I'm pissed about the soccer loss, and this is a rant.

I said England because it is the second-deepest team in the tournmant, behind Brazil. It's second team would give most every other team in the tourney a run. Now, if Sven will just let 'em play....

The heat excuse was pretty lame, though.

Back to the US for a second. I saw a stat the other day that more than 50 percent of goals are scored on set pieces, and half of those goals come on headers. I can't remember where I saw it. Brian McBride is the best scorer for the US, and most of his goals come from his noggin. He didn't get one usable cross today. The US kept trying those vertical plays, instead of swinging it horizontally and letting him do what he does best. If the US wants to score, let Convey and whomever is on the right cross the ball in. Forget the long ball, forget Reyna and Donovan trying to do something pretty.

Oh, and bench Gooch. All three goals were his fault -- that and lazy midfielders who didn't get back to cover the counter attack on the first and third goals, and didn't pick up the clear on the second.

 

You SHOULD kick Iceland's ass just for Bjork.

 

I admittedly know slightly more than dick about the sport, but it seemed to me that the US players lacked the individual ability to, as they say in our other sports, "make plays" on their own. One would dribble the ball up to a defender and then just kind of, well, stop. Is this something that's been a problem with USA soccer, or just with the way this bunch plays? I truly don't know.

 

I should kick your ass, because you said that about Bjork.  .... ;D

 

Never forget, people, we could be American Samoa.

Australia 31, American Samoa 0.

THAT American Samoa.

 

That damn Larry Brown screwing everything up again. [/starman]

 

And people though Australia ran up the score on Japan this afternoon by scoring three goals in the last 10 minutes.

 

You KNOW soccer is a weird sport if my bedfellows in crime include A_F, Zizzer and Twoback.

Give 'em hell, guys. You've all made good points.

And I'll make this additional point, soccer has already "won" in this country anyway. Why? Because popularity was only ever going to be tied to the World Cup to begin with.

I remember being one of those soccer proselytizers in '94 when the World Cup came. Back then, you had to convince people it was a worthy event. Before that, it was a struggle to get all of the matches on TV (the first Cup I watched in '82, I saw most of it on a fuzzy Spanish-language station out of Chicago and, as I recall, a fledgling TNT showed maybe a match a day in Italia '90). Before that, print media utterly ignored it outside of its agate page.

Now? I saw NUMEROUS newspaper covers that ran a stand-alone photo on its cover opening day (and probably will see more tomorrow with sad sack Sam's Army photos), there were sports cover previews on the event and the national team, most papers are running sizable round-ups inside the paper -- with stuff on the cover when warranted. Obviously, there are probably dozens of blogs and web sites to choose from.

ESPN is devoted an entire daily show to the event. And frankly, based on what I've read here, I see FAR less media resistance to give the World Cup its due. Everyone seems to have at least a grudging respect for it. Few guffaw anymore when you say the World Cup is on par with the Olympics. It helps that our Olympic coverage has been turned into blow-job Bart's People-like features and the Hype of the Moment (cough, Bode Miller), the World Cup seems (and is) gritty in comparison.

There is even a recognized rival, Mexico, which more and more people recognize by the day.

And all of that is all an American soccer fan can hope for. Because MLS will never resonate beyond its base (and even that's fractured, I mean, I enjoy soccer, but I'll watch the EPL anyday over MLS) and the only way soccer popularity will spike nationally is when the U.S. team makes a SERIOUS run in the Cup.

Semifinals or final is what it's going to take, the more like the Miracle On Ice the better. That's the only way soccer makes serious inroads.

 

More good news for those who enjoy soccer. Ratings are way up over 2002 (to be expected with the time difference in Japan/So. Korea) and 12% over 1998 when the WC was in France. Ratings were through the weekend so it obviously doesn't include Monday's disaster.

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=99819

 

These two posts have made so much sense, given that I've covered high school soccer over the last few years. The sad thing is this: what makes soccer a beautiful game is the spontaneity, the creativity it encourages. And American youth coaches coach that right the hell out of their players. Maybe the Brasileiros and their five Cups have it right — let the kids be creative, and THEN round it into a team concept.

Bubbler, your post makes a lot of sense as well, though I'd add Iran to that list of U.S. rivals. More people rooted for Mexico on Sunday than cared to admit.

Disappointingly, I saw only one column recognizing the irony of Iran playing in Nuremberg on Sunday.

 

Serve and HnF2 --
Thanks for answering my post. I now know even slightly more than dick about soccer.

 

You know, the more I think about this, the more I think it's crap.
On the one hand, Landon Donovan certainly is a creative player. In fact, one knock on him is that he won't shoot because he's always trying to invent something.
On the other, Cristiano Ronaldo, who is not American, frequently is criticized for trying to be too cute on the field.
So you can't have it both ways.