Earlier this year, an old college pal of mine called me up and gave me a little stick about the Pittsburgh Pirates getting blown away by Stephen Strasburg in his major league debut. I calmly told him the Pirates haven’t cared about winning since they blew it in 1992, and when they start caring about baseball again, I’ll start caring again, too.

I think MLS is hoping soccer fans in America will feel the exact same way about the CONCACAF Champions League. If nothing else, it will help those 500 or so Galaxy fans who actually showed up last night pretend that their team’s comprehensive collapse against the Puerto Rico Islanders wasn’t real. Besides, winning the MLS Cup before Landon Donovan returns to England in January is what really matters, right? Right?

The next day, Galaxy boss Bruce Arena and four of his best players – U.S. national team star Landon Donovan, leading MLS goal scorer Edson Buddle, goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts and defender Omar Gonzalez — will fly to Houston to compete in the MLS All-Star Game against Manchester United.

You would think that MLS would be a little more cognizant of the fact that it’s hindering its top club’s chances of winning silverware this year by scheduling a meaningless friendly one day after a qualifying match in what’s supposed to be a major continental competition. Even Arena has come right out and said the All-Star Game is “secondary.” If Fabio Capello called up Jermain Defoe and Michael Dawson for an England friendly within a week of Tottenham Hotspur’s UEFA Champions League qualifying match, White Hart Lane and half the Premier League would be in an uproar.

MLS, however, still believes it has to sell both the game and its league to sports fans in this country, and let’s face it — the Puerto Rico Islanders won’t put fannies in the seats like Manchester United will. So it will continue to put the emphasis on these media circuses in the hopes that it will bring in new fans.

This post-World Cup period seems like a passing strange time for American soccer. Two of the biggest clubs in the Premier League came to America to face MLS squads and lost. Sure, Man United and Man City played a bunch of reserves and transfer targets in those games, but surely even United’s reserves, who won a Carling Cup two seasons ago, are good enough to run roughshod over a 10-man Kansas City Wizards squad. They didn’t.

The question, then, is does that say more about the quality of play in MLS than it does about the current state of Man United? And if so, then how much longer will MLS continue to put on these dog-and-pony shows before it starts taking winning its top continental competition seriously?

Given the lack of say MLS had in creating the CONCACAF Champions League, I suspect we’ll see them continue to put the emphasis on these friendlies for a long time to come. It’s a shame, too, because the Galaxy right now might just be good enough to win this Champions League, if it can keep its current roster intact through May. That’s too big an if, though, no matter what MLS says publicly. Even Landon Donovan has his price.

No words. Should have sent a poet.

(Spotted on 101 Great Goals.)

His latest challenge? Rugby sevens. How he still had enough working fingers to type afterward remains a mystery.

We trot up and down the field, passing the ball back and forth. The one thing about rugby that isn’t intimidating is the ball: oval, nubbly to the touch, it has the feel of a perfectly engineered ball for its sport, almost begging to be carried. If an American football is a squirrely piece of leather begging to be fumbled, a rugby ball is a good-tempered snuggler, easy to kick, pass, or carry without fumbling.

Chris is taking pictures and video. “Man this looks like fun.”

“Wait until he lights me up on a tackle. You might change your mind.”

Avery grins and nods. “Oh, that’ll happen.”

You can read the rest at SB Nation.

But I know what you’re really wondering. You’re wondering who won the Dave’s Football Blog World Cup Fantasy League. Aren’t you? Of course, you are. Well, no further delays, then. The winner of the Dave’s Football Blog World Cup Fantasy League is…

(drumroll)

Me.

I challenged all comers. Some put up valiant fights. Jason Krim, in particular, put up a furious challenge during the knockout stages. Alas, even he came up a bit short, proving once again that won’t accomplish anything if all you do is try to beat Off Constantly. Yes.

So as I said when I launched this contest, if Off Constantly FC wins, the scarf of victory is mine…

Except, of course, that there is no scarf. I’ve decided to donate the prize money to the Nicole Murphy Family Support Fund instead. I already have one scarf for my club and another for my country. I don’t need a third. Some things are more important than that.

In the meantime, there will be plenty more opportunities for you, dear readers, to challenge this reigning fantasy champion. Keep an eye on this site for future contests involving the UEFA Champions League, the NFL, and maybe more. Maybe next time, you can be the one say that you beat Off Constantly. Good luck!

