The USA Men's National Team coaching spot is vacant.
WOW!
Overdue in my opinion. Our play at the Gold Cup was terrible.
Give me KLINSMANN!
So a pretty important event happened recently which is pretty central to the topics that this blog
addresses. Accordingly I'll blow the dust off my blogging keyboard and blog about it.
That's right, the Western New York Flash played its' first home game in Rochester in the Womens
Professional Soccer league.
Paul the psychic octopus died of old age, at 2 1/2. He is probably the first octopus to be given a
burial spot and a shrine. They should write on his tombstone: He picked the winner when he ate his
dinner."
Spain deserved to win. Completely dominant even in the game they lost. Also, here is my Best XI
from the world cup:
The formation has to be 4-2-3-1 since that's what most of the teams played. So:
Diego ForlanLeonel Messi-Xavi-Thomas MüllerMichael Bradley-Bastian SchweinsteigerGio-Simon
Kjaer-Ryan Nelson-Sergio RamosVincent Enyeama
bench: Keisuke Honda, Wesley Sneijder, Luis Suarez, Jorge Fucile, Diego Godin, Asamoah Gyan
Who'd have thought that a) Ryan Nelson from New Zealand would make my best eleven, or that b) he'd
be on the only team to leave South Africa undefeated?
After defeating England 1-1, the United States ties Slovenia 3-2 after the worst refereeing
decision in a World Cup since Maradona's Hand of God. I don't think any referee can be
unintentionally that bad, and I think the game should be looked at for match fixing via the
referee.
Highlights here.
The World Cup has inspired me to blog again, so I figured I should get back to one of my blog's
specialties: making fun of Stratfor (example A, example B). This time they try their hand at
analyzing soccer, a serious mistake.
I bought a temporary Stratfor subscription a few years ago for my thesis - it was a big waste of
money.
Wow. I am exhausted after watching that game. A win against Slovenia looks more likely especially
given how good Altidore looked today. And then a win against Algeria should be straightforward.
First place vs. second place between the US and England will hopefully come down to goal
difference.
USA!
Interesting intersection of soccer and politics - Iran names an Iranian-American as their national
soccer coach. There's also an interview of Afshin Ghotbi conducted before he was named as Iran's
coach at the NYTimes Goal blog. Ghotbi has previously coached in both Iran and the United and was
an assisant for the US World Cup team in 1998 (which was so bad, maybe Ghotbi was an Iranian mole!
The quality (or lack thereof) of MLS referees is always a hot topic and frequently leads to amusing
column or blog titles (like this one). But after watching the Chelsea/Arsenal game today I'm
reminded that referees suck everywhere, not just in MLS.
After calling Chelsea forward Solomon Kalou wrongly offsides twice in the first half, the same
linesman allows Robin Van Persie's first goal to stand after he was clearly a couple yards offsides
on the goal.
As noted earlier, the Revs lost. This wasn't very surprising given the injury situation. The
other matchups were Columbus vs. Kansas City, Chivas USA vs Real Salt Lake, and New York Red Bulls
vs. Houston Dynamo.
Columbus was favored against KC and won easily, no surprise there. Chivas USA had the higher seed
against Salt Lake but Salt Lake had been on a roll at the end of the season and so I wasn't
surprised to see them beat a Chivas USA side that had a couple injury problems of its own.
The New England Revolution lost 3-0 to the Chicago Fire and were knocked out of the playoffs.
The game started out with the Fire getting a lot of shots, including one that Parkhurst cleared off
the line. Then New England started getting in to it, getting some of their own attacking players
going.
...on the soccer field! To benefit charity! Check out this article from RFE/RL:
TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- An unusual charity soccer game was recently played in the
northeastern Bosnian city of Tuzla.
The match pitted a team of Catholic priests against a squad of Muslim imams and was played under
the slogan "For Children's Smiles.
A reader* wrote in with the suggestion that I post something about the U.S. government's takeover
of AIG, since AIG sponsors Manchester United. I originally didn't want to because I don't really
understand the whole AIG/giant economic meltdown. But Kevin Drum doesn't understand soccer and
still posted on it, so I suppose I will write something.
The New England Revolution beat Chivas USA 4-0 in a nationally televised game on Thursday night,
although it was a pretty close game until the last ten minutes. Jeff Larentowicz, aka Big Red,
scored the 2nd goal of the game that killed Chivas' hope with 10 minutes left. The highlights are
below the fold, with Big Red's tremendous goal starting at 2:40.
Chelsea won in style, and Manchester United couldn't beat Newcastle at home. Looks to be a fine
season! Video beneath the cut.
