WC Qualifying: US 3-0 Trinidad and Tobago

A much more satisfying game from the USMNT in Chicago against Trinidad and Tobago tonight.  We’ve put ourselves in an excellent position to go through to the next round of qualifying next year.  At this point, I’m pretty sure we’d have to have a colossal collapse for us to not go through.

To be clear, my happiness with this game isn’t necessarily due simply to the score.  We actually scored two of our three goals from set-pieces, which scoring only from set-pieces has been a source of frustration for me in the past.  Despite only scoring one goal from the run of play, we created a good number of pretty dangerous chances from the field that were one solid touch away from being another goal.  The final touch is something we’ll need to work on, but we definitely showed improvement.

I liked the addition of Sacha Kjlestan in the midfield paired with Bradley.  Kjlestan has been showing some ability as an attacking player for Chivas USA this year in MLS and I’m glad to see Bradley move away from the dual defensive midfield setup for a change.  Not sure if that will be a continuing trend, but I’ll be thankful for it tonight.  I will say that Sacha looked a little nervous in his first start for the full side, but I thought he settled in relatively well as the game wore on and he and Michael Bradley seemed to possess the ball well through the midfield.

One thing that did frustrate me were the instances of carelessness and lack of precision with the ball.  Too many times in the middle of the field, we gave the ball away in really dangerous situations b/c we didn’t focus enough to trap the ball at our feet, or make simple passes that should be pedestrian for professionals and internationals.  There’s nothing more frustrating than giving up a bad goal b/c of carelessness when you have been dominating the game as a team.  A better team would have punished us for those kinds of mistakes.

Not much more to say about the game tonight.  Would have liked to see us put away a couple of the really clear chances we had, but as I said, that will hopefully come.  I think the worst thing for me is we have to wait a month before the next qualifier.  My fiancee probably thinks that’s a good thing.

Funny Golf Observations and Witticisms

Pretty regularly my Pops forwards on emails that he and his golf buddies share around the office.  I felt that this one was worthy of a wider audience.  If you don’t play golf these may not be all that amusing or may not make sense, but what will make this funny to golfers is the absolute truth behind many of them.

Hope you enjoy.

ONLY A TRUE GOLFER WILL UNDERSTAND THESE:
- Don’t buy a putter until you’ve had a chance to throw it.
- Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing.
- When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls.
- If you’re afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there..
- The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing.
-  No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse.
- The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your many other errors
- Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach shot.
- A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponents’ luck.
- It is surprisingly easy to hole a fifty foot putt . For a 10.
- Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.
- Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts
- It’s not a gimme if you’re still away.
- The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree.
- You can hit a two acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time.
- Air is 90% tree.
- If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.
- Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three.
- When you look up, causing an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again.
- Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.
- If you want to hit a 7 iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to lay up just short of a water hazard.
- To calculate the speed of a player’s downswing, multiply the speed of his back-swing by his handicap; i.e., back-swing 20 mph, handicap 15, downswing = 300 mph.
- There are two things you can learn by stopping your back-swing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is wearing the glove.
- Hazards attract; fairways repel.
- A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.
- If there is a ball on the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint
- It’s easier to get up at 6:00 AM to play golf than at 10:00 to mow the yard
- A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game.
- Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you always end up having to pray a lot.
- A good golf partner is one who’s always slightly worse than you are….that’s why I get so many calls to play with friends.
- If there’s a storm rolling in, you’ll be having the game of your life.
- Golf balls are like eggs. They’re white. They’re sold by the dozen. And you need to buy fresh ones each week.
- It’s amazing how a golfer who never helps out around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks, and rake his sand traps.
- If your opponent has trouble remembering whether he shot a six or a seven, he probably shot an eight (or worse).
- It takes longer to learn to be a good golfer than it does to become a brain surgeon. On the other hand, you don’t get to ride around on a cart, drink beer, eat hot dogs when you are performing Brain Surgery !!!!

WC Qualifying: United States 1-0 Cuba

A couple of days have passed, but I still wanted to throw out a few thoughts on the game.

A pretty mundane game, quite honestly.  We got the win, which is pretty important.  I’m tempted to say its the most important thing, but I can’t actually agree with that statement.  I’m half remembering a quote from a movie I don’t remember the name of; “Sometimes when you win you really lose, and sometime when you lose you really win.”  I’m not sure I’d say we lost even though we really won, but I think we tied.

