World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

[French Rage]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

I think this is the key...soccer has had this image in America for a long time of being boring because it's low scoring. Showing just how exciting a 1-0 game can be was huge for the American perception, even if it should have never come down to that moment.

Plus the fact we won the group for the first time, and over England no less.

[manurespreader]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

Great read on JK and USA soccer:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/ma...ican.html?_r=0

I almost posted that myself.

[J.D.]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

so these older players who come to MLS from europe...i assume they are doing it for the money? but how is that possible? how is MLS able to pay these guys?

[Jimjamesak]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

so these older players who come to MLS from europe...i assume they are doing it for the money? but how is that possible? how is MLS able to pay these guys?

Owners are responsible for Designated Players salaries (as opposed to normal where the league pays). Basically its up to the owner if he wants to pay that much.

[Patman]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

Bosnia with a strong start against Mexico... They just can't close the deal....

Almost went to this match.. Just too expensive for two teams that I really don't give 2 craps about though...

Also it's blatantly clear why Chicago will never host a USMNT match that means anything... We have way too many fans of other nations in this city... The crowd is almost guaranteed to only be 60% or less in favor of the US... Hate to sound like an ignorant American a-hole, but it's the truth

I've been having a small argument at work over how the Salvadorans will behave at the El Sal vs. Spain game at FedEx. Not that I think they'll be central america nasty, but i don't think they'll be friendly per se. They'll still get brained by at least 3 goals... he was trying to tell me it'll be cordial because they all support Barca or Real anyways.

[Red Cloud]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

I've got no sympathy for Rossi. He made his choice and now has to accept the consequences of that choice. He could've been the man on the U.S. squad. He could've still had his time in the Serie A, but he blew it.

Amen. And for all the bellyaching I'm seeing in the media about American fans being annoyed at Rossi but not at some of the foreign-born US players, here's a big difference - most of the time, players are coming from countries where they'd have a harder time cracking the lineup. If they're legit (like the sons of servicemen), more power to them for choosing the US.

Screw Rossi. His eyes were bigger than his stomach.

I do look at Aron Jóhannsson with an eye askew, and to a lesser extent Mix Diskerud. Iceland was close to qualifying this year, as amazing as that sounds, and Aron could have been a difference maker for them. I know he was born in Alabama but he grew up in Iceland. Norway on the other hand I see as being on roughly the same level as the US, but Diskerud's an all out Norwegian for sure. Glad to have them but there's a feeling like they sold out for us.

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

Amen. And for all the bellyaching I'm seeing in the media about American fans being annoyed at Rossi but not at some of the foreign-born US players, here's a big difference - most of the time, players are coming from countries where they'd have a harder time cracking the lineup. If they're legit (like the sons of servicemen), more power to them for choosing the US.

Screw Rossi. His eyes were bigger than his stomach.

I do look at Aron Jóhannsson with an eye askew, and to a lesser extent Mix Diskerud. Iceland was close to qualifying this year, as amazing as that sounds, and Aron could have been a difference maker for them. I know he was born in Alabama but he grew up in Iceland. Norway on the other hand I see as being on roughly the same level as the US, but Diskerud's an all out Norwegian for sure. Glad to have them but there's a feeling like they sold out for us.

To be fair to Johansson he wasn't going to play much because Iceland has some great strikers, but yes he and Diskerud are the closest comparisons to Rossi.

[FreshFish]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

Another profile of Klinsman in today's WSJ:

A crisis was looming at a pivotal moment in this World Cup campaign—and to some extent for soccer in America. Team USA needed to strike fast. It was time do what their German-born coach, Jurgen Klinsmann, had been exhorting them to do for months: It was time to play soccer like Americans.

For nearly a century, the world's soccer-playing nations have tried to forge connections between the way they see themselves and what they do on the field
.....

Before Mr. Klinsmann took the reins of the American team three years ago, playing like an American meant, for the most part, sticking to an assigned position and reacting to the other team's attack. To Mr. Klinsmann, a former German star and national-team coach who moved to the U.S. in 1998, the strategy struck him as wholly un-American.

