The 2010 FIFA World Cup thread (will contain spoilers)

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Jari Rantanen's Shorts

Fair comment on King & Milner (Milner especially - he's been ill all week), but Green had to be the #1 - Hart is untried, James isn't 100% fit and Green has been pretty good previously for England. Problem is for once we don't have any standout keepers, and Green is the best of an average bunch.

Heskey was great today (he's a Leicester lad so I'm always going to look at his performance through blue-tinted glasses), could have done better with the one-on-one, but other than that basically faultless. He acts as a foil for Rooney, and an attacking midfielder who can run beyond the forwards. But...

It's one of the mysteries to me why Lampard keeps getting picked when Gerrard is also available (by all means have him in when Gerrard is injured), but the tactic of shoot on sight is shown to be a little basic at the highest level. And when the two of them are together, they seem so conscious of not abandoning the centre of the park that they restrict each other - the balance isn't there (wasn't as bad today, but still neither of them were as good as they are at club level, Lamps especially)

And I'll add to the list of questionable decisions: why SWP instead of Joe Cole?

Yeah, on Green, like I said, in hindsight it looks like a poor decision, but I figured going into the game he was the best choice given what we knew then. You're right that the real fault is that England is just not strong in the net right now.

I wasn't trying to denigrate Heskey, so much as just point out that, of all his many skills as a creative forward of some talent, he is not a goal scorer. I'm not sure why Rooney never seemed to be in a position to make a play, but for whatever reason, that's what happened. So you're looking at your one truly dangerous forward being out of play, while your other forward doesn't really score goals. That's a problem for the offense, I think.

And, yes, Cole is another option. I focused on SWP because that's who they put in and he appeared to be fairly dangerous once in the match. But, yes, Cole even better. I always thought he was a bit of an England darling--why wouldn't they have put him in the first place?

I can definitely get behind the idea that England should have add a more conventional holding mid in the middle and allowed Gerrard (presumeably) to run forward at will. That would have caused a lot of problems and also given England more support at the back, which has obviously been out of sorts with the Rio injury and the Terry affair fiasco (and that was before King got hurt).

[RPI-Fan]

Unfortunately, have to root for nil-nil tomorrow.

[miami_fan]

So what changes does Bob Bradley make to the squad for the game against Slovenia?

[Shkspr]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

So what changes does Bob Bradley make to the squad for the game against Slovenia?

He buys Robert Green a flat in Ljubljana.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

Unfortunately, have to root for nil-nil tomorrow.

A Slovenia win is probably the worst result from tomorrow.

0-0
Any tie
Algeria win

[Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Man, you really are Debbie Downer, aren't you? I think the US held its own pretty well. England was most dangerous when Capello went with three forward and pushed the action in the first 20-30 minutes of the second half, and that's understandable--England has world class players in their forward and mid, and the US is weakest in defense.

Other than that, it was fairly even. England showed its class with the excellent Gerrard goal, but no one questions England is a much more talented side overall. The US largely controlled play in the first half outside of the Gerrard goal. The problem was just they weren't as dangerous with their chances as England is (again, a testament to the quality of England's forward players).

The US appeared to have the upperhand in the last 15-20 mins, at least slightly.

What you said.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

So what changes does Bob Bradley make to the squad for the game against Slovenia?

Give one of the other strikers a start. Not start Riccardo Clark (god he was useless).

[Carligula]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Sigh. Installer called an hour ago to say he was running late on the job and should be here just after 12. Now, he just called back to say the job was very complex and he will be here a bit before 1. Anywhere online to watch the game? Otherwise, I'll be watching on my phone when he has to shut down the boxes.

If you don't have a problem with illegality (and if someone modding this does, go ahead and delete my post), MyP2P.eu :: Free Live Sports on your PC, Live Football, MLB, NBA, NHL and more... is a fine solution. I DL'ed StreamTorrent... my stream did crash around the 70th minute, but I got it back, and it worked pretty well overall.

As for the match itself, I'm with miami_fan and DaddyTorgo - the only real evidence that Ricardo Clark played today is that his name was on the teamsheet, and they're rarely wrong.

[Galaxy]

I wonder what the ratings will be for today's match.

[Crapshoot]

Overall, I thought the US (and I say this as a neutral) played pretty well, though admittedly the Green howler changed it. I thought Altidore should have scored on the glanced header earlier, and there were a couple of other chances. That being said, they clearly lacked the cutting edge, and I would have predicted 2-0 if not for Green's Buckner-esque moment.

