Tag Archives: south africa 2010

seven reasons why shaun toback is a xenophobe asshat

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I’m going to start today’s article off by apologizing for the very misleading title. I’m not going to be examining the seven main reasons why BleacherReport author Shaun Toback is an asshat, as I don’t have enough time in my day to pour through what is sure to be a litany of varied reasons.

the defeated u.s. women's national team

after the USWNT lost in the world cup final to japan, i braced myself for the "anti-soccer" backlash.

Instead, I’m just going to focus on a tiny sliver of Toback’s douchebaggery: his proclaimed hatred for the sport many of us (and I’d venture to say, most everyone who visits this blog) hold dear.

Let’s also be quick to address the rarity of this type of posting on wrong side of the pond: I’m not normally one to make direct attacks on writers whose opinions I disagree with. But Shaun’s typical, reactionary soccer-bashing article after yesterday’s Women’s World Cup final houses so much flawed logic that my brain is hurting. Trying to comprehend the sheer amount of stupid in this post is literally impossible. His seven “reasons” why non-gridiron football will never take off in this country needed a point-by-point retort, and I feel just pissed off enough to offer my services.

1. Soccer’s Great Moments Are Fleeting

barcelona passing

barcelona's tiki-taka movement is one of the subtleties that newcomers to the sport often overlook.

Mr. Toback starts off his article letting everyone know he’s a big all-around sports fan. He tells us that he hates soccer, but wants it to succeed, because he likes to watch “great athletes that play [sports] enjoy success.” I’m not exactly sure what the hell that means, but I think he’s trying to imply that it can, at times, be interesting to watch elite athletes compete in a sport he’s not particularly interested in. He probably doesn’t enjoy regularly watching swimming, but was still probably riveted (like the rest of us) by Michael Phelps at the Beijing Olympics.

However, he takes objection with soccer because in the average soccer game, “nothing really happens.” Of course, he’s referring to the typical argument that the only “big events” in soccer are goals. A tried yet tired argument, Toback and the rest of the soccer haters never listen to us when we say there’s significantly more to soccer than just goals. If he really appreciates sports, then he would take the time to understand that much of what makes soccer so special is what happens in between the goals: amazing offensive build ups, slick and tricky passes, intelligent defensive teamwork, brilliant individual displays of skill. Just as with basketball or hockey, it’s awe inspiring to watch masters like Messi, Ronaldo or Xavi completely take over and dominate a match.

Nuances, just as with other sports, are what makes soccer so interesting. Not taking the time to watch and identify those intricacies of each sport will ultimately sour any new viewer’s perception of the game.

2. Soccer Is a Finesse Sport and Americans Don’t Care About Finesse Sports
There is a one word answer that is the perfect, short retort to this point: golf.

nigel de jong kicks xabi alonso

nigel de jong packs enough violence into his game to keep in the most cerebral of american fans entertained.

But let’s be honest, one word rebuttals aren’t near as fun as long-winded ones.

Second, making a snap judgment about the lack of speed and power of an entire sport based upon the women’s game is plain retarded. I present: women’s tackle football. Have you ever watched paint dry a WNBA game? Aren’t there things called “ladies tees” in golf? All are slower, less explosive versions of the men’s game, and that ultimately makes them a different game that requires a different appreciation.

Third, watch a freaking men’s game. It’s borderline out of control it’s moving so quickly. And if you don’t think there’s violence in soccer: Nigel de Jong has a foot he’d like to put into your chest. Thinking there’s a lack of power in the sport seems silly when you consider that Ryan Shawcross will literally tackle through your leg.

3. The Field Is Too Big
I would believe one of the arguments that Toback makes if he could actually decide what he’s bitching about. Is the field too big or are red card ejections stupid? Sadly, neither argument is strongly backed up.

real madrid's ronaldo is fast

ronaldo is fast enough to make the field small.

He makes the assertion that playing a man down isn’t really that big of deal, and the team’s odds of still winning aren’t greatly reduced, all because the field is too big. I feel fairly safe in assuming that Toback probably missed the second leg of the Arsenal-Barcelona Champions League tie last year. After Van Persie’s crap ejection, Arsenal’s chances of the winning the match were effectively zilch. But throwing that or any other examples out, his argument is still poor. The whole point of the red card ejection is that the offending team should still be able to compete, just at a disadvantage. Sometimes they overcome it, but most times they don’t.

And if you want to shrink the field just to get more goals or have red cards be more impactful, there’s an existing solution for you: indoor soccer or futsal.

4. ESPN Doesn’t Care About Soccer
To paraphrase a quote from BASEketball, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen an MLS commercial for ESPN, I would have a shitload of nickels. Does this guy ever watch any of the ESPN channels? If so, I don’t know how he could miss the channel advertising soccer. Remember the six months leading up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? They advertised the Cup so much that I was getting sick of it.

And even though I know it’s not the same network, I’ve seen a plethora of ads pushing Fox Soccer Channel on numerous other stations on my cable provider. Both Fox and ESPN shelled out a lot of money to show MLS and English Premier League games, and they wouldn’t do so if there wasn’t an audience worth selling it to… so I’m pretty sure they care about the sport a little bit.

Comparing soccer’s struggles to pull in American audiences to the audiences pulled in by a 100-year-plus reoccurring national cultural event is like comparing apples and oranges. Soccer is a growing sport facing a tremendously biased and entrenched sports scene. Expecting it out draw something like the All-Star Game consistently is like expecting the professional lacrosse league to suddenly start attracting viewers in the millions in the next 5 years. It’s just not practical, possible or comparable.