Cuba is a bad team.  There’s no question we should have won this game.  My issue is that we should have won much more handily than we did.  So the conditions weren’t exactly ideal.  It looked as though the field was pretty crappy and there was rain to be dealt with.  That can make it a little harder to play a short passing, possession game.  I actually thought we did reasonably well with that, despite the conditions.

Here are my problems.  Our attack is boring and generally unproductive.  If we can’t create more opportunities than that against Cuba, we’re in trouble.  You know what, I feel like a broken record.  I’m not going to really comment on our crappy attack anymore than to say it still stinks, until it doesn’t anymore.

I’m not so sure about Frankie Hejduk anymore.  He puts forth great effort, but I feel like his effort goes overboard too often.  I don’t think many would disagree that he’s a fill in for Cherundalo when he’s not available, but I think I’d like to find a backup, and eventual successor for Cherundalo that is a little more even keeled.  My other concern about Hejduk is that his his abilities in attack are limited.  He seemed to hit long balls a little too often for my liking, and I wasn’t very impressed with his crosses into the box.

We need to at least try something different in the midfield.  I’m starting to feel like two defensive midfielders is just too conservative.  I could understand it maybe against a team that is equally skilled or better than us, but we should be prepared to try to take the game to less skilled teams.  One defensive mid should be sufficient for a team that we’re much better than, and we could definitely use the extra help to try to produce something in attack.

Brian Ching won a few points with me this past match.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect him to score goals, but he did an excellent job of playing with his back to the goal.  He received the ball and held it long enough to get support and play the ball off to then move the attack along.  Its not exactly what we need from our strikers, but it is something that helps the team.

We play again Wednesday against Trinidad and Tobago in Chicago.  Now we have no excuses not to play an attacking game.  We’re at home with as favorable a crowd as we’re likely to find, the surface should be high quality, and T&T has to travel.  If we don’t show something really impressive this time around, I’m honestly going to be a bit concerned further along in the qualifying.

College Football Week Two

This was a much more pleasurable weekend of college football watching, though I didn’t actually watch as much this weekend as I did last weekend.  I can’t think of any major losses that made me particularly unhappy and there were some great wins on the weekend.

- Big win for Wake Forest this weekend.  I only care because they’re an ACC team.  The better they do out of conference, the better it looks for the conference in general and the better it will be for FSU’s strength of schedule ranking.  Makes whatever record FSU ends up with more respectable.  Also, winning it with a last second field goal is huge for the kicker.  As a kicker, no one knows your name unless you screw up bad or you win a game.  Unfortunately, people forget your name quick when you’re the hero, but their memories are much longer when you’re the goat.  At least he’ll get his 15 minutes on campus.

- I turned things around in college pick’em this weekend, only missing three of ten picks, and at least one of them was my lowest scored pick.  Cris wanted me to make sure that I mention that she only missed two and did better than me this weekend.  She thinks she’s the boss of me.  I’m very impressed with her picking skills for the weekend.  As long as she doesn’t beat me overall during the season, I’ll be okay.

- Finally, FSU came through big this weekend, even though they played a pretty terrible team.  The reason I’m so pleased about the game is that they actually won the way they were supposed to win.  Over the last several years they’ve played terrible against really bad teams and only beat them by a little bit.  This win reminded me a little bit of the wins we had in the mid and late 90s where we shelled teams that we should shell.  It was also good that this happened with a new quarterback and a good number of our best players serving suspensions (b/c they’re stupid).  It gives the offense a bit of confidence with the new signal caller.

That’s about it for this CF weekend update.  FSU has another cupcake next weekend and hopefully we can take care of business again before our season really begins against Wake Forest the following weekend.

A Few Thoughts on the Opening Weekend of College Football

I’m just now coming out of my euphoric haze from the opening weekend of college football and I wanted to share a few thoughts.

- First, this was the worst start to ESPN’s College Pick ‘Em I’ve ever had.  I think for the first time in my history of playing that stupid game, I’m in the bottom half of the standings.  That’s thanks in part to my second thought.