Mr. Klinsmann, soccer's Alexis de Tocqueville, wanted to build a winner, but he wasn't interested in teaching Americans how to play like anyone else. He wanted to create a squad that represented what he sees as the defining American characteristic—a visceral hatred of being dictated to.

"American nature is to take the game to our opponents. We don't want to just react to them," he explained in an interview last month near his home in Southern California
....

He believed the modern game had no place for teams that hang back and try merely to survive—"parking the bus in front of the goal" in soccer-speak. For the U.S. team, he felt this strategy was wrong on another level: it was un-American. "You want to take things in your own hands," he says of American behavior on and off the field.

Mr. Klinsmann taught the U.S. players to see the field differently—to impose themselves on opposing defenses, and for defenders to push high into the middle of the field and even to join the attack. Midfielders, who have to both attack and defend, were sent down the sides of the field where they could send crossing passes in front of their opponent's goal.

Most important, he implored them to keep the ball moving around the field, and the only way to do that, he explained, was to stay in near perpetual motion, to search constantly for the open space where they can receive a pass.
....

Mr. Klinsmann made it clear he thought the players were too proud of themselves for making it out of the group stage of the 2010 World Cup before getting ousted by Ghana, a poor nation less than one-tenth the size of the U.S. Such a result, he noted, would cause a national crisis in Germany.

There are some good graphics in the article that show key differences in the US team's "shape" on the field before and after JK took over.

[LynahFan]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

Heard this piece on NPR this morning. It is definitely time for FIFA to stop giving away these white elephants to countries who can't afford them and can't execute, and then patting themselves on the back thinking that they've done something great for those countries. Oh, and to stop taking the bribes - that would be a good plan, too.

[MadTownSioux]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

No Vuvuzelas at the World Cup? THANK GOD!

Link

[Jimjamesak]

No Vuvuzelas at the World Cup? THANK GOD!

Link

And no large banners. Don't want none of them protest banners sneaking in.

[bigmrg74]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

And no large banners. Don't want none of them protest banners sneaking in.

Like that would stop them?? A little organization and you could easily stitch together a bunch of small banners into one big banner during the match.

[MadTownSioux]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

And no large banners. Don't want none of them protest banners sneaking in.

And Hooters. I'm not sure I like that one.

[FreshFish]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

Wouldn't it be really ironic if, in order to really emerge as a world-class player, Michael Bradley needed JK to replace Bob Bradley as national team coach?

I like the shift from the 4-2-3-1 to the 4-3-1-2 concept (though it's called a 4-4-2...). Bradley the playmaker linking up with Dempsey and Altidore on the attack.

Give JK props for changing from the formation that carried USA through qualifying into the formation that gives them a better chance to win in Brazil with the players they now have on the roster.

Given how he wants the USA to play, I am now understanding better why Donovan was not brought along. The 4-3-1-2 requires a lot of running from the midfielders, and Donovan said publicly that, at his age, he couldn't train hard for 12 days in a row and be at his best for each of those 12 days.

Altidore is essential up front for his size, strength, and aerial skill, and so you are then left with a choice: who'd you pick if it were up to you, Dempsey or Donovan?

I have an anecdotal sense that the USA is one of the best teams in the world for scoring goals in the 85th minute or later. You can wear down a team mentally by wearing them down physically, and the conditioning exercises and emphasis on proper hydration and nutrition will stand them in good stead. In a way, it's too bad they get Ghana in Manaus, since there won't be as much of an advantage for the USA in that heat and humidity as there would be if they played Germany or Portugal there.

Call me crazy (others have! ) but in my pool, I'm picking Germany first and USA second from that group.

[Red Cloud]

Re: World Soccer XXV - the run up to the World Cup

Heard this piece on NPR this morning. It is definitely time for FIFA to stop giving away these white elephants to countries who can't afford them and can't execute, and then patting themselves on the back thinking that they've done something great for those countries. Oh, and to stop taking the bribes - that would be a good plan, too.

FIFA is not interested in your logic and coherent thought process. They might get interested if you show up with a briefcase full of cash first, though.