5. Excessive Flopping and Terrible Refs
I would throw Toback a bone on this complaint, but he’s a little late to the party. Last time I checked, the quality of refereeing and the debate on how to aid them in an increasingly difficult decision-making process is one of the largest controversies in the sport. And as for diving, it’s one of the few problems in the game that FIFA and the governing bodies are actually attempting to alleviate. As he pointed out, even us diehard fans know these are two massive problems in our sport.

erika of brazil

i'll give toback credit: as erika showed us, simulation is rampant in the men's and women's game.

But while Shaun admitted that cheating and poor refereeing can give a team an “advantage” in American sports, he took it a step further by asserting that matches and tournaments are “routinely” and “completely” decided by these kinds of events in soccer. Is he trying to say that outcomes in the NBA, MLB and NFL are never influenced by these sins?

Wait, I seem to recall an NFL Conference Championship game that just might have been influenced by a controversial referee decision. I also remember Tim Donaghy and the NBA’s referee betting scandal that possibly influenced playoff basketball games.  Armando Galarraga had his place in baseball history destroyed when his perfect game was botched by umpire Bill Hohn.

I’m also guessing that Toback thinks player cheating is exclusive to soccer. Ignoring that the NBA’s Manu Ginobli is a serial flopper — after all, he’s a dirty foreigner — players try to deceive the referees with diving in the NHL (Alex Ovechkin), college basketball (Kemba Walker) and even the NFL (Brett Favre). And while we’re on the topic of players gaming the system, maybe we should just ignore that whole steroids thing that did/didn’t happen in baseball.

Point is, every sport has its black eyes and bad sheep. Holding those against one sport while ignoring the faults of other sports is not only hypocritical, but also a bad reason to think a sport can’t build it’s popularity if those horrible things are happening. Last time I checked, the American sports leagues all recovered from these “disasters.”

6. The Mystery of Extra Minutes and Other Vague Soccer Rules
Here’s the thing about sports: they all have different rules. And in every sport, there are confusing rules. Try explaining icing or offsides to a non-hockey fan, you’ll run into problems. The NBA has been grappling with how to call traveling for a half century. In the NFL, you’re allowed to hit certain players one way, but other players only in a different way.

Just like with any other sport, it takes some time to learn the rules. You can’t just learn them over night, and it takes repeated viewing to learn the differences in how to call a certain situation one way or another.

But if you say that there are virtually no people in this country that have been watching soccer their entire lives and that’s why no one get’s the rules, you must be smoking crack. I sat and watched yesterday’s women’s final with over 70 people (ages 15 – 65) yesterday at a bar in Dayton, Ohio, and just about all of them correctly thought the Japan offsides call in the second half was a bad one. And that’s just one small bar in a mid-sized Midwestern town.

And if you’re really in need of some clarification on the “vague” rules of soccer, read the damn rulebook.

7. Americans Suck at Soccer

giuseppe rossi of villareal

an american superstar does exist: rossi just chose to play for someone else.

No, the US Men’s National team isn’t a World Cup winner, and we’re still a ways off. But it would be foolish to suggest that we suck. There are a slew of Americans playing in the top leagues in the world. We knocked off World and European champions Spain in the Confederations Cup in 2009. We’ve made it to the World Cup quarter finals, something many nations can’t say. And that’s just the men. Our two-time world champion women’s team has made the semifinals or better in every major women’s tournament ever.

Even if we haven’t produced our own American star yet, that has more to do with our crap youth development system than the sport not attracting our biggest and fastest youth athletes. We don’t need LeBron James or Ray Lewis sized athletes to be competitive… Spain’s world-dominating side have an average height of just 5’10″.

And if he really does want the game to succeed, Toback propagating a bunch of biased, non-factual bullshit as to why the game sucks isn’t helping the problem.

————————————–

What it seems like is that, though Shaun insists he has tried to like the game, he has gone into every soccer experience with the same worn-out preconceptions and never looks past what the xenophobe hivemind has instructed him to believe. To fear what is foreign is natural, but to not take the time to learn about it before developing an opinion is ignorant.

Five minutes of Google searches on each objection would have stopped this article in its tracks, but it’s clear that the author didn’t feel it necessary to put in due diligence. It’s always best to bash things without doing your homework, right Shaun?

To be honest though, I don’t know what the guy’s problem is. Maybe some little football playing lassie (lad?) broke his heart at some point during his youth. Or perhaps he’s bent out of shape that he finally invested himself in the sport, and had his heart ripped out when the ladies lost yesterday’s final. So goes soccer, Toback… get used to it.

What’s really interesting though is that if Toback is so disinterested in soccer, then he wouldn’t have written an article all about it in the first place. Even though he thinks he’s tried and failed to get caught up in the “fever” that surrounds soccer, his article actually proves that he might have caught the sickness more than he thought.