- Clemson…is…was…this was painful to watch.  Since my primary loyalties lie with FSU I primarily pay attention to what’s going on in the ACC.  All I’ve heard all preseason is how good Clemson was going to be, and pretty much all the “experts” said they were going to win the ACC.  What a monumental let down.  They didn’t just lose to Alabama, they were terrible.  I might be being a little harsh on them, but that’s what happens when you get hyped as much as they have been.  I hope for Tommy Bowden’s sake he rights the ship for the rest of the season.  He’s always dancing on and off the hot seat, and a less than great season this year could spell trouble for him considering the talent he had to start the season.

- I’m really freakin tired of USC.  Let me be clear that I think they’re a good team, they couldn’t have won some of the games they’ve won if they weren’t.  Let me also be clear that year in and year out they play in a three or four team conference.  The Pac10 is better than the ACC at football right now, but that’s not saying much.  USC jumped UGA (bias notification: I’m a UGA grad school alum) in the rankings this week, I’m assuming, because they beat UVA and Georgia beat Georgia Southern.  UVA is supposedly in a better conference, but I think a game between UVA and Ga. Southern would be a pretty close one.  Honestly, a win over UVA isn’t all that impressive in comparison to a win over Ga. Southern.  The press have turned into such USC fanboys over the last five or so years, its sort of nauseating sometimes.  If USC played in a decent conference *cough SEC cough* they would not have had the same success they can claim over the last however many years.

- Finally, UCLA’s overtime win over Tennessee Monday is the kind of college football I live for.  It was so good my fiancee, who usually uses college football as a substitute for Ambien, was really into the game.  Tennessee was favored and there were alot of questions about UCLA because of a new coach and a new quarterback.  Make no mistake, Kevin Craft’s first half was one of the worst 30 minutes I’ve ever seen for a quaterback, but the second was incredible.  Someone needed to check under the helmet to make sure that was still Craft under there.  In addition to Craft’s amazing turn around, neither team ever let up making for a great back and forth game, with two fantastic drives to score points to push the game to overtime.  And finally, one of many reasons I think college football is funner to watch than the NFL, both teams get a chance in overtime.

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for much more from the first weekend of college football…well, except for a few more wins from ACC teams (Its really a little sad, honestly). Given some of the big upsets and close finishes, I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.  Hopefully, I won’t be cursing my Seminole fanhood after FSU’s first game this weekend.

WC Qualifying Roster Call-ups

Here’s the list of players that have been called up for the next couple of World Cup qualifiers for the USMNT, and I have to say I just don’t get some of these picks.

Goalkeepers: Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, England), Tim Howard (Everton, England)

Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes, France), Danny Califf (Midtjylland, Denmark), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover, Germany), Frankie Hejduk (Columbus), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Belgium), Michael Orozco (San Luis, Mexico), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock, Germany), Marvell Wynne (Toronto)

Midfielders: DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Michael Bradley (Heerenveen, Netherlands), Ricardo Clark (Houston), Maurice Edu (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Sacha Kljestan (Chivas USA), Eddie Lewis (Los Angeles)

Forwards: Brian Ching (Houston), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles), Clint Dempsey (Fulham, England), Eddie Johnson (Cardiff, Wales)

Goalkeepers: No problems here.  I’ve been a big fan of Tim Howard since he took over for Kasey Keller, and the more exposure Guzan gets, the better he’ll be once its his turn.

Defenders: I have no real issue with these selections.  Our two center backs are pretty much decided, but we’re still trying to find the right people to play at outside back.  Cherundolo will be serving his suspension for his red card against Guatemala so he sort of doesn’t count at least for the first game.  The one selection that raised an eyebrow a little is Michael Orozco.  After his stupid red card in the Olympics that put the US team in a real bind for almost the entire match, I’m not sure he should be getting rewarded with a call-up to the full men’s side.  He served the team well in the qualifiers for the Olympics so perhaps Bradley is looking to the future, but a little surprising to me none-the-less.

Midfielders:  I hope the reason Adu didn’t get called-up was to try to help him get situated in with Monaco.  Sacha kljestan is the only player that typically shows any kind of dynamism on attack, and he hasn’t been getting a lot of starts with the full men’s side.  Perhaps Bradley is going to change things up a little (doubt it).

Forwards: (Preface: Like Adu, I’m working from the assumption that Altidore is either injured or they’re letting him try to get settled in with Villareal) *smacking my forehead*  Isn’t one definition of crazy: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?  Does Bradley think that Eddie Johnson is about to find some International level talent?  Or perhaps Brian Ching is going to bust out with an unexpected hat trick?  I recognize that the teams we’re going to play don’t represent the powers of CONCACAF, but wouldn’t this be a perfect opportunity to try someone who hasn’t gotten much time with the National Team.  We really need to stop calling up players that haven’t performed in the past and haven’t shown much sign of performing in the future.