Some thoughts:
- Gerrard is good. Heskey's place on this team makes sense no? That was a big guy holding up the ball perfectly.
- Where the hell was Wayne Rooney in the first half? He came on in the 2nd half and looked very good, but when his link up involves running from his own half, you will have issues.
- I was actually pretty impressed with Donovan. I genuinely think he can be a good no 10 / playmaking forward type for a quality team, albeit not at the absolute top tier.

[Galaxy]

Did Green copy Mike Gundy and really say, "I'm 30. I'm a man...." in his post-game comments?

[Warhammer]

I only saw the first half, caught the second half in part on the radio, and thought we were tentative. We had a couple of good chances, but we never seemed to get on the end of the crosses. Plus, I never felt as though we tried to force the issue. It seemed as though we played to build up, and then did nothing. Having a lot of possession is nice, but you have to do something with it.

My fear, is that by playing not to lose, we put a lot of pressure on our defense. It is not exactly our strength, and I think we play better by getting the ball forward and trying to hit Altidore on more crosses.

Also, I hope Bradley does not put in Beasley (?) the other ST that played opposite Altidore. He seemed to do very little today.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

I only saw the first half, caught the second half in part on the radio, and thought we were tentative. We had a couple of good chances, but we never seemed to get on the end of the crosses. Plus, I never felt as though we tried to force the issue. It seemed as though we played to build up, and then did nothing. Having a lot of possession is nice, but you have to do something with it.

My fear, is that by playing not to lose, we put a lot of pressure on our defense. It is not exactly our strength, and I think we play better by getting the ball forward and trying to hit Altidore on more crosses.

Also, I hope Bradley does not put in Beasley (?) the other ST that played opposite Altidore. He seemed to do very little today.

That was Robbie Findley. He could do nothing with his pace for most of the game. The one time he was able to put pressure on the English, Carragher absolutely muscled him off the ball.

[Warhammer]

Yeah, I just realized that was his name.

The other thing that seemed odd, if you have a guy that you are playing strictly due to his pace, why not lay out some through balls for him, or play wider to allow for some more crosses for him.

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Yeah, I just realized that was his name.

The other thing that seemed odd, if you have a guy that you are playing strictly due to his pace, why not lay out some through balls for him, or play wider to allow for some more crosses for him.

they tried. england was having none of it.

glad to see they were moving donovan around on the wings but as the commentators mentioned it would have been nice to see him more in the center.

overall it was a very solid performance imo.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by NorvTurnerOverdrive

overall it was a very solid performance imo.

as a neutral observer i agree. Of course if you are rooting for the US your expectations are higher, but a 1:1 draw on England is a great result and the play was definitely good as well. Not spectacular, but a lot of things went right. Your defensive midfield did a great job denying through balls and then did a good job when Rooney recognized that and went to the midfield (doubling him early and effectively) , you Centre Backs played a great 2nd half (Onyewu especially), the wing backs played a good game (Cherundolo more than Boccanegra) and Dempsey did a good job controlling the tempo and battling Gerrard/Lampard. Donovan wasn´t great but still was active and the same goes for Altidore.
Overall i was pretty impressed. Maybe they can play better (you allways can) but as someone not being able to follow them outside the tournaments i thought they played a good game.


Can´t wait for the german game tonight, hope Klose does well and scores. The guy has been taking so much crap this past year due to a weak season with Bayern, yet simply has been there for the national team for years with a ton of goals (10 world cup goals, 48 overall which is 2nd in german NT history and we had our fair share of world class strikers) and even in this crappy year managed to score the most important goal of the season against Russia.
Plus he´s a class act and never complains and instead heads to the training ground to blow off steam. Hope he scores so bad ...

projected starting lineup :

-----------------------Manuel Neuer

Philipp Lahm - Per Mertesacker - Arne Friedrich - Holger Badstuber

------------Sami Khedira - Bastian Schweinsteiger

----------Piotr Trochowski - Mesut Özil - Lukas Podolski

----------------------Miroslav Klose

don´t like Trochowski in there at all, who just doesn´t have the quality but is held in high regard by the coach still. Would have liked to see a 2nd striker against a defensive team like Australia or at least a more dangerous midfielder like Müller.