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round up #22

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with the new season already begun in some parts of europe, and the premiership set kicking off this weekend, i’m obviously all sorts of amped up. the constant stream of football news has shifted away from world cup stories and has thinned of transfer rumors (though they are certainly not anywhere close to ending… ever).

so with that in mind, i’ll share my thoughts about a few of the stories i’ve found over the last few weeks that were worth noting in the twenty-second edition of the round up.

though i'm no fan of the citizens, i'm a big fan of what umbro has done with their kits again this year (and last year for that matter).

the questoin: is the world cup too big? – guardian.co.uk
the simple answer to this question: no. the more complex answer to this question: no. while the writer of this story definitely brings up some very interesting points (the most important of which is the tendency of weaker teams to sit in and settle for draws or respectable losses), i think he’s over reacting a bit. the world cup needs this many teams participating to truly make the finals a “world” cup.

that said, he did have another brilliant idea. while it would never ever happen, his idea for a gigantic, worldwide, two-leg play off system for determining the 16 teams at the finals would make for a thrilling tournament. however, my productivity at work would probably fall off the charts, as i would be watching way, way, way more qualifiers than i ever have before.

switzer tabbed assistant soccer coach – ohiobobcats.com
how did this story not send shockwaves through world football?!?! okay, so this isn’t major soccer news to most people, but it was pretty big soccer news to me, my family and friends. but i wanted to give a shout out to my little sister, who is getting ready to embark on her maiden season as a coach at her former stomping grounds in athens, ohio. and with the bobcats making a preseason trip to xavier here in cincinnati this weekend, that means i’ll get to watch the sib in “action”… or whatever you call it when she’s screaming from the touchline. good luck, amy! go ohio!

premier league kits 2010-2011 – guardian.co.uk
if you know me at all, you know i’ve got a bit of a fettish for soccer apparel and equipment. this is a quick guide to help you keep all of your premier league teams straight in the coming season, with every home, away and third kit on digital display. my favorites: tottenham home and third, all the man city, and wigan’s new home kit. what i really like about this article, though, is the look of all of these kits sans-sponsors… oh how i love capitalism, turning footballers into billboards!

fanchants.com - fanchants.com
it’s all in the name on this link. but in case you’re extra dense and you haven’t figured it out yet, this site provides thousands of fan chants/songs from clubs all over the world. if you consider yourself a fan of any club in the world, and you don’t know at least one of their more famous chants… well you’re probably not actually a real fan. so learn up, before i have to call you out in person.

60,000 names sold on the black market – dagbladet.no
just when fifa thought it was safe to call south africa 2010 a success, after navigating the finals without serious incident in a country that is well known for it’s violent crime rates, this news goes and rears it’s ugly head. word is that one of the official ticket distributors for the world cup has sold over 60k names, credit cards, etc. of the fans and spectators that purchased tickets for the world cup. names on that list include such lofty individuals as the head of the norwegian national bank and sweedish skiing star anja pärson. needless to say, fifa need to find a way to corral the media black eyes they’ve been receiving of late, or their whole system is going to spiral out of control.

ten words or less #4

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the regular four year reports  that the business world suffered a drastic decrease in productivity due to the world cup are starting to spill out, and those monitoring the economy are probably breathing a sigh of relief now that the tournament is over.

fret not though my dear readers, as i’m still finding plenty of ways to be unproductive with footballing news continuing to stream in. there are too many gems out there not to be unproductive and share!

i contributed to this, my guess is you did too. – mashable.com

you read it here first… after i read it here – mls-daily.com

cheating cephalopod… he’s probably on the juice too. – mirrorfootball.co.uk

the king is dead. long live the king. – gaurdian.co.uk

footballers when they were kids. unsurprisingly, lampard was a fatty. – betfairfootball.com

even with “legend” backing, this guy is still a moron. – american.com

do you love random, useless world cup stats? i do. – optasports.com

dreamed of seeing mike tyson in a peterborough united kit? – dirty tackle

round up #21

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two months after my last round up post, and i have finally gathered up enough stories to put together one of these. and upon further thought, it comes off as pretty stupid of me, because since then i’ve created a whole other type of links post since then to accomodate the supposedly “huge” amount of stories that i tend to accumulate in between postings.

i can't imagine this "trophy" would be ordered by anyone other than diego.

but in all actuality, the only reason another round up (or ten words or less for that matter) hasn’t been posted is because i’ve felt overwhelmed by the amount of story lines that have come out since then. this whole “world cup” thing apparently has all sorts of stories pouring out of it nearly 24 hours a day.

there’s just too damn much to write about, and i’ve been too damn busy watching games.

translation? i’ve been lazy.

so without further delay, here is my 21st edition of the internet news round up…

world cup replica made of cocaine found in columbia – bbc.co.uk
there is only one plausible explanation for this story line, and it goes like this: diego maradona completely convinced himself that the argies would win the world cup this year, and decided he would break sobriety to celebrate and help him find the courage for his pre-tournament promise. and the easiest way for him to have access to this huge stash of coke? mold it into a crap replica of the world cup trophy. from afar, it looks likely enough that no one would question him. and it’s not like anyone is going to rip the “world cup” from a living legends hands.

i challenge you to find a better explanation.

brazil vs. argentina – blog.leetsoft.com
here in america, we like to think our sports teams have real rivalries. MLB has the red sox-yankees rivalry. then there’s michigan-ohio state for college athletics. the NBA has lakers-celtics. and the NFL even has partiots-colts.

but none of those can eve touch the rivalries in football. think of the religious tensions of rangers-celtic. the star power of real madrid-barcelona. the in-house fighting of the milan derby in italy. lethal projectiles between river plate-boca juniors. and then you get to the even higher rivalries between national teams, representing national pride.

and it’s those international rivalries that really breed the best stone throwing (sometimes even wars!) between rivals. the posters produced by the argentine supporters, and the subsequent replies from the brazilians, is pure brilliance.