To me, its a crime to continue to call up Johnson and Ching when they’ve displayed their inadequacies at the International level when you have someone like Kenny Cooper, who is scoring a ton of goals in MLS right now, that you haven’t even given a chance.  Maybe Cooper gets called up and he’s a total bust too, but at least we’d know then.  Give Charlie Davies a chance to try to see if he can pull something off.  Again, maybe he stinks up the field, but at least we’d know.

This leads me to my final point.  When Bradley was named the interim coach, I was fully up to giving him a chance.  The first couple of games, I was really pleased with some of the choices he made in terms of calling up new players and giving people a chance.  We came out with a different attitude and we were taking on teams that were a much better challenge for us that would help the team improve.  I was pretty pleased with Bradley’s choices and his selection as the full-time head coach.

Since then, I feel like we’ve really stagnated and haven’t continued to push ourselves.  We’ve developed a more solid defense, but our attacking as a team continues to be dreadfully inconsistent.  We can’t ever seem to develop dangerous opportunities with any kind of consistency.  We try the same players up front that haven’t really produced any kind of results.  If we don’t try anything different up front, we’re not going to improve in the ways we need to in order to get ourselves through the group stages in the next WC.

They always say if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it.  Well, I’m not sure I’d say things are completely broken, but things definitely aren’t working great and we need to try to fix it.  If Bradley doesn’t start doing things to try to fix something, perhaps we need to start looking at different options for a coach.

Unfortunately, I’m concerned we won’t realize a change  is needed until its too late.  The US should make it through most of CONCACAF qualifying with few real problems.  With a solid winning record during qualifying Bradley will look like the right choice.  But if we get to the World Cup and have the same troubles as in 2006, we may realize too late that Bradley wasn’t the coach to take us where we want the team to go.

Bring on the College Football

For any of you that don’t know (and I’m very disappointed in you if you don’t) college football officially kicks off tonight.  There are a number of games to be played tonight, but really, the match-ups don’t matter.  What matters most is the the withdrawal shakes that I’ve had since the first week of January will finally subside.  As a born and raised in the South college football fan, I have found my sports watching happy place again.

There are quite a few in the country that still don’t get college football, and they definitely don’t understand the fanaticism of college football in the South.  In honor of the beginning of college football season, and in an attempt to provide a clear comparison between college football in the South and other parts of the country I wanted to share one of my favorite email forwards I’ve ever received.

Without further delay, “College Football Southern Style: A comparison of college football in the South and the North”

Women’s Accessories:

• North: Chapstick in back pocket and a $20 bill in the front pocket.
• South: Louis Vuitton duffel with two lipsticks, water-proof mascara, and a fifth of bourbon.  Money not necessary – that’s what dates are for

Stadium Size:

• North: College football stadiums hold 20,000 people.
• South: High School football stadiums hold 20,000 people.

Fathers:

• North: Expect their daughters to understand Sylvia Plath
• South: Expect their daughters to understand pass interference

Campus Decor:

• North: Statues of founding fathers
• South: Statues of Heisman Trophy winners

Homecoming Queen:

• North: Also a physics major
• South: Also Miss America

Heroes:

• North: Mario Cuomo
• South: Paul “Bear” Bryant

Getting Tickets:

• North: 5 days before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus and purchase tickets
• South: 5 months before the game you walk into the ticket office on campus and put your name on waiting list for tickets

Friday Classes After a Thursday Night Game:

• North: Students and teachers not sure they’re going to the game, because they have classes on Friday
• South: Teachers cancel Friday classes because they don’t want to see the few hung over students that might actually make it to class

Parking:

• North: An hour before game time, the University opens the campus for game parking
• South: RVs sporting their school flags begin arriving on Wednesday for the weekend festivities.  The really faithful arrive on Tuesday

College GameDay:

• North: A few students party in the dorm and watch ESPN on TV.
• South: Every student wakes up, has a beer for breakfast, and rushes over to where ESPN is broadcasting “Game Day Live” to get on camera and wave to the idiots up North who wonder why “Game Day Live” is never broadcast from their campus.

