield, and McBride and Johnson up front. I'd expect Wolff and Onyewu, who started both the previous matches, to be rested, but the others will sub in as needed.

US-Venezuela tonight

2006-05-26T13:31:00.000-04:00

Thank god this match isn't in the World Cup itself, or it'd be the excuse for rampant Hugo Chavez chest beating.

Following their poor performance against Morocco, the US should really be up for this. I'm guessing you'll see a totally different backline tonight: perhaps Lewis, Bocanegra, Conrad and Albright. Ben Olsen, and Clint Dempsey should also see some time. I wouldn't be shocked to see Jphn O'Brien, who so badly needs match sharpness, in another 45-60 minute outing. Perhaps Brian Ching and Eddie Johnson will be given a chance in the front line.

The big news from the US camp this week is that Cory Gibbs is out of the squad with a knee injury; apparently, his right knee just started swelling up after the Morocco match, and it will take potentially weeks to settle. It's terrible news for Gibbs, whose Feyenoord career was essentially scuppered by a similar injury last year. He's unsurprisingly replaced by Gregg Berhalter, who brings a very similar skill set to Gibbs: he's a left-footed central defender who will play left back if you need him to. Berhalter has been in form for Energie Cottbus, who just got promoted to the Bundesliga, and he should be very comfortable in Germany.

The main thing the US loses here is Gibbs's speed; Berhalter isn't nearly as quick. I think this also makes it increasingly likely that Pope is the first-choice partner for Onyewu in Germany.

B is for bad

2006-05-26T13:19:00.000-04:00

Or perhaps "bizarre". Both adjectives could equally be applied to England B's 2-1 loss to Belarus yesterday.

It was an odd little match. On the play that led to Jermaine Jenas's goal for England, Michael Owen was a mile offside, but it went unnoticed. There was as blatant a handball as you'll ever see that when uncalled. but weirder still was the first Belarus goal. England keeper Robert Green badly shanked the ball straight to an opposing player, falling to the ground in agony as he did so, whereupon the Belarussian striker calmly (and perhaps unsportingly) shot the ball into an empty net. Green, who was only the third choice England keeper, is now out of the World Cup.

Overall. England looked like they were sleeping through this game. Tons of misplaced passes, and a general sense of torpor about the England midfield and backline. Carrick and Jenas alwys seemed to me to be a bit far away from their strikers; Owen and Crouch were constantly tracking back.

The two bright spots were Crouch, who generally looked dangerous, and Aaron Lennon, who tormented the visitor's defense all night long. Eventually, the defender marking Lennon clearly just gave up and started wantonly fouling him, a strategy that hilariously brought him two yellow cards in a matter of seconds. And Theo Walcott did have some time at the end of the match; he had one nice volley and a few good moments, but really Lennon was the star. The problem is that Lennon plays in David Beckham's position, so there's virtually no chance he will start. I'd look for him to be inserted in games at around the 70 minute mark; against tired defenders, he could be truly monumental.

French bizarreness

2006-05-24T16:53:00.000-04:00

It's been a weird week for the French squad. Some of the weirdness was unintentional, but some has been self-inflicted.

Earlier this week, Patrick Vieira was gassed by burglars who were robbing his house in the Cote d'Azur. Apparently, the thieves managed to pump gas into the house to keep the Vieira family sleeping while they took valuables. Best wishes to Vieira and his wife and daughter as they recover from the attack.

And today, the French squad hiked on an Alpine glacier as a team-bonding exercise. Apparently, coach Raymond Domenech thought the difficult hike, in which players were roped together, would be a good way to generate team spirit, but it seems to me like a good way to get your entire squad wiped out by an avalanche. Fortunately, nothing like that happened, but surprise!--one of the players picked up a calf injury in the hike. The good news for France is that it was just Fabien Barthez who got hurt; maybe they'll be forced to actually start a real keeper against Switzerland.

UPDATE: More nuttiness! Backup keeper Gregory Coupet just stormed out of camp briefly. Reason unknown... you'd think he'd be happy Barthez hurt his calf. Hmm... you think maybe Coupet tried to push him off the glacier or something? Awesome!

Reyna's hamstring injury...

2006-05-24T16:51:00.000-04:00

... is not serious, according to Chris Cowles of Reuters. Great news... but it's looking like he'll miss the last two friendlies.

Rode by Morocco

2006-05-24T11:41:00.000-04:00

Hmmm. Well, once again that was a pretty poor performance by the United States. Match report here.

Arena's postgame tip of the hat to their opponents was deserved. They did an excellent job of breaking up attacks through the center and they played very quickly when they had to. This being said, we never got to them down the flanks enough, which is odd since we came out in that trendy 4-5-1 formation designed to hurt teams down the flanks and isolate opposing fullbacks. This formation seems custom made for DaMarcus Beasley, but he and the other winger Josh Wolff never really got into this game. The US never found them the ball and when they did the Morocccans were back in numbers.

The crossing from the outside backs was also poor. Cherundulo got a couple of telling crosses in the second half prior to his gaffe, but not nearly what he should. And while Cory Gibbs is a great defender, he isn't yet convincing going forward.

Good points? A nice 45 minutes from John O'Brien, who looked like he was really having fun out there. Donovan and Mastroeni weren't bad.

And then there's Reyna's injury. You just knew that either he, O'Brien or Mastroeni would go down in one of these games. There's nothing to do but to wait on the results of the scan, but I'm guessing he's probably out against Venezuela and Latvia.

