2010 World Cup Thread

[bukie]

Frankly, I think that Mexico and the USA should break off from CONCACAF and the Caribbean minnows to form a new Confederation or join another one. The CONCACAF penalty is devastating.

 

I fear if the US and Mexico broke from CONCACAF and joined up with, say, CONMEBOL (which would make the most geographical sense...sort of), the chances of qualification would drop significantly.

[brinoch]

I doubt that CONMEBOL would like to add any teams. Their qualification tournament is fairly simple -- a 10 team round-robin.

[wolf stansson]

Qualifying would go global before we went to CONMEBOL.

[shnsajax]

Qualifying would go global before we went to CONMEBOL.

 

I want nothing to do with Conmebol outside of friendlies and occasional trips to Copa America.

[USSoccer]

Qualifying would go global before we went to CONMEBOL.

 

I want nothing to do with Conmebol outside of friendlies and occasional trips to Copa America.

 

Yeah, me either.

[USSoccer]

I sucked it up and rewatched the Ghana game:

 

-Rico Clark's giveaway was bad, but not as bad as Clint's giveaway against Honduras in Chicago during the Hex, and Prince-Boateng beat four of our defenders and beat our slumping world class keeper near post (which Howard didn't cover but should have). That's Clark, Boca, Demerit and Howard all making the worst possible decisions leading to a goal

 

-Going into extra time, knowing we had probably been physically and emotionally spent by the SVN/ALG games and then the 90+ minutes against Ghana, Bradley should have not subbed Gomez in. He should have put Beasley in as an extra mid, or Goodison in as a 3rd centerback and played 4-5-1 and made sure, no matter what, that we'd at least get to the shootout. Gomez for Jozy was the worst possible substitution, taking out a guy who, while not finishing, was actually holding the ball up well and drawing fouls, and putting in a guy who's more of a poacher and less of a holdup guy. When we went down 2-1 and just started launching 50 yard longballs and crosses in the mixer, the only US player capable of winning a ball in the air was Clint, who had basically been beaten and run into the ground. If Bradley absolutely wanted to bring in a striker, he should have brought Buddle on.

 

-On Ghana's second, Boca should have hauled Gyan down and made the ref decide to send off the US captain in extra time or simply just award the free kick. Granted, that was a hell of a strike, but Gyan did get position on both of them and that shouldn't have happened on a route 1 ball. If Bradley had subbed on Goodison or maybe an extra midfielder, perhaps Edu is further back and able to assist.

 

-Clint played maybe the best match I've ever seen him play in a US shirt, but he clearly did not trust Bornstein as an overlapping option. There were at least 10 instances where he either played square to Mikey or Benny or backpassed rather than play Bornstein on the run. In this coming cycle, we need him to take ownership of that left back spot so that whoever's on that flank has more faith in him.

[brinoch]

I also thought that the US took their foot off the pedal after the PK goal. Should have keep pushing. Ghana were on their heels.

 

I would have preferred Holden over Beasley, mildly. Either one would work well. Jozy was gassed, but Gomez didn't do much -- and what he did well was track back into the midfield, thus strengthening your case for another midfielder. Who do you take off, though? Jozy is dead tired, but if you pull him, you lose the hold-up play. Edu is fine, as was Bradley. Dempsey or Donovan? I don't think you can do it. I think you have to take Jozy off and you compact the midfield and defense into a narrow 4-2-2-1-1 and dominate the middle.

 

Edu should have stayed right in front of the defense, regardless of situation. Keep him covering.

[USSoccer]

I would have preferred Holden over Beasley, mildly. Either one would work well. Jozy was gassed, but Gomez didn't do much -- and what he did well was track back into the midfield, thus strengthening your case for another midfielder. Who do you take off, though? Jozy is dead tired, but if you pull him, you lose the hold-up play. Edu is fine, as was Bradley. Dempsey or Donovan? I don't think you can do it. I think you have to take Jozy off and you compact the midfield and defense into a narrow 4-2-2-1-1 and dominate the middle.

.

 

If you're going to play defensively, you pull Jozy and put Clint up front for your mid, or you pull Clint (which, if you're playing for PKs I can defend, as he's never been very good in shootouts, was dead tired and putting Holden or Beasley in to provide width would have been defensible).

 

I think, gun to head and if I get to go back in time and be Bob Bradley, I pull Jozy and put Goodison in and play a very, very compact 5-4-1. We were too tired a team and-starting in abut the 80th minute-really never looked a serious threat to score. I pack the back and make Ghana produce something stellar (which unless it was on a counter or turnover never looked close to doing) and take my chances with Tim Howard in a shootout.

[brinoch]

You could always add Goodson and have him man-mark Gyan while the rest of the defense stays in the flat four. That should end their offense. 9 behind the ball and man-mark the tired striker.

[USSoccer]

You could always add Goodson and have him man-mark Gyan while the rest of the defense stays in the flat four. That should end their offense. 9 behind the ball and man-mark the tired striker.

 

Yeah, Prince was already out by then. I said before the game, stop Boateng and Gyan and you win.

 

Whoops.

[wvcbxl]

Is the Confederations Cup played with enough time to impact seedings?