Any day now, Paul the Octopus will have a one-hour special on ESPN in which he announces that he’s headed to South Beach — just like everyone else who wears that damn swoosh.

(Photo spotted by @BinahSophia)

If a football match is, in part, a metaphor for a battle, then defeat is a metaphor for dying, and victory is a metaphor for … not dying. I trust that at some stage of your existence hitherto, you have discovered that you are one day going to join the majority. (If not, it’s time to have a word with your folks as to the precise nature of this “puppy circus” they told you Snuggles had run off to join.) We are the only animal equipped with this awareness, and it bothers us. We are programmed to fight our own mortality — by, say, making babies, or taking pictures of each other. It’s a form of madness: a madness that makes us human. But we cheat death in an altogether more basic way: we stay alive. The universe will kill us if we stand still. It wants us to sate its entropic appetite; it wants us to fulfill our fate and return to the chaos whence we came. We inevitably will, of course — that’s what fate means. All organisms may possess a mechanism for self-preservation, but our foreknowledge gives our fear of death a unique profundity. Merely to hold our destiny off for another day, to postpone it until some indefinite point after now, is a triumph and a matter for celebration. If this appears meagre to you; if it appears doleful; defeatist, even … well, you lead an existence either most lucky or most unlucky.

Fredorrarci nails it, people. Make with the clicky and read the entire piece.

(All you Baltimore Ravens who want to use this video as an argument, please sit down. We’re talking about hard-coded rules, not judgment calls, and if this World Cup has proven anything, it’s that judgment calls work both ways, often to devastating effect.)

Of course, a basketball player has to break a specific rule — in this case, goal tending — in order for the other team to be awarded the points. This rule exists in part to allow a more offensive game and to give both teams a fair opportunity to score.

Football codes don’t have a rule like this. If a defender illegally stops a player from scoring, the player and team are penalized, but points are not awarded. The onus is still on the offensive team to score. Period. That is simply how football works.

Let me set out an example for you:

The Ravens are leading the New England Patriots by 4 with just a few seconds left on the clock. The Pats are on the Ravens’ 8-yard line and have one play left. Brady drops back, sees Randy Moss open in the end zone and passes to him. Ed Reed, meanwhile, realizes he’s caught out of position, and he can’t make a play on the ball. So Reed grabs Moss and pulls him away from the pass as time expires.

The ref throws the flag. Of course, he does. That’s pass interference. Ed Reed prevented the touchdown illegally. The touchdown, however, is not awarded automatically. By rule, the ball is placed on the 1-yard line, and the Pats will get one more play, since the game cannot end on a defensive penalty. However, the Pats still have to score the touchdown. If the Ravens stuff them on the last play, the game is over, the Ravens win.

Did Ed Reed break a rule in order to help his team win? Yes. He committed pass interference and was penalized for it. The rules of the game, however, allow for this, just as the rules of basketball allow a team to foul its opponent constantly at the end of the game in order to get the ball back and try to erase a deficit. Points aren’t awarded for fouls, though; you have to make your free throws. Thus, if you know a team struggles at the free throw line, tactical fouling becomes a legitimate strategy in order to win.

Which brings us to Luis Suarez, who caused something of an uproar yesterday.

With Uruguay and Ghana tied at 1-1 in the 121st minute, the Uruguayan striker illegally stopped Ghana from scoring a goal by slapping it away. He’s not the goalkeeper, so he can’t do that. Like Ed Reed in our example above, Suarez was properly penalized as the rules stipulated — he was shown a straight red card and sent off. By those same rules, however, the goal is not given automatically. Ghana still has to put the ball in the net.

They did not. Asamoah Gyan missed the ensuing penalty kick, and extra time ended at 1-1. Uruguay won the game on penalties and advanced to the semifinals.

Some have reacted with outrage to what Suarez did. They claim he’s a filthy cheat, just like Thierry Henry, and that he should be ashamed of himself. They also claim that Uruguay should not be in the semifinals because of this.

Here’s the thing, though — unlike that France v. Ireland game, the laws of the game worked exactly as written here. Suarez was properly punished for his handball (red card and suspension), just as Reed was penalized for his pass interference in our example above. This was, in essence, a tactical foul — a deliberate breaking of a rule in order to help your team try and win a game.