baby ‘joy’ for cristiano ronaldo – bbc.co.uk
less than a few days after being knocked out of the world cup by spain, real madrid and portugal superstar ronaldo announced to the world that he now has offspring. apparently the love child of ronaldo and some random american whore, ronnie dropped piles of money on negotiated with the mother to have soul custody of the smiling baby boy. after promptly naming him the best name he could come up with — cristiano of course — he pawned his new progeny off on his mother and sister in portugal, and then jetted off to holiday in new york. all the makings of a great father… or perhaps a giant ruse to cover up his homosexuality? i don’t know about that, but who knows with this guy?

custom boots of the world cup – footy-boots.com
i am insanely jealous of professional footballers. they get paid millions of dollars. they have fancy cars and houses and clothes. they get all the women. but what really makes me jealous, is their custom football boots.

sure, i could get my boots “customized” by eurosport, adding my name/number/flag/zodiac sign to the sides (stupid). or i could lavishly overspend and use nikeID to pick my own colors (pretty cool). but what if i want a different stud configuration on the bottom of by CTR360′s? or what if i want to remove a portion of a new shoe’s design to make it lighter? what if i want the shoe custom molded for my feet? well when you’re a pro, you get everything you want.

boil down the basics – studs-up.co.uk
this was a (mostly) magical world cup for us american fans. we somehow won our group. we played with courage and heart. landycakes finally grew up and became a man (with a hummingbird tattoo). we got to experience the true drama of a world cup for the first time. i still consider it a success even though we crapped the bed with a missed golden opportunity to make a run at the semifinals.

but the thing that really made this world cup for me wasn’t the success of the USMNT, but instead the way my country — the one on the wrongs side of the pond mind you — embraced the game. people were out in droves to watch all of the yanks’ games, even during the work week. it was unlike anything i’ve ever seen when it comes to the beautiful game in america.

but then studs up goes and runs this, and it puts everything back in perspective to me.

the themes of south africa 2010

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Sixty games into this World Cup finals, and with only four left to go, I can’t help but feel like this tournament has had some distinct, tournament-wide trends. While there have been some outliers, I feel like these themes have been prevalent in nearly every match.

That’s how it feels to me at least. And since this is my blog, I feel like you need to hear about them. So here are the four themes of South Africa 2010, in no particular order…

so many people were scratching their heads about the tournament as to why france kept domenech for the finals. apparently, raymond was doing the exact same thing.

CcCrRrAaAzZzYyY coaches
I thought for sure this space would be dominated by Maradona headlines. But while the legend has kept his trap mostly shut for a majority of the month, his counterparts from other countries are busy fighting with one another over who gets to fill the shoes I expected El Diego to be wearing.

First up: Italy’s Marcello Lippi. Critized long before the tournament for choosing a squad that would — nearly in its entirety – qualify for Social Security benefits here in the States (they’re so old), Lippi was busy laying the foundation of his craziness months ago. And following the Italians’ three-and-out performance, Marcello was so embarrassed that he literally ran out of the stadium. No handshakes with the opposing coaches. Nothing. Class act.

But Lippi was to be outdone, as the much-maligned Raymond Domenech continues to fly the flag as the world’s stupidest coach. Despite having a squad ripe with talent, everyone in the world knew that Domenech was a lame duck and that Les Bleus would suffer for having him there. And suffer they did. Raymond succeeded in letting the team implode, had to send home Anelka for subordination, had a team coach quit, and saw his players refuse to train under him. Further more, the Fench went winless for the second straight competition and were generally awful.

The icing on the cake? After being eliminated by a loss to 89th ranked South Africa, Domenech didn’t shake Bafana Bafana manager Carlos Alberto Parreira’s hand either. No, instead he lectured the brazilian for a comment he made about France’s illegitimate qualification… a comment he made nearly 4 months ago. Brilliant and extremely mature timing by the craziest coach in South Africa.

Blind men are everywhere
Aside from when I’m personally playing in a game, I really do hate to criticize referees. The (un)lucky refs picked to deputize the World Cup games honestly do have some of the hardest, most pressure-filled jobs on the planet. But in this summer’s tournament, I feel like you couldn’t walk through the South Africa without tripping over a crap referee.

Yes, the most talked about topic during this summer’s finals is the unbelievably poor standard of refereeing that we’ve seen almost completely across the board. The biggest poor call so far, at least from an American’s point of view, was the Coulibaly fantom offsides/foul in the USMNT-Slovenia game. But other atrocities so far have included: Tim Cahill being wrongly sent straight off against Germany, Lampard’s non-goal in the England-Germany match, Tevez’s clearly offsides goal against Mexico, the soft yellow that Thomas Müller was given against Argentina that will cause him to miss the German’s semifinal.

Needless to say, the level of officiating in their marquee event should be extremely worrying for FIFA. With mounting evidence to justify the use of some sort of goal line technology — and fifa finally “admitting” as much – this World Cup may finally be the last straw for keeping some sort of referee aid from making its way into the game. Though odds are, FIFA will intentionally pick the worst option just so they can reject it as a failure and go back to the current, mucked up system in a few years’ time.

It is important to remember that they aren’t all doing poorly… England’s Howard Webb has turned in a very consistent set of performances.

