red red red

[roach]

[uncoolAlbert]

That was one bizarre match, but for a neutral it sure was entertaining - and the US really put it to Italy.

It's a fine line between 'get tough' refereeing and distorting the game.

[zenmomma]

Heh. I like your avatar Roach!

[eebs]

reminds me of a previous england v sweden game....

[James]

Red Card #1 was completely justified and if I were FIFA, I would review the match and ban him from the remainder of Italy's matches in this World Cup. It was very dirty, just like the Italian team really, but I digress...

Red Card #2 was completely unjustified. Should have been a yellow, even by their touchy calling.

Red Card #3 was a second yellow on Pope. It was pretty stupid for him to make that kind of foul at that point in the match (literally just as the second half started).


The US should have won, and the second goal by the US should have counted as the player offsides had no bearing on the play at hand. But such was the calls by the referee. It was as bad, if not worse, than the England-Paraguay ref. For 60 minutes yellow cards were being handed out for players breathing in the wrong direction, and the last 30 minutes they didn't call a damn thing. Keller made some great plays at the end. All of the England folks I watched the match with were impressed with the US ability to make short passes and keep the ball away from the Italians. If they could finish, they'd be dangerous. I'm just glad they showed up to play this time. Good adjustments by Bruce personnel-wise I thought, and a good job of still pushing the ball up even when they were down 2 men.

It's games like this why I say, in 8-12 years, they'll be a force to be reckoned with.

[roach]

Heh. I like your avatar Roach!

thanks!

reminds me of a previous england v sweden game....

pre-AIDS at its best!

The US should have won, and the second goal by the US should have counted as the player offsides had no bearing on the play at hand. But such was the calls by the referee. It was as bad, if not worse, than the England-Paraguay ref. For 60 minutes yellow cards were being handed out for players breathing in the wrong direction, and the last 30 minutes they didn't call a damn thing. Keller made some great plays at the end. All of the England folks I watched the match with were impressed with the US ability to make short passes and keep the ball away from the Italians. If they could finish, they'd be dangerous. I'm just glad they showed up to play this time. Good adjustments by Bruce personnel-wise I thought, and a good job of still pushing the ball up even when they were down 2 men.

It's games like this why I say, in 8-12 years, they'll be a force to be reckoned with.

The argument I heard about the goal not counting was that McBride played a part in the play by shielding the shot from the goalie. That's what I keep telling myself... but it was really nice for those few seconds we thought we were ahead. The Italians were called offside a few times when they weren't, I think that was the ref assistant(assistant ref? linesman?) throwing a couple bones our way because the ref was such shit.

here is a good(fun) article, projecting when the US will win the cup. This guy is a really good soccer writer for the Ft Worth paper, but that paper sent some sports hack to cover the cup for them. Lame.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/colum ... 833491.htm

[eebs]

from the replay it looked as if he was offside and involved in active play as he attempted to play the ball and blocked the view of the keeper :

A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:

interfering with play or
interfering with an opponent or
gaining an advantage by being in that position.

there were a few seconds of celebration here too before anyone realised it had been disallowed. much better performance than the first game, if it had been 11 v 10 or 10 v 10 i think the usa would have got the 3 points.

[roach]

ghana is missing their two scorers due to yellow cards, that's a plus for us. now we just need to score a goal, not rely on the other team to help us out. we win and italy wins, we're into the next round.

go italy!

[sam]

...All of the England folks I watched the match with were impressed with the US ability to make short passes and keep the ball away from the Italians. If they could finish, they'd be dangerous...

Common ground for the US & England there

We were just discussing the year of American ascendency at lunch on Friday. My opinion is that USA '94 should be considered Year 0. The kids that have been born after that will are the first of the 2nd generation of US soccer players. That would put us a little ahead of this schedule for a strong run in 2014.

[roach]

All of the England folks I watched the match with were impressed with the US ability to make short passes and keep the ball away from the Italians. If they could finish, they'd be dangerous.

Controlling a game is kind of our strong point when we can pull it off. In the Chech game there was one flash of this right before Reyna hit the ball off the post. That's one of the reasons the Chech game was so damned frustrating.
We've never really had a solid finisher. McBride is dangerous in the air, but he also has metal plates int here and his face is mostly numb. Wynalda, the leading scorer, was not a great "goal scrorer" but he did he woud find the back of hte net somehow. Eddie has shown flashes of it. Landon can every few years.
We got through to the second round in '94 because of a Columbian own goal, that poor fella paid for it with his life. We still accept own goals, though.