Tailgating:

• North: Raw meat on a grill, beer with lime in it, listening to local radio station with truck tailgate down.
• South: 30-foot custom pig-shaped smoker fires up at dawn.  Cooking accompanied by live performance by “Hootie and the Blowfish,” who come over during breaks and ask for a hit off the bottle of bourbon.

Getting to the Stadium:

• North: You ask “where’s the stadium?” When you find, you walk right in.
• South: When you’re near it, you’ll hear it.  On game day it becomes the state’s third largest city.

Concessions:

• North: Drinks served in paper cup, filled to the top with soda.
• South: Drinks served in a plastic cup, with the home team’s mascot on it – filled less then half way with soda, to ensure enough room for bourbon.

When National Anthem is Played:

• North: Stands are less than half full, and less than half of them stand up.
• South: 100,000 fans, all standing, sing in perfect 3-part harmony.

The Smell in the Air After the First Score:

• North: Nothing changes
• South: Fireworks, with a touch of bourbon

Commentary (Male):

• North: “Nice Play.”
• South: “Dammit, you slow sumbitch – tackle him and break his legs.”

Commentary (Female):

• North: “My, this certainly is a violent sport.”
• South: “Dammit, you slow sumbitch – tackle him and break his legs.”

Announcers:

• North: Neutral and paid
• South: Announcer harmonizers with the crowd in the fight song, with a tear in his eye because he is so proud of his team.

After the Game:

• The stadium is empty way before the game ends.
• South: Another rack of ribs goes on the smoker.  While somebody goes to the nearest package store for more bourbon, planning begins for next week’s games.

And in closing I’ll simply say GO NOLES! and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DAWGS, Sicke ‘em!

WC Qualifying: Guatemala 0-1 United States

A win for the US, but boy was it an ugly game.  In terms of style, this game isn’t one either team should be proud of.  The adjective “street fight” that was used by the commentators during the game is probably a very apt description.  Guatemala came out extremely aggressive, displaying what some would call gamesmanship, but what I call rubbish, hackery.  (More on that later)  On top of the scrappy play, the field was in pretty poor condition after an apparent heavy rain earlier in the day, and the quality of the lighting at the field was really bad.

All that being said, we should have dealt with it much better b/c we knew it was coming.  We’ve always had problems going down there and playing.  The game environment in Latin America is always extremely hostile and getting a result there is never easy.  We definitely didn’t show the needed discipline or composure to deal with the high pressure and needling that Carlos Ruiz and Co. pushed on the US.  Once again we required a set piece to get a win after producing very few opportunities from the run of play.  We didn’t do a very good job of keeping possession in the midfield, and we didn’t deal well with Guatemala’s flank play.  Really, about the only positives from the game we can take was a pretty solid central defense, excellent goalkeeping, and one really good set-piece.

Carlos Bocanegra and Tim Howard get my vote for man of the match last night.  Along with the goal he scored, which is obvioulsy crucial, Boca was repeatedly in the right place at the right time to help intercept balls into the box or block shots right in front of Tim Howard.  Howard, came up huge on a number of occassions with big saves when we needed them.  The one thing that did bother me about Howards’s game was his clearances sprayed out of bounds quite often, which is unusual for him.

On to Guatemala.  I got a hold of the Guatemalan national team’s training schedule and their sessions are broken down something like this.  One hour for soccer training, 20 mins for diving and theatrical acumen, 20 mins vocal coaching to improve yelling at the ref and whining, and 20 mins mixed martial arts training to learn how to be hacks and get away with it.

Carlos Ruiz is a dirty player and generally a pain in the ass, and sadly enough, he’s their captain.  I’d really like to use stronger language, but I’m trying to keep this a family friendly post.  Every time I’ve come across a player like him, I always hope to be around when someone puts him in his place.  Tim Howard, who took a Ruiz kick to the face during a save, had this to say in an interview with the AP.

“Carlos kicked me straight in my head,” Howard said. “With Carlos you expect that. He is dirty. I wish I could say it otherwise, but he’s played MLS for five years and I’ve seen him.”

“That’s what he does. I think you would rather have someone man up and say, ‘Look, I don’t like you. I am going to kick you. I’m going to do all that.’ You can almost respect it in a funny way,” Howard said. “He has this way about him. He kicks. He punches. … And he wants to come and be your friend. There is no place for it.”

