Where I Try To Play Serious Pundit
So as regular readers know, strategery is not my strong point when it comes to footcer. I understand formations and the like but somehow I can watch the same game and come up with different results than anybody else. This is why I usually stick to the circus around the match, which is more my forte, rather than the match itself.
But yesterday I was too upset to come up with anything funny about what had happened so I wrote a relatively serious synopsis of my feelings on the United States/Morocco friendly.
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How can we lose to Morocco on a last minute goal? Morocco wasn't even trying to win!
Seriously, I love my Yank Footcerlers (I mean they're my default icon) but they seriously embarrassed me tonight. Morocco came into the game ready for ritualistic slaugher at the hand of the Yanks. They clogged the midfield and hoped for just some sort of counterattack. Unfortunately both teams fulfilled their parts of the bargain. The United States pounded Morocco's goalie at least in the second half one John O'Brien was pulled for Bobby Convey. And Morocco scored a goal against the run of play.
Can I just say that if Bobby Convey wasn't going to be playing in the Premiership already come August, we'd all be screaming that he's good enough to play in the Premiership without being pulled up with his team (though to be fair, he was a major, major reason Reading is coming up).
But I will say that tonight Bobby Convey secured his place in Reading's midfield for next year (not to be replaced by a close season buy). Wow! I forgot how good that guy was.
He may still be snatched up by a bigger team in the Premiership if he plays like that.
DMB was a little spark plug like always, O'Brien proved he is still amazingly talented (damn you Landon Donovan for missing a sitter when O'Brien lobbed the ball over two defenders for you) though still not healthy, Josh Wolff showed unexpected international level class I didn't know he had. Eddie Johnson showed he's still better than Wolff when he can actually play. Brian Ching came in too late to evaluate.
Our defense gives me heart palpatations. They got away with some things against Morocco that any of the three teams they play against in the World Cup are going to knock into the goal without blinking. Even Gooch. Even Gooch. :(
And of course the big news is Claudio Reyna got injured again.
Now I'm not saying this is a good thing because Captain America is a lynch pin but I am not arguing against the chorus of some people who say it's time for him to give up the armband to let a young midfielder who's not injury prone start.
Anyhow, like I said, the United States offense looked good, but not great. Once they got through some jitters, they put in a few shots. And they were not content to leave it 0-0 in front of a home crowd.
I think if Ghana does the same thing in Germany, the United States won't open themselves up in the back trying to put on a fireworks display in the last five minutes. Unless they need the win against Ghana.
I thought two things at the end of the match:
1) There goes our #5 ranking so now I won't hear about that on the message boards anymore.
2) I'm going to hear about losing to Morocco for ages on the message board - especially after all the shit I've been talking about Iran not being able to beat second tier teams and can't advance (defending Mexico in the process doesn't exactly allow me to sleep at night).
And now back to the silly rumors from the silly season...
While Wigan looks to be the prime contender to snatch Andy Johnson away from Crystal Palace (their bid now stand at 8.5 million pounds), there's an interesting thing that could happen instead...
Everton may re-up them and put in a higher bid (and Johnson is reported to want to play for Everton and not Wigan). Now rumor has it (a Jennifer Aniston movie I refuse to watch) that Everton is also interested in Eddie Johnson based on his performance at the World Cup.
I think if they land Andy Johnson, they have to also pay for Eddie Johnson (though their reported bid is less than Benfica offered for him).
How cool would it be for Everton to have Johnson and Johnson up top?
I mean if they do something that cheesy, I might have to actually care about them!
The other news is England's got a B team match against Belarus tomorrow. The starters are as follows:
G David James
D Owen Hargreaves, Sol Campbell, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole
M Aaron Lennon, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas, Stewart Downing
F Peter Crouch, Michael Owen (captain)
Interestingly enough, Theo Walcott is on the bench. Now he may still get a start for England's first team in the near future but, wow. That's certainly something to talk about.
Also Hargreaves being put back to left back. This is just proof that Sven wishes he were Bruce Arena. Owen Hargreaves is better than Eddie Lewis but neither of them should be playing left back.
Oops, slipped into on-field pundit again -- time to back up and go back to making fun of Serie A's eventual downfall en masse.
