Well That Was Quite A Violent Match Today
I know that I've gotten in trouble for missing politics and footcer in the past, but I really can't help but to point this map from ESPN.com out:
It's not the current poll on which states Democrats are leading House or Senate races in vis-a-vis Republicans. It's actually a poll on which is a more interesting event. The "red states" are states that voted for the NBA finals game this evening. The "blue states" are those states that voted for the USA's match against Italy today.
If only this were the case more of the time than it would be a perfect world.
Well not really since I'm all for footcer and basketball laying down together and breaking bread (I did an analysis and 11 of the 24 countries in the World Basketball Championship in a couple months are in the World Cup right now), it's pointyball that I want to drive out of existence.
Not really, but the pointyball fans are getting on my last nerve in the trenches of myspace.com.
Back to first thing though. The bluest state is New Hampshire (67 to 22%). The reddest state is Florida (but probably due to their homestate Heat being in the NBA finals - 55 to 37%). But among those neutral states it is demographically interesting to say the least which are the bluest and which are the reddest. I'm not saying anymore.
But on to the actuality of today's match. First of all, anyone who took my 1-1 prediction to the betting house, I again want a cut!
The United States will beat Ghana 3-1 on Thursday.
Take that one if you haven't heeded my last two calls (alright if you took my 2-0 on Czech Republic/United States you lost money but only because the United States gave up when it was 2-0. See, I'm not just saying that because it will be one-half of assuring the United States gets the priviledge of being Brazil's first knockout victim, I'm saying it because Ghana's defense is crap (though that free kick showed ours leaves a lot to be desired) and we can exploit it.
Now I know what you're saying: "but Ghana pulled a clean sheet today against the Czechs."
Oh my friend it is not Ghana's defense that shut down the Czech offense, it was the Czech offense that shut down itself. It was as if the Czechs studied the United States' game tapes of how to lose a match by not really trying to play positive footcer in the slightest. I mean, it should have been an easy tape to find being as the Czechs were involved and all.
But unlike the United States in the first match, it wasn't the Czech's fault entirely as they're a team without a single healthy striker. Well at least a top quality one, one that doesn't play for Red Bull New York's sister team in Austria. Especially when you're playing them up top.
And it's not going to get any better against Italy as neither of their real strikers is supposed to be back - at least to the best of my knowledge.
So, see, Italy, barring a major disaster wil beat the Czechs. All we have to do to prove 75% of the world wrong and get out of the pool is to beat Ghana. And I think we are honestly more organized and have better players in 7 of the 11 positions.
And if not, today proves we really know how to fuck opposing players up.
See, if you look back, the Morocco friendly was useful after all. Getting our asses kicked physically by a dirty Morocco side made us better able to be a dirty side ourselves when it was necessary - basically when we were as outclassed by an opponent as Morocco was outclased by us.
We couldn't do it against the Czech because you can't bully opposing players twice your size but against the Italian, out constant fouling put them right off their game.
It's not the United States style that I like to see but we're actually quite good at it. We pushed the Italians around like rag dolls and actually controlled the portion of the game where the two sides were even because the Italians had no idea what to do.
Now I won't even get into the whole refereeing situation (Beasley's goal shouldn't have counted - as it didn't - but it was beautiful just the same) but this should tip my hand a little (from one of the footcer communities on LiveJournal)...
Here's the number for the Uruguayan embassy:
(202) 331-1313
For those of you in DC, the address:
1913 I Street NW
Not that putting diplomatic pressure on Uruguay will do any good, but you know the whole "phone your representative" thing is the United States way. :)
By the way, for anyone who says the own goal was our salvation, I have this to say. The United States had the ball in Italy's box so much during the first 20 minutes that Italy was bound to make a defensive mistake.
It was the pressure that led to that defensive snafu. Now sure it would have been better if we score the goal off one of our own players but it was our game that led to the goal either way.
And if we run like that at Ghana, they're going to break a lot easier.
I'd like to report that the hard fought draw down one man for the entire second half won the United States some respect in the trenches but the haters, while sudued, are still making excuses how the United States isn't good enough.
Well if we can lose 2-1 to Brazil maybe that will help.