So really, if you have no issue with basketball players fouling at the end of a game in order to try and win it, you shouldn’t have any issue with what Luis Suarez did here. Tactical fouling exists to give your team an opportunity to win when no other option is available. So you commit those fouls, because you want to win. Is it cynical? Yes. Is it cheating? No. You do what you have to do within the rules of the game in order to win the game.

Perhaps because of Henry’s handball is so fresh in our minds, Suarez’ handball is skewing our sense of justice. The difference is that in the case of Henry, justice was not served. France was allowed to commit a clear violation due to officiating incompetence, and Ireland was given no recourse. This is why the NFL has instant replay — to give teams recourse in case the officials appear to make the wrong decision.

There were no wrong decisions at the end of the Uruguay v. Ghana game. Suarez accepted his punishment as the rules stipulated. There was simply the tactical foul and, sadly for Ghana, Gyan’s blown penalty kick. Had Gyan converted, we probably wouldn’t be talking about this. Ghana had the opportunity to win the game after the penalty was committed, and there’s nothing really unjust about that.

Tactical fouling is simply part of football, as it is part of nearly every sport. This is how it should be, too. We should not get into the habit of simply awarding one team the game every time the other team breaks the rules, or else we open our games up to all sorts of ugly unintended consequences. Victory needs to be earned in our games.

Need a break from the World Cup? Want to start getting your gridiron fix early, brain studies be damned? You’re in luck. It’s Canada Day north of the border, and our neighbors are celebrating properly — with football. The Canadian Football League season kicks off tonight at 7:00 PM, as the Montreal Alouettes travel west to take on the Saskatchewan Roughriders in a rematch of last year’s Grey Cup Final.

What’s more, if you’re in America (and you aren’t stuck with Time Warner Cable), you can watch. Our pal MJD over at Shutdown Corner alerts us that NFL Network will be showing CFL games this season, including 14 regular season games between now and November. Games will air on Saturday nights in July, and Friday nights from September through November. The press release did not indicate whether NFL Network would show the Grey Cup Final, but if the ratings are good enough, they probably will.

So if you’re ready for some 3-down, 110-yard, giant-end-zone, endless-pre-snap-motion football, NFL Network’s got it for you tonight. In case you’ve forgotten, MJD has a quick breakdown of the rules differences between the NFL and CFL. He’s a little too excited about the rouge, really.

Seeing an old fellow leatherhead led Uncle Johnny to tell us a few gridiron war stories. Most notable among them was one story about an opposing lineman who was one of the biggest, meanest kids in the area — and Uncle Johnny had to line up against him. It was pouring down the rain that day, and when they got down in their three-point stance, my uncle looked up and saw this ferocious beast of a man staring him down, breathing angrily, and looking determined to maul him and the quarterback.

So my uncle met his gaze and quietly grabbed a chunk of muddy turf in his hands. When the ball was snapped, he shoved that mud right into that big kid’s face. And he kept right on doing it until that kid couldn’t see straight anymore.

Uncle Johnny and I chatted a bit about the NFL. He lives in Tampa, and he’s as frustrated with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as everyone else down there is.  I told him about how the Glazers bought Manchester United with nothing but debt, found themselves in a bad spot when the economic downturn hit and probably diverted resources from the Bucs to avoid getting their debts called in. The next day at breakfast, we chatted about football again, and he repeated what I told him about the Glazers as if I hadn’t said anything about it the day before. I let him talk. It was good just to talk to him, and he deserved at least that much respect. Besides, he’s 80. Finding someone at that age who hasn’t had a mental slip or two is challenging.

The scary thought, however, is that my Uncle Johnny’s brain at 80 is probably still in far better shape than Chris Henry’s was at 26.

Whenever people talked or wrote about the long-term brain injuries of football players, the focus was always on the linemen — players who took the most hits and suffered the most physical abuse. Former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster struggled mightily with brain trauma before his death eight years ago. A coroner named Bennet Omalu got permission to study Webster’s brain and found large accumulations of proteins clogging his brain cells. Omalu called it Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE. His crusade to get NFL officials to recognize his work was chronicled in this must-read GQ story.