Empty seats
 This is a trend of the tournament that I really haven’t heard much talk about to this point: why are there so many empty seats? I figured at first it was just because the opening round games sometimes feature dud match ups. But this empty seat phenomenon has even reared it’s head in the later rounds (Japan’s snoozer against Paraguay being the chief example).

we probably wouldn't be seeing as many empty seats at the world cup if they didn't make the tickets so damn big.

I mean this is the world cup, right? How does this happen? In Germany, there were fans coming to host cities just to be near the stadium. In the ’94 in the USA, there were fans trying to sneak into games. But in South Africa in 2010, there are games with thousands of seats sitting empty.

Perhaps this is due to the African citizens not really being able to afford the tickets, or maybe it’s due to the fact that this game was so damn far away from anyone with money. Whatever the reason though, it’s unacceptable and frankly, a little embarrassing.

This is supposed to best football in the world, right?
Wrong. And in this tournament in particular, I feel like we’re not quite getting the Grade A, world-class level of play everyone expects from the World Cup. Or at least that’s what the American media market keeps telling us to expect.

As moronic SportsCenter anchors go on calling the World Cup the footballing world’s equivalent of the Super Bowl, it has become increasingly clear that the best comparison to the super bowl is still the Champions League. And it’s not just because their formats and functions are similar.

Let’s be honest: South Africa 2010 has proven that the world’s best football can be found in the Champions League, not in the World Cup. The play has been sloppy, disconnected, and at times down right atrocious. How many crosses have been off by about a mile? How many errant passes have been made by world class players?

Maybe it’s the ball. Maybe it’s the altitude carrying the ball further than normal. Maybe it’s even those damn vuvuzela’s distracting everyone. Maybe it can be attributed to an overly-long, drawn-out club season that keeps national teams from training together and pushes players past their physical limits. But it’s probably a combination of all three. Either way, the best football has not been on display this summer.

public enemy #1

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it’s been over a week and the anger persists. every time i think about it, i still start to boil over in a fit of rage. and if you’re an american soccer fan, i don’t doubt that you feel the exact same way. and all this hate can be attibuted to just one man.

yes, i’m speaking about you, koman coulibaly.

could this man be a terrorist? i think so.

in case you’ve been living under a rock, i’m speaking about the referee in charge of last friday’s critical second round game between the USMNT and algeria.  the woman man from mali put in arguably one of the absolute worst refereeing performances in world cup history. i feel fairly certain that i am just in saying this because we actually have neutral, third party commentators agreeing with me.

while the obviously biggest blunder of the game was coulibaly’s fantom call to bring back maurice edu’s game winning goal, his performance over the entire course of the game can best be described as awful. word is that he probably won’t get to see the center of the pitch, possibly even working lines too, for the rest of this world cup. i would take that one further and say that he probably shouldn’t be allowed to referee any game, anywhere, ever again… and make him clean all of the stadium toilets in rustenburg for the rest of the world cup.

not only did he kill my team’s chances of making an incredible comeback win, but he also killed the first truly stunning match of the world cup. i’m allowed to hate someone for reasons like this, right?

if you’re sitting there shaking your head and thinking, “no, it’s not alright to hate someone,” let me paint a picture for you.

imagine a young koman coulibaly growing up in poverty stricken mali, a country with 90% of it’s inhabitants being muslim. young coulibaly loves the game of football, but can’t play because the u.s. has pulled all of the funding from his local school which supplies their equipment. resentment from the local community towards the u.s. grows, soon consuming koman. he starts hanging out with the radical islamic crowd, as they share and nurture his growing hate for our country.

and before you know it…. BAM… he’s been recruited into al-queda.

knowing of his deep-rooted love for soccer, his commanders instruct koman to begin taking referee courses. using connections, money and the fear they’ve instilled in the local governments, they eventually land koman a job working games in an african soccer league. eventually, he becomes a respected referee, ultimately being named to the “prestigious” list of world cup officials. again using their extensive network of connections, al-queda arrange for coulibaly to take charge of a match between the united states and slovenia.

far fetched? maybe. but it’s still completely possible.

how else can you possibly explain coulibaly’s actions? i dare you to find a better explanation.

revisiting “boarding passes, please”

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way back in january, i wrote the longest blog post i’ve ever written outlining who i thought bob bradley would be taking to south africa this summer. i’ve been anxiously awaiting the day bob would finally announce his 23-man roster, just to see how well i would do predicting bob’s simple mind.

the USMNT arrived in south africa on memorial day. it's time to see how accurate i was at picking the 23 guys who would get a ticket back in january.

that day has come and passed.

and guess what? i didn’t do too bad.

though there were some shock exclusions/inclusions, most of which i like much better than i had predicted bob capable of selecting. though i don’t want to go on giving him too much credit at this point. let’s revisit that subject after the world cup.

so let’s get on to evaluating how well i did picking who i thought bob would be giving his boarding passes to. and we may as well re-evaluate the players he chose while we’re at it.

for sure on the plane (8 out of 8 correct)
these were the guys i knew would be in south africa. i would have wagered anything on it… but i didn’t, because i’m an idiot (not that there really are any places to bet on “what eight guys will definitely make the US world cup roster,” are there?). either way, i killed it on this round.

1. CORRECT – landon donovan (f – l.a. galaxy): landycakes has certainly set the stage for himself going into the summer. his loan to everton turned out to be a fantastic move, finally proving himself at the highest level consistently. if he has a good world cup, his price tag will skyrocket and MLS will surely cash in on bidding war that will ensue for his signature in august. so, it’s easy to say that donovan has some lofty expectations to meet. will he be able to handle the pressure? here’s hoping he does.