It's not the current poll on which states Democrats are leading House or Senate races in vis-a-vis Republicans. It's actually a poll on which is a more interesting event. The "red states" are states that voted for the NBA finals game this evening. The "blue states" are those states that voted for the USA's match against Italy today.
If only this were the case more of the time than it would be a perfect world.
Well not really since I'm all for footcer and basketball laying down together and breaking bread (I did an analysis and 11 of the 24 countries in the World Basketball Championship in a couple months are in the World Cup right now), it's pointyball that I want to drive out of existence.
Not really, but the pointyball fans are getting on my last nerve in the trenches of myspace.com.
Back to first thing though. The bluest state is New Hampshire (67 to 22%). The reddest state is Florida (but probably due to their homestate Heat being in the NBA finals - 55 to 37%). But among those neutral states it is demographically interesting to say the least which are the bluest and which are the reddest. I'm not saying anymore.
But on to the actuality of today's match. First of all, anyone who took my 1-1 prediction to the betting house, I again want a cut!
The United States will beat Ghana 3-1 on Thursday.
Take that one if you haven't heeded my last two calls (alright if you took my 2-0 on Czech Republic/United States you lost money but only because the United States gave up when it was 2-0. See, I'm not just saying that because it will be one-half of assuring the United States gets the priviledge of being Brazil's first knockout victim, I'm saying it because Ghana's defense is crap (though that free kick showed ours leaves a lot to be desired) and we can exploit it.
Now I know what you're saying: "but Ghana pulled a clean sheet today against the Czechs."
Oh my friend it is not Ghana's defense that shut down the Czech offense, it was the Czech offense that shut down itself. It was as if the Czechs studied the United States' game tapes of how to lose a match by not really trying to play positive footcer in the slightest. I mean, it should have been an easy tape to find being as the Czechs were involved and all.
But unlike the United States in the first match, it wasn't the Czech's fault entirely as they're a team without a single healthy striker. Well at least a top quality one, one that doesn't play for Red Bull New York's sister team in Austria. Especially when you're playing them up top.
And it's not going to get any better against Italy as neither of their real strikers is supposed to be back - at least to the best of my knowledge.
So, see, Italy, barring a major disaster wil beat the Czechs. All we have to do to prove 75% of the world wrong and get out of the pool is to beat Ghana. And I think we are honestly more organized and have better players in 7 of the 11 positions.
And if not, today proves we really know how to fuck opposing players up.
See, if you look back, the Morocco friendly was useful after all. Getting our asses kicked physically by a dirty Morocco side made us better able to be a dirty side ourselves when it was necessary - basically when we were as outclassed by an opponent as Morocco was outclased by us.
We couldn't do it against the Czech because you can't bully opposing players twice your size but against the Italian, out constant fouling put them right off their game.
It's not the United States style that I like to see but we're actually quite good at it. We pushed the Italians around like rag dolls and actually controlled the portion of the game where the two sides were even because the Italians had no idea what to do.
Now I won't even get into the whole refereeing situation (Beasley's goal shouldn't have counted - as it didn't - but it was beautiful just the same) but this should tip my hand a little (from one of the footcer communities on LiveJournal)...
Here's the number for the Uruguayan embassy:
(202) 331-1313
For those of you in DC, the address:
1913 I Street NW
Not that putting diplomatic pressure on Uruguay will do any good, but you know the whole "phone your representative" thing is the United States way. :)
By the way, for anyone who says the own goal was our salvation, I have this to say. The United States had the ball in Italy's box so much during the first 20 minutes that Italy was bound to make a defensive mistake.
It was the pressure that led to that defensive snafu. Now sure it would have been better if we score the goal off one of our own players but it was our game that led to the goal either way.
And if we run like that at Ghana, they're going to break a lot easier.
I'd like to report that the hard fought draw down one man for the entire second half won the United States some respect in the trenches but the haters, while sudued, are still making excuses how the United States isn't good enough.
Well if we can lose 2-1 to Brazil maybe that will help.
posted by incendiarymind at 5:03 PM
1 Comments:
Hi,
This is an interesting blog post. Keep posting such an awesome blog post. Thanks!
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