Webster’s brain was just the first one Omalu and his colleague Julian Bailes studied. They looked at the brain of Philadelphia Eagles safety Andre Waters, who committed suicide in 2006, and found CTE. They looked at the brain of Steelers lineman Justin Strzelczyk and again found CTE. For the most part, though, these were the guys in the trenches, guys willingly suffering repeated violent collisions for the glory we showered upon them. Many of them probably knew going in that they were trading years of their lives for that glory. It was their trade to make, so we let them, because we loved to watch.

Then it came out this week that Chris Henry, a wide receiver who played only two seasons of college football and a grand total of 47 games in the NFL, also suffered from CTE.

Chris Henry didn’t play in the trenches. He had a history of bad decision-making before he died, yes, but he had no known history of concussions. Receivers in general don’t suffer the sort of abuse that linemen and linebackers subject themselves to regularly — at least, we didn’t think they did.  Yet there’s the scientific proof that Henry had the exact same brain trauma that Mike Webster and Andre Waters had.

That begs the question — if football caused Chris Henry to suffer from CTE, just how many other football players have this condition? What about all the kids playing this game on the high school and college level? Hell, what about the kids in the pee-wee leagues? Is it possible that the gridiron game damages the brains of everyone who plays it?

It’s kind of question that makes even a lifelong football fan such as myself step back and think, “My God, what have we done?”

Football, in all its forms, is an evolutionary thing. Rules change. New tactics and strategies develop over time. The game that my Uncle Johnny played back in the 1940s is miles away from the game everyone plays today. These brain studies, however, suggest that American football has evolved into something very ugly, and as Omalu learned when NFL doctors initially rejected his report about Webster, getting the powers that be to change their ways, especially when billions of dollars are on the line, is never easy — especially when one of the biggest selling points of football is this:

This is what we, as fans, pay to see. We want to see the gladiators do battle. The NFL gives them to us. So do countless high schools and colleges. Never mind that the gladiators will all suffer from debilitating injuries that can eventually wreck their lives and the lives of everyone around them. These men choose to play football, and they willingly take everything that goes with it, good and bad. And we cheer them for it.

Chris Henry’s brain changes all that. If Chris Henry had CTE, then it’s possible that everyone who plays American football will develop CTE — and not just NFL players. The more people start to consider that information, the more parents will start asking, ”Should my son even be playing this game?” Sure, the powers that be will invest in new helmets and make new rules to soften the blows and ease people’s fears, but ultimately, those are cosmetic changes. American football players only know one way to play football.

American football, however, is not the only football in America.

Last week, when Landon Donovan scored the game-winning goal for the USA against Algeria, it felt like one of those pivotal moments in American sports history. It was as if people in this country all started to realize that, yes, the Association game is a great game, too, and we should watch it. Just one day after the USA-Ghana game smashed TV ratings records in this country, 18,755 people went to see the Philadelphia Union’s first game in its new stadium. You can sense the shift happening, even if it continues to move at a snail’s pace.

I wonder now if this revelation about Chris Henry might end up shifting things just as much. I wonder if the parents of the next Randy Moss will look at these CTE studies and start thinking, “You know what? Maybe we should look into this other football instead. Maybe there’s an opportunity here. Maybe we should direct him this way…”

That’s a simplistic notion, of course. As Juergen Klinsmann will be the first to tell you, U.S. Soccer still has yet to develop the resources necessary to attract inner city kids to that game. Still, these CTE studies seem certain to lead some talented young athletes from poorer backgrounds away from the gridiron game. Those kids will be looking for an outlet. They can’t all play basketball, and they’re not so interested in baseball. Why not soccer?

Perhaps 20 years from now, we’ll look back on this summer as the real turning point in the history of football in America — and not just because the USA gave us a couple of  magic moments in South Africa. Landon Donovan and Tim Howard brought the fans to the game, but it might be Chris Henry who ultimately brings the players to the game. Perhaps in death, Henry will have a far greater impact on football in America than he did in life. Wouldn’t that be something?