2. CORRECT - tim howard (gk – everton): having a world class keeper is the best remedy for having a suspect backline. good thing that’s not a problem for the USMNT, right? … RIGHT?!?!

3. CORRECT - jozy altidore (f – villareal): my worries persist about altidore. he didn’t get any regular time at with one of the worst premier league teams this season. though he showed some flashes of brilliance, they were very quick flashes and few and far between. i still doubt he’ll ever be able to play a full 90, and he can’t be in that great a form if he wasn’t breaking into relegated hull city’s line-up. he’ll be a starter on june 12th, but will he do anything productive. probably not (yes, that is a challenge jozy. prove. me. wrong.)

4. CORRECT - carlos bocanegra (d – rennes): chuck. what an enigma. captain of the USMNT, regular in europe. but we just can’t ever seem to play him in his best position: left back. if they would play him there instead of the center, then we wouldn’t have to freak out anymore about whose playing on the left flank. we have plenty of quality center backs bobby; please play bocanegra where he belongs. oh, and let’s hope he is fully fit come the england game.

5. CORRECT - michael bradley (m – borussia mönchengladbach): the coach is bringing his kid along, and just like every national pool players’ parents’ worst nightmare, i’m sure they’re all thinking that the coaches kid will get the favoritism. while a case could be argued for this when mike was brought into the national team fold a few years ago, it definitely isn’t the case any longer. bradley deserves to be here. let’s just hope he can keep a level head for the next few weeks.

6. CORRECT - jay demerit (d – watford): if he can shake the injury bug that he’s had over the last year, i want to see jay starting at centerback next to onyewu. that way we can play bocanegra at his natural left back.

7. CORRECT - jonathan spector (d – west ham): pencil him in as the starting right back (though he could face some competition from steve cherundulo), but it’s possible we could see him on the left too. let’s hope he remembers to bring his consistency boots too.

8. CORRECT - brad guzan (gk – aston villa): back up (to another retired american) at aston villa, back up for the national team. poor guy will probably never get to play.

don’t have my pass yet, but pretty sure i’m getting one (8 out of 8 correct)
i must have been taking my genius pills still at this point, because i nailed this round too. don’t worry, this won’t become a trend.

9. CORRECT - oguchi onyewu (d – a.c. milan): gooch proved his fitness  after the horrific torn patellar tendon that he suffered in the USMNT’s last world cup qualifier. the question that remains though is whether or not he can play at the same level he played at in last summer’s confederations cup. if not, the yanks are in trouble.

10. CORRECT - clint dempsey (m – fulham): deuce came back earlier than anticipated from his partially torn knee ligament, even contributing in fulham’s late season run to the europa league final (including this STUNNING goal against  juventus at craven cottage). promising news for a team that needs good injury news.

11. CORRECT - ricardo clark (m – eintracht frankfurt): finding regular time at the end of the bundesliga season was key to clark making the final 23, and he’ll be in tight competition with michael bradley for the starting defensive midfield slot on june 12th.

12. CORRECT - stuart holden (m – bolton): i’m glad stu made the team, especially after he cracked into bolton’s squad towards the end of the english season. i was worried he wouldn’t see the minutes after his leg break a few months back. his creativity and consistency are in demand with this roster, and i’d love to see him make the starting 11 against england.

13. CORRECT - jonathan bornstein (d – chivas usa): just as i predicted, the mexijew made the squad simply because we had to bring in another true left back. and hopefully he’ll only play because we’ve gotten to plan C, D or E due to injuries. or if we’re up by two goals against england and we bring him on for a forward… but hopefully not even then.

14. CORRECT - steve cherundulo (d – hannover 96): he’s healthy, and has loads of experience in europe and internationally, but he still can’t get in front of spector. but if spector catches one of his patented cold-streaks, expect steve to steal back the spot.

15. CORRECT - benny feilhaber (m – agf aarhus): not the danish-based player i would have liked to see make the final roster (cough, rolfe), and not exactly the beset player the USMNT have at their disposal. but he’s got the experience and bob’s confidence. let’s just hope he ends up keeping bornstein company on the bench.

16. CORRECT - maurice edu (m – rangers): edu played great for rangers down the stretch this season, and his reward was earning back the national team spot he hadn’t occupied in nearly 9 months due to a knee injury. should be a starter, but that’s only if bob can see beyond benny.

yeah, i think so, but… (4 out of 7)
here’s where it fell apart for me. but that’s to be expected, as these guys are pretty much the fringe players in the squad. like i said earlier though, bob surprised me with some of his picks in this space, in a good way (for now at least).

17. WRONG – connor casey (f – colorado rapids) edson buddle (f – l.a. galaxy): saying that i am stoked that casey didn’t make the roster is an understatement. but there is no way that i could have predicted that buddle would have made this team. who would have known that he would have caught fire this MLS season? certainly not me, and certainly not anyone else back in january. i hope he can keep up the good form, because we certainly don’t have many other forwards with impressive goal scoring credentials lately.

18. CORRECT - jose francisco torres (m – pachuca): miracles do happen, and torres is proof of that. i didn’t think that there was a chance in hell that bob would pick him. now that he’s made the team, my thought process is, “i doubt bob will use him.” if he does though, i would not be surprised to see torres involved in something awesome.