Badstuber starting in the world cup after 1 single season as a professional, what an amazing story

in defensive midfield both can do sth offensively as well, Schweinsteiger only this year changed positions from AMR to DM and Khedira is known for good runs from deep as well.

[Ryan S]

The stadium looks half full for the Algeria - Slovenia game.

[Big Fo]

Algeria forced a decent save from the Slovenia keeper early, if someone has to win this game I guess it's better if they do. But this is one of the rare times I'm rooting for a 0-0 scoreline.

[whomario]

the slovenian Keeper is amazingly talented, hope he does well here.

[Big Fo]

Zonalmarking.net is one of my favorite soccer websites, they've posted their tactical analysis of yesterday's USA - England game here.

As for changes before the next game I wouldn't mind seeing Torres come in for Clark. We won't be the underdogs and Torres is better offensively. I'd rather see Buddle or Gomez ahead of Findley, who I'm not a big fan of.

Like in the other games, there have been a lot of overhit long passes and cross so far in Algeria - Slovenia. Maybe the ball really is an issue or it's the nerves of the first World Cup game for these teams.

[whomario]

does anyone know a website where you can see advanced stats like how much space a player covered or what areas he was in how long (kind of like in FM) ?

[Big Fo]

FIFA.com shows both of those things if you go to the MatchCast.

MatchCast for USA - England, for example

Just click on one of the players and you should see it. Michael Bradley covered the most ground for us last night, 11.7 km.

Algeria 0 - 0 Slovenia at the half. A kind of boring game so far but I'll take it.

[whomario]

now that was stupid by the algerian striker

[Bisbo]

Great headlne in the Sunday Mirror (UK) today for the England - US game: "The Hand of Clod"

[Chubby]

slovenia goal, algeria is down to 10 men too

[whomario]

and now the GK joining in ...

[Big Fo]

Oh dear. Awful goalkeeping and not a good score for the US if it stands. Algeria are down a man and have ten minutes to tie it up.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Oh dear. Awful goalkeeping and not a good score for the US if it stands. Algeria are down a man and have ten minutes to tie it up.

How is it that bad? US needs to take care of business and they advance. England should beat both of them anyways...

[Big Fo]

Yeah, the US should still advance, but everyone in the group having 1 point with the England game out of the way for us would have been nice.

I was pissed because 0-0 was the absolute ideal score imo and it was such a bad mistake for Algeria's GK to let Koren's shot get past him.

I agree that England should beat both of these teams, neither have looked impressive. We should get two wins or a win and a draw against them as well.

[Chubby]

yeah the goal was pretty shitty, played it with his hands and didn't get his body in front of it and it cost him

[sterlingice]

Ok, so what is the US National Team called? I mean, like in major sports, you have the Kansas City Royals or Houston Rockets. They aren't just referred to as Kansas City or Houston. And looking at the front page of ESPN, Slovenia is the Green Dragons. So what is Team USA?

SI

[Big Fo]

We don't really have a cool nickname like Ghana's Black Stars or Cameroon's Indomitable Lions.

[Warhammer]

The Next Great Thing?

[MrBug708]

It's not the end of the world for Slovenia winning, but the US needs a tie or win vs Slovenia and has to beat Algeria

[Katon]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

I can definitely get behind the idea that England should have add a more conventional holding mid in the middle and allowed Gerrard (presumeably) to run forward at will. That would have caused a lot of problems and also given England more support at the back, which has obviously been out of sorts with the Rio injury and the Terry affair fiasco (and that was before King got hurt).

If England had a decent holding mid fit, then the obvious thing to do would have been to play Gerrard on the left, which is the system that worked in qualifying. Given the choice between playing Michael Carrick and trying the old Gerrard-Lampard mess, I'm not sure Capello had a good option.

[whomario]

good win by Ghana, impressed me with their play. Not spectacular by any means, but unusually solid in midfield and defensively. Serbia majorly disapointing... Tough break with the penalty, but that simply is the rule here.

Ghana going berserk celebrating a group win, very likeable if you ask me

Can´t wait for the germany game !! Müller apparently starting over Trochowski, but no official word yet.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Ok, so what is the US National Team called? I mean, like in major sports, you have the Kansas City Royals or Houston Rockets. They aren't just referred to as Kansas City or Houston. And looking at the front page of ESPN, Slovenia is the Green Dragons. So what is Team USA?