But yesterday I was too upset to come up with anything funny about what had happened so I wrote a relatively serious synopsis of my feelings on the United States/Morocco friendly.
---
How can we lose to Morocco on a last minute goal? Morocco wasn't even trying to win!
Seriously, I love my Yank Footcerlers (I mean they're my default icon) but they seriously embarrassed me tonight. Morocco came into the game ready for ritualistic slaugher at the hand of the Yanks. They clogged the midfield and hoped for just some sort of counterattack. Unfortunately both teams fulfilled their parts of the bargain. The United States pounded Morocco's goalie at least in the second half one John O'Brien was pulled for Bobby Convey. And Morocco scored a goal against the run of play.
Can I just say that if Bobby Convey wasn't going to be playing in the Premiership already come August, we'd all be screaming that he's good enough to play in the Premiership without being pulled up with his team (though to be fair, he was a major, major reason Reading is coming up).
But I will say that tonight Bobby Convey secured his place in Reading's midfield for next year (not to be replaced by a close season buy). Wow! I forgot how good that guy was.
He may still be snatched up by a bigger team in the Premiership if he plays like that.
DMB was a little spark plug like always, O'Brien proved he is still amazingly talented (damn you Landon Donovan for missing a sitter when O'Brien lobbed the ball over two defenders for you) though still not healthy, Josh Wolff showed unexpected international level class I didn't know he had. Eddie Johnson showed he's still better than Wolff when he can actually play. Brian Ching came in too late to evaluate.
Our defense gives me heart palpatations. They got away with some things against Morocco that any of the three teams they play against in the World Cup are going to knock into the goal without blinking. Even Gooch. Even Gooch. :(
And of course the big news is Claudio Reyna got injured again.
Now I'm not saying this is a good thing because Captain America is a lynch pin but I am not arguing against the chorus of some people who say it's time for him to give up the armband to let a young midfielder who's not injury prone start.
Anyhow, like I said, the United States offense looked good, but not great. Once they got through some jitters, they put in a few shots. And they were not content to leave it 0-0 in front of a home crowd.
I think if Ghana does the same thing in Germany, the United States won't open themselves up in the back trying to put on a fireworks display in the last five minutes. Unless they need the win against Ghana.
I thought two things at the end of the match:
1) There goes our #5 ranking so now I won't hear about that on the message boards anymore.
2) I'm going to hear about losing to Morocco for ages on the message board - especially after all the shit I've been talking about Iran not being able to beat second tier teams and can't advance (defending Mexico in the process doesn't exactly allow me to sleep at night).
And now back to the silly rumors from the silly season...
While Wigan looks to be the prime contender to snatch Andy Johnson away from Crystal Palace (their bid now stand at 8.5 million pounds), there's an interesting thing that could happen instead...
Everton may re-up them and put in a higher bid (and Johnson is reported to want to play for Everton and not Wigan). Now rumor has it (a Jennifer Aniston movie I refuse to watch) that Everton is also interested in Eddie Johnson based on his performance at the World Cup.
I think if they land Andy Johnson, they have to also pay for Eddie Johnson (though their reported bid is less than Benfica offered for him).
How cool would it be for Everton to have Johnson and Johnson up top?
I mean if they do something that cheesy, I might have to actually care about them!
The other news is England's got a B team match against Belarus tomorrow. The starters are as follows:
G David James
D Owen Hargreaves, Sol Campbell, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole
M Aaron Lennon, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas, Stewart Downing
F Peter Crouch, Michael Owen (captain)
Interestingly enough, Theo Walcott is on the bench. Now he may still get a start for England's first team in the near future but, wow. That's certainly something to talk about.
Also Hargreaves being put back to left back. This is just proof that Sven wishes he were Bruce Arena. Owen Hargreaves is better than Eddie Lewis but neither of them should be playing left back.
Oops, slipped into on-field pundit again -- time to back up and go back to making fun of Serie A's eventual downfall en masse.
posted by incendiarymind at 8:14 AM
3 Comments:
Our #5 rating won't go anywhere until after the World Cup. FIFA's last list before the tourney came out last week. Warm-ups won't matter in light of whatever we do in June.
Really amazing! Useful information. All the best.
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