19. CORRECT - demarcus beasley (m – unattached): despite rangers not extending his deal, lazarus has risen from the dead and has reclaimed his national team spot. after last summer’s performance in south africa, i thought for sure he was done. i still think that bob doesn’t quite trust him anymore though, and would be surprised to see him get tons of time in june. and if we play him on the flank in the back again, i might actually fly to south africa to and beat bob silly.

20. CORRECT - marcus hahnemann (gk – wolverhampton wanderers): edged out troy perkins, as he should have. not much to say here, other than it will take a weird sequence of events to actually get to see the wolves shot blocker get the nod in south africa.

21. CORRECT - clarence goodson (d – start): i felt like i was going out on a limb to call this one back in january, and my how well that worked out for me. he’ll provide solid cover in the center of defense in the event that we have any major injury problems.

i certainly wasn't expecting a former MLS journeyman to make the final 23. gomez's good form has made me look silly.

22. WRONG - edgar castillo (m – tigres) herculez gomez (f – pachuca): looks like i picked the wrong mexican player for this spot, and i’m not surprised i didn’t see this one coming either. gomez has been in stellar form in mexico this season, and we needed to bring another forward in good form if charlie davies wasn’t passed fit.

23. WRONG – charlie davies (f – sochaux) robbie findlay (f – real salt lake): i don’t need to reiterate why i wasn’t surprised to see charlie not make the squad, but i’m still upset that he won’t be in south africa. will findlay and castillo be able to fill davies’ growing empty shoes? i don’t know. but they need to, because jozy doesn’t look to be prolific at anything aside from headbutting people.

final tally: 20 out of 23 players picked correctly.
so overall, i was pretty pleased with myself on picking this roster. do i like all of the picks? no, not really. but could they really have brought in anyone else (aside from davies or rolfe… both of whom are hurt) that would have been major improvements? no, not really.

no sense in getting all worked up either way, at this point at least. let’s see how bob uses the 23 guys at his disposal, then we can start kicking and screaming. until  then, let’s support out boys and hope that my hired snipers can pick bob off before the 12th.

ten words or less #3

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we knew maradona was crazy, but i bet you didn't know that he was homicidal too, did you?

these “ten words or less” posts are fantastic little things. i love being able to bang them out in less than 20 minutes, especially when a normal post takes me, at minimum, an hour (but usually more like three). and with the transfer rumor mill spitting out doozies already (i will not talk about the spanish team trying to sign the spanish kid from the english team), and the world cup providing us with an endless stream of content, there really isn’t a better way to address the tsunami of stories i want to share.

so it’s about time for the third edition. let’s go.

maradona will run you over and call you an asshole – telegraph.co.uk

ibrahimovic and pique… gay lovers? you be the judge – momento24.com

if yugoslavia was still around, they would be sick – thirdkit.com

who would win if 100 kids played a pro side? – metro.co.uk …with video!

inter milan’s new away kit in one word: serpents – todosobrecamisetas.blogspot.com

propoganda spin or not, this is kinda scary – soccernet.com

transfer fodder: liverpool want everyone, but have no money – thespoiler.co.uk

unwed father of 13 loves football, is crazy – bbc.co.uk

sometimes the timing isn’t right

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So the other day I was cutting the grass at my new house, which had grown quite long due to the previous tennants being lazy bastards, and feeling like i was cutting elephant grass in india. It was a windy day, and as I was pushing through the nearly knee-deep grass, i saw what i thought was a leaf blowing in the wind along the ground. Being a man, I of course had to gun right for it, hoping to shred it up with the mower into a million tiny pieces.

what does charlie davies have to do with a kitty i found in my yard? read on my friends, read on.

But then the “leaf” moved against the wind, very quickly. Confused, I screeched the mower to a halt to avoid running it over. This was no tan leaf, but instead it was actually a tan kitten.

Now it’s important to know that I’m an animal lover, and am quick to get attached to puppies and kitties much like your average third grader. Not helping the equation was that the kitten looked just like the cat I had growing up, so my heart strings were definitely being pulled.

My fianceé and I had recently talked about getting a cat to help warm our new dwelling, so I figured we had just hit a goldmine. She (shockingly) fell in love with it immediately, so that wasn’t a hard sell on the significant other front. I was already calculating how many hours I could spend in the next few days having the cat chase a laser pointer.

But, of course, things are never quite so simple.

After taking the cat in to a local pet store, they informed me that the kitten was about a month old and still needed to be bottle fed. That requires tons of attention, as you’re supposed to feed them at least five times a day. Not easy when both my wife-to-be and I are working-class folk.

Checking with all of the neighbors to make sure it wasn’t their cat, we determined that it was a neighborhood stray’s kitten. Which means this cat certainly wasn’t litter trained yet. Throw in the fact that we weren’t even moved into our new house yet and couldn’t keep it at either of our current residences, and it started to be come very clear that the timing just wasn’t right for keeping the cat.

Together, we made the decision to give the cat up. It crushed us both to give it away, yet we knew that it was better for us and the kitten to find it a proper home. Maybe if it had been a couple weeks later it would have worked, but this just wasn’t the right time to keep a new pet that needed lots of attention. Yet despite this, I don’t think my fianceé has stopped crying yet….

———————————

So why did I ust spend 500 words talking about a kitty on my soccer blog? (Rest easy WSOTP fans: I’m not changing this into a stray animal blog… yet.)