I think that’s what bothers me so much about divers and hacks.  They do all that kicking, tripping, shoving, punching and then pretend they’re good soccer players as a result of it, and when they try to be friends with you right after its even more insulting.  The really evil devil sitting on my shoulder wishes I was an MLS player playing in a match against Toronto FC (Ruiz’s club) just before the US-Guatemala match.  I think I would find a way to send him a message of what kind of player I think he is.

I guess I’ll just have to try to take comfort in the fact that our chances of getting to the WC are much better than Guatemala’s, and Mr. Ruiz and his henchmen will be watching the games in South Africa from their couches instead of playing in them.  Our next match comes 6 September at 8PM in Havana, Cuba.  That should be another really interesting game to watch.  Talent wise, we should be head and shoulders above them, but Cuba should present a crazy atmosphere to play in.

As a side note, I want to mention that the US Women won Olympic gold today against Brazil.  I didn’t see the match, but ESPN’s Jen Ching did and he has a great write-up about it here.

Olympic Soccer: USA 2 – 2 Netherlands

What a maddening result for the US today.  Getting in late from a movie last night, I wasn’t able to get up for the first half, but I caught the second half and talk about having being crushed early in the morning.

For all intents and purposes the US deserved to win this game.  The first half may have been a completely different story, but the performance of the US in the second half was definitely enough for them to deserve a win against a side that many were expecting to be a lock to go through to the knock-out stages.

I was really impressed with our ball movement through most of the half and we had some very impressive build-up play.  The goal by Kljestan was the product of some very nice passing in tight spaces by the US, and although Altidore’s goal wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, half of being a good striker is being in the right place at the right time.

I also thought the US was doing a good job of maintaining the lead and killing the game off.  The Netherlands started to rely on long balls into the box to try to produce an opportunity and the US back line did an excellent job of maintaining shape and their composure and dealt with almost everything quite competently.  I’ll also tip my hat to Brad Guzan who really put a stamp on the game today.  Guzan has been questioned at times for his ability to control the box, but I think he performed excellently in that regard today.

In regards to the goal that tied the game, what can you do about it?  I’m not going to argue whether it was a foul or not.  I think Holden should have been a bit more careful at that point in the game in that position on the field.  The big mistake was the guys in the wall that jumped on the free-kick.  The announcer (who I’m not a big fan of) suggested that jumping was the right thing to do there, but I have to heartily disagree.  There aren’t a whole lot of players in the world that can get a ball up over the wall and back down under the bar from that distance.  For my money, you make sure that a low ball doesn’t squeak through and you leave it up to the kick taker’s and goalkeeper’s skill to determine if there is a goal or not.

With the final score being what it was, our position in the tournament went from being perfect to not so great, as I see things.  We’re tied with Nigeria at the top of the table with four points.  The Netherlands is in third with two points, and Japan doesn’t have any chances of getting through to the quarters having no points.  To be assured of going through, we have to win against Nigeria, which unfortunately isn’t a given by any means.  If Japan manages a draw against the Netherlands, then it doesn’t matter what happens in our game.  If the Netherlands wins and we draw with Nigeria, I believe the question would be the goal differential as I think that is the first tie breaker.  I think the Netherlands has a good shot at beating Japan, so its incumbent upon us to do everything we can to get a win.

The final match day for the group is Wednesday, and I’m thinking I’m going to have to get up at 5AM to see how things play out.

Sports Writer Kicks a Field Goal in Training Camp

Randomly came across this video on Slate.  Though I played soccer my entire life, I also dabbled a little bit in other sports growing up, and kicking in football was one of my adventures.  Because my team was so terrible I basically only punted, but I did get the chance to attempt one field goal.  As the fates would have it, I also missed mine and like this guy, there was a penalty on the play.  The difference was mine was legitimate and I have the badge of honor of being roughed on a play.  The coaches didn’t give me the chance to kick another one.  They figured that we could get a yard and half and get a two point conversion; we didn’t.

I can’t say the pressure on me was as bad as sports writer Stefan Fatsis when he attempted a field goal at Broncos training camp for a book he was writing, but I’m willing to bet taking the last penalty in a shootout to win a soccer game (which I’ve done) could probably compare.  Check out the video.  Its a pretty entertaining story and it gives you a little glimpse of what athletes sometimes go through during competition.