SI

USMNT

In other news, Tim Howard might have some broken ribs!

[Marc Vaughan]

About the England match - Green playing, I personally would have started James - experience counts in these type of matches and Green just doesn't have it (and whenever he HAS started for England against a half decent team he's looked unable to cope imho).

Wright-Phillips coming on the left made no sense imho, he's only 'natural' on the right and tbh even then he isn't the player he was before Chelsea messed around with him imho.

I also couldn't comprehend why Carragher was brought on, tbh that was near suicide he's the slowest defender in the universe, I wouldn't have had him any where near the bench for that match for that reason .... his lack of pace left us exposed continually in the second half.

On the bright side Lennon causes problems with his pace and Johnson was also very intelligent with his movement - on the downside neither could cross for toffee (I'm sorry but if you've skinned your opponent at this level and have a free cross you should manage to get it to a striker or at least somewhere near one).

Kudo's to Team USA though, they were well organised and dangerous on the break as I expected* - but tbh I'm gutted ....... hopefully I'll feel happier after our next match

*Oh and if you fancy swapping keepers let us know

[MIJB#19]

I think the Slovenia win is benefitial to the USA. If England beats Algeria then the USA-Algeria match will be meaningless for Algeria, since with 2 losses and a draw elsewhere, they're knocked out (do the math, either Slovenia or the USA will be at 4 points and so will be England). If they tie (Eng vs Alg), the USA has a shot at gaining the group lead (with a win over Svn) and being in a draw is through situation vs Algeria. If Algeria beats England wins, the USA will still finish ahead of them (Alg) with a game 3 win and that could still put them after a win or draw vs Svn.

This result at the very least means Slovenia will be alive going into the game against England, which could turn that game into a playoff for the other round of 16 berth (together with the USA).

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Chubby

yeah the goal was pretty shitty, played it with his hands and didn't get his body in front of it and it cost him

I missed it, but that sounds a lot like Green yesterday

[MrBug708]

I think Algeria came in knowing they didn't have a chance to move in so I dont think they will give up vs the United States

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

USMNT

In other news, Tim Howard might have some broken ribs!

yikes - really? that'd be the end of our chances

[DaddyTorgo]

Johnson was great - he absolutely exposed Bocanegra continually throughout the game.

If SWP hadn't come on for Milner then Milner would have picked up another booking trying to keep up with Cherundulo.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

yikes - really? that'd be the end of our chances

God, if he DID break his ribs on that challenge, his performance just went from excellent to freakin' spectacular. I could not IMAGINE playing goalkeeper with busted ribs.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

God, if he DID break his ribs on that challenge, his performance just went from excellent to freakin' spectacular. I could not IMAGINE playing goalkeeper with busted ribs.

Seriously - that's true.

[RPI-Fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

yikes - really? that'd be the end of our chances

Ummm, he's going to play whether or not he has broken ribs.

[whomario]

1 hour to go !!

So it really is Badstuber and Müller starting, both in their very first season as professionals. Don´t think we ever had sth like that happen here in Germany.

Will be interesting how they react, but then again playing for Bayern Munich should prepare you as well for this stage as anything can.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

Ummm, he's going to play whether or not he has broken ribs.

that´s a bit simple right here. German No1 Keeper Adler is missing the whole tournament with a broken rib, it´s not like a bruise or sth. Especially for a goal keeper any injury to the ribs is fatal ... You might be able to go the rest of a game on adrenaline, but after a couple days it´s a different thing. Wish him well definitely, but wouldn´t go to "he´ll play no matter what" terrain yet ...

[DaddyTorgo]

Seems like it may not be broken though, just bruised. More tests forthcoming.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by whomario

that´s a bit simple right here. German No1 Keeper Adler is missing the whole tournament with a broken rib, it´s not like a bruise or sth. Especially for a goal keeper any injury to the ribs is fatal and if he has indeed broken ribs than i doubt he can play ...

Its 'possible' for a keeper to play with broken ribs - but in this day and age its increasingly rare ... not least because they're arguably more athletic these days than in older times.

I really hope he's ok though as he was fantastic during the match and very brave going in for the ball which injured him.

Incidentally my favourite keeper of all time is Trautmann (ex-Man City) who played nearly an entire match with a broken neck - now thats a mans man*

*Or bloody stupid depending on how you look at it