I think my experience with kitten is the perfect analogy for what Charlie Davies is going through right now after missing out on making the USMNT roster for this summer’s World Cup.

So far in his career, it’s all been about timing for Charlie.

CD9 burst onto the scene, stepping out from the tall grass just like the kitten, at the right time. He was inspirational for the national team at the Confederations Cup, building a strong connection between mainstays such as Landon Donovan and Jozy Altidore. Jozy would hold the ball up, and Charlie would run through off of him. He and Donovan would often combine like they had been playing together for years.

To be honest, I hadn’t seen anyone in the USMNT with his speed up top since Ernie Stewart. After his opening goal against Mexico at the Azteca, it became clear that Charlie was an emerging force for the US. His timing couldn’t have been better, as he was filling a role that Bob Bradley had desperately been trying to fill for his entire reign: the foil to Altidore.

But Davies’ timing hasn’t always been good, and you could easily say his timing wasn’t right for choosing to be in a car after curfew that fateful night in DC.

No one was surprised when the initial reports came out saying that Charlie would miss the World Cup due to the horrific injuries he suffered during the accident. But we all were shocked and stunned when it was revealed (rather early on I must say) that Davies looked to be on track for a miraculous recovery and could possibly be able to return to action with Sochaux before the end of the season. The World Cup started to look like a possibility again.

I’ll have to admit: I jumped on the bandwagon. I wanted to believe. I debated ordering my first USMNT kit in over ten years with a 9 on the back. I followed his tweets ever more closely, and scoured the intertubes looking for any info on his progress.

But in the end for charlie, just as with the kitty, the timing just wasn’t right.

Despite being able to run, make cuts and starting to work with the ball, Sochaux wouldn’t declare Davies fit in time for him to play in their last match of the season. And while he returned to some light training with the squad, it was never a full contact return. Everything seemed to take a turn for the worse in mid-April, when Sochaux president Alendre Lacombe announced that Davies’ “season was over.”

This obviously made Bob Bradley’s decision much much harder. Would it be worth the risk to bring Davies into the pre-World Cup camp without having any indication of his fitness level? Would bringing him in too early cause irreparable harm to Davies’ still recovering body? Would it be worth sacrificing a roster spot for a guy that might not be able to even step on the pitch, when there’s a list of players who are fit and ready right now?

in the end, the timing wasn't right for davies to be included on the US roster. just like his timing wasn't right for him to get in this SUV back in october.

In the end, Bob knew how to answer these tough questions.

And while I’m sure his heart was saying, “Take the kid, he’s worked so hard to come back and he’s already paid so dearly for his mistakes.” (Is it just me, or does anyone else imagine Bob talking like he’s from the Victorian era… with his stoic/robotic look of disillusionment and proper posture.) But, his brain was telling him the smart thing to do is to leave Chuck behind.

Sure, I was shocked to read the USMNT provisional roster and not see Charlie’s name. But deep down, I wasn’t all that surprised either.

While I would love to have seen the kid in South Africa, i know that Charlie likely would have been nothing more than an emotional motivator for the team. He would probably have to watch from the bench every game, as several able-bodied player sits back at home in the States refusing to watch the tournament because they were left off the roster for a gimp.

It’s just too big of a gamble. And Bob ultimately made the hard, but correct, decision in deciding to not select Charlie. Maybe things would be different if he had a little more time to recover and prepare, but in the end that wasn’t the case.

So for now, the move to keep Davies off the plane will allow the national team to focus on the task at hand. It will allow them to spend time identifying Charlie’s replacement up top to partner with Jozy (paging Edson Buddle… Edson Buddle, please step up). And while I’m not sure that anyone will do the job quite as well as Davies did at last summer’s Confederations Cup, I have to think that someone can at least be identified to partially fill those shoes.

So the timing just isn’t right for CD9 right now, but it doesn’t have to remain that way for the future. He’s only 23 years old, and assuming he stays focused and regains full fitness, he’ll be hitting his peak just before the 2014 finals in Brazil. Hell, it’s conceivable that he could even make the 2018 finals wherever they might end up.

With that in mind, I think I might just go ahead and order that new US kit with davies name on the back… that way i’ll be more than ready come 2014.

ten words or less #2

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i have to imagine that avram grant is making this face after being asked if he's staying at portsmouth.

well it seems like this has become less a blog about soccer, and more a blog about apologizing for not blogging about soccer. and while i feel that my series of recent prolonged absences on the blog can be easily justified (starting a new job, moving into a new house, increased travel for work, planning for the wedding), there is no doubt that they are all nothing but silly excuses for not doing my job.

and with the world of football bursting at the seams with stories of all sorts (domestic competitions wrapping up, preliminary world cup roster announcements, early summer transfer fodder, etc.), i feel like i’ve let a lot slip through the cracks and haven’t gotten to post as much as i would like.

so again, i’ll take the lazy road out to — if nothing else — make myself feel better. so here comes my second edition of ten words or less.

an old firm derby… at fenway? – washingtonpost.com

at least the juve duo are familiar with 2nd divisions – soccernet.com

trying to avoid jewish jokes about penny pinching clubs – guardian.co.uk

don’t worry: south africa has the beer covered this summer – news24.com

spurs’ new kits confirmed in leaked promo picture – footballshirtculture.com

don’t like the new USMNT jerseys? it could be worse – classicfootballshirts.com

things are getting crazy on merseyside – times.co.uk

finally, some lavish spending that makes sense – goal.com