The Soccer Thread

[Guest]

This is by far the best game I've seen the U.S. play in a while.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Halfway there.

[Guest]

Three minutes of injury time...

 

Brazil wins 3-0!

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Unbelievable.

[Exile on Waveland]

Stunning.

 

Not sure Wednesday will be much fun though.

[Guest]

YES YES YES

 

Amazing.

 

Now we get to have the crap kicked out of us by Spain on Wednesday.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Stunning.

 

Not sure Wednesday will be much fun though.

 

Screw that they are winnning this thing.

[chuckywang]

Realistically we have no shot at the knockout stage right? The best we can do is have a 3-way tie for second with 3 points each, but we're way behind on the GD?

 

Pretty much. Here are the standings right now:

 

CLUB   GP  W    L   D Pts   GD
Brazil  2	2	0	0	6	4
Italy	2	1	1	0	3	1
Egypt	2	1	1	0	3	0
USA	  2	0	2	0	0	-5

 

For starters, we need to beat Egypt and have Brazil beat Italy. Assuming that happens, we have to pass both Italy and Egypt in goal differential. To pass Egypt, we have to win by at least three goals. Anything less, and the other match doesn't matter to us. Assuming we're able to do that, we would need Brazil to beat Italy by at least three goals (which would tie us on GD) or to win out, Brazil would have to win by four. Basically we have to win by three and then have the sum of our win and Italy's loss be at least seven (i.e., we win 5-0, they lose 2-0).

 

And that's not happening.

 

LOL, well so much for that.

[Jon]

Bah. I recorded the match, came back to watch it assuming it was over, only to turn on the TV and see a 3-0 score in the 85th minute.

 

One heck of a pleasant surprise, though.

[Vanilla Ice]

Holyyy crap

[TruffleShuffle]

lol wut

[USSoccer]

Suck it, John Harkes. While you were busy pissing and moaning about Clint every 5 minutes, he scored the decisive goal and would have had two assists had Mr. Penalty Spot had shot the ball, and if the Egyptian keeper had not pulled one out of his rear on MBizzy. Bitching about his work rate is absolutely hilarious. I'm glad he did that. F you. Go cry about his rabona some more.

 

That was a good fricking game.

 

I know Spain is going to eat us alive, but this performance was solid.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

ESPN is replaying the Brazil-Italy game, and the goal barrage is just about to start.

[USSoccer]

I'm watching the Italy game right now. They look like hot ass. Too bad Clark had to go all MLS on Gattuso, because I think even up we could have beat them.

 

Gooch had a hell of a game today, and I'm really happy for Guzan. As someone who's never been sold 100% on Howard I'd love for there to be a little competition there.

 

Johnny Specks had a great cross in on the third, and if Mr. PK would fricking learn to shoot the damn ball from somewhere other than the spot, we could have scored even more. Which is too bad, because other than his trademark lack of shooting, he played a hell of a game.

 

Demerit has now cemented the #3 CB spot, which is good, because unless the first 3 are shot and killed I never, ever want to see Califf in an important game.

 

Rico and Mikey B. played strong today, and covered a ton of ground. Kudos to Benny, who played hard in a role not necessarily tailor made for him. Mikey showed he needs a destroyer with him to maximize his skill. He had three solid opportunities and one goal. I liked this.

 

Davies played really well. Lots of pressure, work rate and pace.

 

Jozy was okay, but we need to stop trying to use him like a target player. He's not Brian Ching, nor should we try and make him be that.

 

Egypt looked gassed, disorganized and hurt.

 

I still don't know about BB not using Adu or Torres today (why bring on Casey?) and I'm not necessarily happy about today quieting his critics, but he sure showed more emotion today than I've seen in a while. And while I'm not a rah rah guy, it was nice to see.

[sethuel1]

When you think about it, the bottom line is that without some help on the red card against us italy could easily have gotten 0 points from 3 games.

[USSoccer]

When you think about it, the bottom line is that without some help on the red card against us italy could easily have gotten 0 points from 3 games.

 

I'm not sure about Lippi. Why start Cannavaro? Why not start Rossi? Luca Toni moves like a zombie right now. Do they miss Totti in the center that badly? How do you have an Italian side concede three when all the need to do is keep things tidy in the back and they advance? Why not start Gilardino, who's at least been in form all year.

 

They look no less lost than we did.

 

Very happy Rossi didn't go through.

[UMFan83]

This is awesome. I went to the Cubs game today and due to the high unliklihood of the US advancing I didn't bother to follow the game on my phone. Imagine my surprise when curiosity got the better of me and I checked the score on the walk home.

 

How can they look so bad against Costa Rica, Brazil, Italy etc and then put together a performance like this? How can they look awful against Czech Republic and then draw Italy in 2006? This kinda stuff has to stop.

 

Predictions for Spain game? I say 4-1 ESP

[USSoccer]

This is awesome. I went to the Cubs game today and due to the high unliklihood of the US advancing I didn't bother to follow the game on my phone. Imagine my surprise when curiosity got the better of me and I checked the score on the walk home.

 

How can they look so bad against Costa Rica, Brazil, Italy etc and then put together a performance like this? How can they look awful against Czech Republic and then draw Italy in 2006? This kinda stuff has to stop.

 

Predictions for Spain game? I say 4-1 ESP

 

Just a drunken Father's Day observation, but it looked to me like Bradley, Donovan and Dempsey played much farther upfield today. Donovan in particular played extremely well, and Egypt looked in shambles playing a formation (4-4-2) they haven't played in 5 years.

 

I think Span will kill them. 3-1, 2-0 with very little US possession. But then again, if you wanted a WC2010 dry run, playing Italy, Brasil and Spain in a 10 day span is pretty damned good, and they'll likely get to play South Africa in the 3rd place game as well.

[bukie]

Holy crap, the US actually made up a 6 goal differential to Italy?

[wolf stansson]

What the hell.

 

We saw heart today. Charlie and Jozy were a handful. Landon was all over the place. The back line was solid as a rock. I love our full backs compared to where we were about a month ago with Hejduk and Pearce. I liked the formation a lot. Replace Rico with Jones and we'll have something.

 

Bradley...I don't know. He's still naive and not the best man for the job. He was always going to get his World Cup cycle anyway. Whatever. Guzan played well, organized the back line well. Bradley, Onyewu and Landon have been our best players all tourney and they were fantastic today.

 

3 goals in the run of play was a nice surprise. Something worth noting about that is that DeMarcus Beasley sucks ass kills a lot of our attack when he plays.

[Guest]

Egypt looked gassed, disorganized and hurt.

 

I was really amazed with how poorly they looked. Every minute or so it seemed as someone in our midfield had about a 30 yard run up the field setting up an even numbers opportunity. The consistent threatening attack was something I'm not sure if I've ever seen from a U.S. team since I've been watching.

 

With some better first-half finishing, we could have been up 3-0 at the half and could have won by four or five.

 

But yeah, with how bad Egypt looked, I have to think that they were gassed. There's no way you beat Italy one day and then get completely stomped by the U.S. three days later without something being wrong.

[wolf stansson]

They had some key injuries, and probably overlooked the US. Not that I blame them.

[shnsajax]

This is all a joke right?

[Mark Priors Calves]

is italy playing that bad right now that egypt can play so well against them but then look so bad against the us today? i'm not hoping for much against spain but its another great team we get to play in a short amount of time. hopefully the us can build on the victory and look a little more focused and determined going forward, especially in the wc2010 qualifiers.

[shnsajax]

Since my tivo didn't record the match, what were the thoughts on Charlie Davies?