Well, it's being held in June 2013, and if qualification/seeding is anything like this cycle, qualification will go through September at least, and seeding would take place in Nov/Dec 2013, so I would assume those matches would impact seedings.

 

Can't remember if they use the world rankings or not but we should be getting a boost in the post-Cup rankings also. The 06 Cup is off our record and the 10 Cup is in while, as you said, we did better than Italy (5th), France (9th) and Greece (13th), while Croatia (10th), Russia (11th) and Egypt (12th) didn't even qualify.

 

Making the Confederation's Cup and having a good showing there is a must if we want to have any sort of a shot at a seed. We'd also have to get lucky and have some of those European teams around us either not qualify or have a poor showing if they do.

 

I think FIFA would like nothing better than to seed a non-host country that isn't from Europe or South-America just to underline the "global" thing. Given the current showings, either the US or Mexico are the logical choice for such a spot.

I'd say go for it.

[TruffleShuffle]

So, the USMNT is going to finish ahead of South Korea, England, Mexico and Slovakia for sure. It looks like Chile will lose to Brazil (Brazil is up 3-0 right now), though the US will finish behind Chile. That leaves two games left in the Round of 16 for tomorrow, Portugal-Spain and Japan-Paraguay. The US cannot finish ahead of Japan or Spain based on points, and Portugal has a 7-0 GD, so we can't finish ahead of them unless Spain is truly the Roja Furia and simply kill the Portuguese team. Unlikely... so that doesn't matter for this calculation. Spain would finish in 9th (again) but they simply replace Portugal ahead of the US. Now, if Japan beats Paraguay by 2-0 or 3-1 (or by any larger differential), US finishes ahead of Paraguay. The worst the US can do is 12th and the best is 11th. So, I'm rooting for Japan tomorrow to get that last boost for a future seeding (yeah, right). Here are the standings 9-16 as they hopefully fall out (Spain over Portugal, 2-1 and Japan over Paraguay, 2-0):

 

9. Chile, 6 points (3 GF, 5 GA)

10. Portugal, 5 points (8 GF, 2 GA)

11. USA, 5 points (5 GF, 5 GA)

12. Paraguay, 5 points (3 GF, 3 GA)

13. England, 5 points (3 GF, 5 GA)

14. Mexico, 4 points (4 GF, 5 GA)

15. Slovakia, 4 points (5 GF, 7 GA)

16. South Korea, 4 points (7 GF, 7 GA)

 

Here's where the wrongly disallowed goal against Slovenia really hurts. With it, we'd have finished in 9th.

 

right, but we played what certainly looks to be an easier schedule than teams like mexico, paraguay, portugal and chile. i definitely don't think we're better than the last three.

[wvcbxl]

Blatter has an alternate solution to the use of technology:

 

http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2010/06/28/illusie1.jpg.c135.135.jpg

[Guest]

Portugal's the only one of those teams you can look at and say that they clearly played better opposition. And even then they were in a group with the only automatic win in the tournament.

[TruffleShuffle]

Portugal's the only one of those teams you can look at and say that they clearly played better opposition. And even then they were in a group with the only automatic win in the tournament.

 

chile played spain and brazil, two teams clearly better than england and ghana, and their other two opponents (switzerland, honduras) were probably just as good as ours (slovenia, algeria). i think mexico's schedule is pretty clearly tougher than ours since they had to play brazil instead of ghana in the knockout round. you're right about paraguay, their schedule isn't really worse than ours, though i still think they're a good bit better than the u.s.

[jersey cubs fan]

A Texas man reportedly murdered his two-year-old stepdaughter on Saturday because she was crying during the U.S.-Ghana World Cup game. Police say Hector Castro choked her with a screw before trying to pass her death off as an accident.

[ConstableRabbit]

A Texas man reportedly murdered his two-year-old stepdaughter on Saturday because she was crying during the U.S.-Ghana World Cup game. Police say Hector Castro choked her with a screw before trying to pass her death off as an accident.

How big was the screw? Did he force it in her mouth?

[sweetpeteman]

Penalties in JAP-PAR.

[wolf stansson]

Only Mexico.

http://deadspin.com/5575458/

[wvcbxl]

This game needs a goal by Spain to break open.

[shnsajax]

Only Mexico.

http://deadspin.com/5575458/

 

I wouldn't F with Blanco.

[Butterscup1679666578]

A Texas man reportedly murdered his two-year-old stepdaughter on Saturday because she was crying during the U.S.-Ghana World Cup game. Police say Hector Castro choked her with a screw before trying to pass her death off as an accident.

 

ah, texas.

[SpongeWorthy]

Disgusting flop on that Portugese straight red.

[Guest]

Smyth and Dellacamera were really letting the ref have it, saying he was clearly favoring Spain.

[Exile on Waveland]

So every group winner advanced to the quarterfinals, excepting the US. Also, five of the seven actual seeded teams -- I'm not including South Africa -- advanced, with Italy and England being the exceptions. I don't believe we've seen an upset in the knockout rounds yet (SPI had USA-Ghana as a tossup). An upset is coming, though not many options for "monumental" one, obviously.