US Tactics

2006-05-23T17:22:00.000-04:00

One story about the US camp that has gotten some attention among hardcore soccer geeks is Ronald Blum's article on how Claudio Reyna is going to play more of a defensive role in this World Cup. I'm not completely sure what practical effect this is going to have.

US fans generally think of Reyna as the primary "playmaker" for the US team. He is the player who sees the most of the ball, and generally determines the direction of the attack. But Reyna is not now, nor has ever been, the Valderrama-style "number 10" who plays behind the strikers and distributes to them and the advancing flank midfielders. Reyna plays very deep; he goes back to just in front of the defense to begin his distribution. When he plays with a strictly defensive midfielder such as Chris Armas or Pablo Mastroeni, you'll see him play almost alongside the d-mid when the US begins the attack. He will then advance to make himself available as an outlet or to support the attack he started. In other words, he plays a lot like a holding midfielder already, admittedly one with better attacking skills than the average.

The Blum article almost implies he will be the defensive midfielder for the US. I think this is probably not going to be the case, and I definitely don't think it should be the case. Because while Reyna often finds himself in a defensive midfielder position, he's not the greatest ballwinner and tough tackler when the opponents have the ball. The US has trouble disrupting opposing attacks when they don't have a Mastroeni or O'Brien in the midfield. I think it will be very important to have a dedicated d-mid in the World Cup, particularly since we'll be facing Pavel Nedved and Francesco Totti--talented midfielders whom we'll need to stifle in some way.

I think what will probably happen is that the US will play a "box" midfield with Reyna and Mastroeni or O'Brien playing behind two offensive midfielders who will play generally centrally, but have license to go to the flanks. The width will be provided by Cherundulo and Lewis and outside back. So in that sense Reyna might be more "defensive," but I think it will not make much difference when you see them on the field.

US-Morocco in an hour and a half, so maybe we'll see an indication of this soon. Enjoy.

An unkinder, rougher Tico

2006-05-23T17:19:00.000-04:00

Apparently, Costa Rica has been taking a nice guy approach all this time. Who knew?

Shevchenko

2006-05-23T17:06:00.000-04:00

As you may know, the Ukranian national team consists of one guy named Shevchenko and ten guys named Please Spank Me. So it comes as a bit of a blow for Ukranians that the guy named Shevchenko may, in fact, be crocked. The purpose of this press conference was to reassure people he was getting better, but it seems to have had the opposite effect; his knee injury may not be healing as well as was first thought. Maybe Tunisia will be the one to get out of this group in second place.

I really like the BBC photo that accompanies this story. It looks as if Shevchenko, following a particularly violent sneeze, is astonished and appalled by the color of the snot in his hands.

Building up

2006-05-22T20:01:00.000-04:00

Now that the Champions League final has concluded and the European season has completely run down, the countdown to the World Cup begins in earnest. All squads have assembled, and some have even arrived in Germany. And this week, some serious warm-up matches will be played. Here's the rundown for the next few days.

Tuesday night: USA-Morocco. Despite a large (for the US) media presence, the American camp has been largely incident free. Which is, of course, exactly the way you want it. Fresh from a 5-0 dusting of the Charleston battery in a scrimmage, the US travels to Nashville to take on Morocco. Bruce Arena is treating the next three friendlies as a dry run for the rigors of the group stage: there will be three matches in a week. So it's hard to say precisely what lineup Arena will use; pretty much every player will get a significant amount of playing time in these games. Some questions for the Tuesday night game: Is O'Brien ready? Who among the strikers will get the goals? And can we avoid the kind of injuries that derailed Chris Armas and Greg Vanney in 2002?

Wednesday night: Ecuador-Colombia. This one's at Giants Stadium, so if you are in the New Jersey area, come down and see how the Ecuadorians are adjusting to playing in oxygen rich environments. Although now that I come to think of it, East Rutherford NJ can hardly be called an oxygen rich environment.

Thursday afternoon: England "B" vs. Belarus. Huh? What precisely does England B mean? From what I'm reading, it means that you might see some players who won't actually be on the World Cup squad; Sven-Goran Erikkson wants to rest Gerrard, Lampard, Terry and Beckham, and he might be a bit short of numbers otherwise. But you probably will see Owen, Campbell and Ashley Cole, and even maybe Theo Walcott if his mum lets him come out and play. It'll be intriguing to see this (it's on FSC in the US.)

Friday afternoon: Saudi Arabia vs. Czech Republic. This is pretty much the first of the pre-Cup friendlies in which both teams will actually be playing in the tournament. If you're one of the six people in the US who gets GolTV, you can actually watch it.

Smackdown to go

2006-05-18T09:32:00.000-04:00

Rather amusingly, Germany are being trash-talked by the coach of Togo. Otto Pfister is German, so there is a logic here, but still... you know your team has a problem or two when the coach of Togo serves you up a diss sandwich.

Tears of a Lion

2006-05-18T09:15:00.000-04:00

Apparently the firm that makes the World Cup mascot "Goleo" has gone bust. The BBC speculates that, being a lion, Goleo reminds too many German consumers of England. However, I speculate that consumers of all nationalities find the mere concept of a World Cup mascot a bit silly.

Mind you, as World Cup mascots go, Goleo is less disturbing than prior models: e.g. the unpleasant chicken of 1998, and the post-nuclear fallout Gummi Bears of 2002.