USSoccer

This season is karmic punishment for all the crap people gave Rex.

Jimmy Bullard, who I don't particularly like, had an awesome celebration after his PK yesterday.

I really wish we had Hogdson going into next summer. That guy made one or two buys and turned a relegation bound team into a Europa league side in a year, and really has developed Clint.

Jared Allen is going to kill Jay Cutler and parade his head around St Paul

Current "23" -Howard/Guzan/Hannehman -Boca/Spector/Bornstein/'Dolo/Demerit/Gooch/Marshall -Donovan/Dempsey/Bradley/Clark/Feilhaber/Torres/Holden/Beckerman -Altidore/Ching/Findley/Casey/Cunningham Just left out/alternates: Kljestian Rogers Edu Adu Pearce Beasley (god no) EJ Cooper Hejduk Conrad Castillo Gonzalez Rolfe McCarthy Goodison I can see Edu replacing Beckerman if he finds his form, Sacha for Torres and Adu being a wild card if he finally gets some burn. Rogers, I think, isn't good enough for the World Cup. Pearce should be there, but Bradley hates him and he isn't playing anywhere. Gonzalez and McCarthy are two to watch. Our strikers really suck. I really wish Chuck D hadn't gone to get his drink on.

I don't rate Beckerman at the international level. He dominated a bad midfield last night. The Gals were horrid in the center of the pitch. Their enitre game plan was: find beckham/long ball/runlandonrun. No buildup, no combination play. It was like watching the 2008 'Nats bypass the midfield all night. He's too slow and not technical enough even to be the destroyer. If Clark, Edu, Jones, and Benny are all unavailable...sure. I think depending on injuries he has a shot at the 23, but he won't get any burn in SA. Findley, though...I think it's clear that offensively we were much, much better with Chuck D and Jozy up front and LD and CD on the wings than any other combination during the last 4 years. We were able to hit teams consistently on the run of play and Davies' ability to stretch the defense was the key to it all. The pace and fear of it make teams play Jozy honest and created space for Landon to make dangerous runs, and space for Clint to float and find creases from which to be dangerous. You could see him making more technical plays, more of a desire to aggressively take defenders on, etc, towards the end of the year before he got hurt, but to play that "role" pace should be the first factor, and RF has pace. I think he might be faster than Chuck, actually. He's where Davies was going into 2009-physical talent needing to sharpen his technical skills. I think if Bradley has brains and balls, he'll start Findley in Camp Cupcake and the Holland friendly to see if he can plug him in and approximate the affect. We know what we'll look like with Jozy/Ching and Deuce, and I hope he's not dumb enough to pull Landon from the wing and stick him up front. We shouldn't abandon a system once we've finally found it.

off topic, but what is significant about your sig? Is that an important play? http://www.fifa.com/confederationscup/matches/round=250120/match=66213/report.html Goal #2.

Cutler looks way too much at Olson, and teams see this on tape.

Pretty good Cup final right now headed into PKs I really, really think Robbie Findley could slot into the Chuck D role. He's at least as fast, probably slight downgrade technically and not as physically strong as Davies, but I think it's as close to approximating that as we could get, and I don't fancy our offense if we have to slide Deuce up front or play Alti with like Cunningham or Ching or some ish. EDIT: Congrats to RSL-the better side throughout most of the game, really. They had more skill players on and they actually had a midfield. Beckerman played great and Mathis looked like he wasn't fat and drunk. Movsisyan missed a couple golden sitters...would like to see him called into January camp as well, since we need to look at every striker in the country. Hopefully his epic PK fail won't screw Landon up.

Our best chance is if Halladay limits the teams he can be traded to like Santana did. Didn't he have some sort of list last summer when the Jays shopped him around? Like Philly, St Louis, Chicago?

Looks like the current home USMNT kits are on sale from ussoccerstore.com.

WTF Spurs. 9-1? I reloaded my Soccernet page just to see if that was right.

Even if Pittsburgh never had that offer on the table, the Cubs are still stupid as an organization to not have just offered arbitration.

Not that it's realistic, but on BigSoccer someone asked the question, if Davies were training by May would you put him on the final 23 knowing he could only play 15-20 minutes per game. I'd say no, but our strikers blow. That might make me consider it. Again, not really all that realistic.

DO NOT WANT

I've seen three mock draws today. Two of the resulting draws: Portugal Argentina Ghana USA and Spain Portugal Chile USA F that noise. That first group would be an absolute bloodbath. The other was: Spain Greece Uruguay USA

We probably only have one year left in our window anyway. I'd probably pull the trigger.

Appeal rejected.

I'd make this deal.

There's no doubt, although the fact that they didn't say "no" right away is odd. Rule V is clear: referee's decisions on the field are not subject to any sort of anything after the fact. Do you know the background/details of the 2005 match that was replayed? A PK was awarded improperly; the situations were different in that the ref in the 2005 match just plain didn't know the proper rule and his screwup of interpretation. This one comes down to the ref missing (4) calls on one play. EDIT: That ref was also one of the most incompetent in history; that game was riddled with poor decisions, and Bahrain had some heft within FIFA. The FIA's appeal seemingly relies less on the rule and more on the "Fair Play" aspect; it also helps, imo, that Henry admitted he told the ref and the ref disregarded it. The only way a replay happens is if public pressure just absolutely overwhelms Blatter and FIFA. Even the French media and other French outlets and organizations are blasting the refs and the outcome, so that helps, but as Wolf mentioned, Platini probably doesn't give an ish.

There's no doubt, although the fact that they didn't say "no" right away is odd. Rule V is clear: referee's decisions on the field are not subject to any sort of anything after the fact.

If the roles were reversed and it was Ireland who went through knocking out France do you think FIFA would be more likely to have a replay? Considering FIFA already changed the rules for France when it was apparent they'd be in a playoff, I have no doubt they'd interpret Rule V much, much differently.

A playoff between Uzbekhistan and Bahrain was replayed due to a penalty being incorrectly awarded, so there's precedent. However, no one in FIFA gives a ish about Asia or Oceania, and this is UEFA. As much as I'd love to see a replay, there's no way it happens.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20407/24exhy8.gif ANGRY EDIT: having watched most of this match now, I can safely say that being drawn into France's group would be my wet dream. This side suck. They played piss poor over two legs and went through on a deflected goal and an awful handball (there were 4 non calls in that sequence, including 3 handballs, once of which should have been a yellow). I don't give a rats ass if they didn't have Ribery. That side has as much creativity as a bucket of piss. We could handle them.

Also, I remember the friendly we played in Germany in like March of 2006. We played, iirc, without Landon, Reyna, Dempsey, McBride, and Beasley, and got worked like 4-1. After that game I remember Seth and I going through the list of crap that saw the field that night, and concluding that our depth blew. (starting XI:Kasey Keller, Greg Berhalter, Steve Cherundolo, Jimmy Conrad, Cory Gibbs, Pablo Mastroeni, Bobby Convey, Kerry Zavagnin, Brian Ching, Eddie Johnson, Josh Wolff) Our depth still blows, nearly 4 years later. Our first XI is good. Can beat anyone on the day. Our 2nd XI is terrible. This has got to get fixed. We had a GAA in 2009 of 1.5. We conceded way, way too many. We scored more, especially from the run of play, that we usually do, but our defense sucks right now. This has to get fixed. We need a third forward option, or, to put it more accurately, we need someone to pair with Jozy so Clint stays in the midfield and Holden can remain a sub. Holden as a starter is one cycle too soon. Lots to do in 5 months.