]]> http://www.davesfootballblog.com/post/2010/06/30/what-price-football/feed/ 2 http://www.davesfootballblog.com/post/2010/06/27/knives-out-for-bob-bradley/ http://www.davesfootballblog.com/post/2010/06/27/knives-out-for-bob-bradley/#comments Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:57:23 +0000 Dave http://www.davesfootballblog.com/?p=5684 It was a memorable four-year cycle for the United States national team. They won the Gold Cup in 2007. They beat Spain in the Confederations Cup semifinals and played well against Brazil in the final. They gave us possibly the most pivotal moment in American soccer history with Landon Donovan’s late winner against Algeria in this year’s World Cup.

That said, the 2010 World Cup is over for the USA, who were eliminated by Ghana for the second straight World Cup, and the loss has turned this team’s (and this country’s) moment of unbridled joy into a flat keg of bitters, and everyone is pointing their swords at the manager.

Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated is suggesting that Bradley started the wrong players throughout this World Cup, while Mark Lincir at 90:00 came right out and said it. Brooks Peck at Dirty Tackle has accused Bradley of “chronic mismanagement,” while Paul Gardner at SoccerAmerica is asking whether it’s time for “Banality Bob” to step aside. (I would tell you what’s being said at BigSoccer right now, but quite honestly, I’m afraid to look.)

Perhaps the most stinging assessment, however, is this neutral and even-handed review from Zonal Marking:

Bob Bradley has shown that he’s very good at identifying problems on the pitch and finding a solution with a change in tactics and/or personnel midway through games, but he doesn’t seem to learn lessons from game to game. The starting XI tonight was wrong, evidenced by the fact that he was forced to make two changes before 46 of the 120 minutes had been played. Had he fielded Edu and Feilhaber from the off, and been able to make changes to freshen up the side in the second half, who knows what might have been?

That pretty much sums up this four-year cycle under Bob Bradley. When he gets it right from the start, this team produces great results, but he gets it wrong from the start as often as he gets it right. The selection of Ricardo Clark over Maurice Edu was a disaster, as Clark’s turnover in midfield allowed Ghana to expose American defenders’ lack of pace and score an early goal. Robbie Findley should not have been in this lineup, either, as his finishing was poor, and he contributed little else to the side.

The discussion at Zonal Marking seems centered on why Bradley continued to deploy a 4-4-2 without Charlie Davies available to complement Jozy Altidore up front. In order to maximize the talent on the pitch, Bradley might have been better off going with a 4-2-3-1, with Altidore as the lone striker and Donovan, Clint Dempsey and one other attacking midfielder right behind him. Bradley had far better options in midfield than up front, and when Bradley switched to a 4-2-3-1 to start the second half against Ghana, the USA looked more threatening and more able to cope with Ghana’s packed midfield. The tie score at the end of 90 minutes proved that. So why did Bradley need 45 minutes of play to figure that out?

The fact that we’re asking this question suggests that Bob Bradley is not the right man to take U.S. Soccer to the next level. Some would say this team met expectations this year by winning its group and going through to the knockout round, but the USA lost a winnable game against Ghana, and it lost because the manager made poor decisions from which his team could not recover. What’s more, in three of the USA’s four World Cup games, the USA gave up early goals and had to come from behind to get results.

Oh, by the way, this team held a lead in this World Cup for a grand total of 2 minutes, and that was against a team ranked 16 places lower than the USA by FIFA.

If U.S. Soccer thinks that’s good enough, then this country still has a long way to go. The game will still get a huge boost here from the euphoria of Donovan’s game-winner, but that will carry the game only so far. The USA needs a manager with more refined tactical skills in order to advance further in this competition. Bob Bradley will get us this far. He might even win us another Gold Cup next summer. We should aim a little higher than that.

There are a ton of links I could throw at you today — starting with this epic collection of Landon Donovan goal celebration videos, or Brian Phillips’ Homeric attempt to describe all those videos put together in words (“It’s scary to think how things might have looked if anyone here cared about soccer.”)

Really, though, I’m focused on one thing: USA v. Ghana. Win or go home. And the intoxicated joy in that video of the American Outlaws singing the Star-Spangled Banner (which I shot at the USA v. Turkey friendly in Philadelphia a month ago) is enough to get me going.

If it doesn’t work for you, however, you can do what our boys themselves prefer to do. Crank up the Weezer.

GO GO USA!

Suffice to say, if any of you challengers want that scarf, you will really need to step your game up. I suggest loading up on defense. Seems to be working pretty well for me thus far.

I also suggest dropping Fernando Torres, strictly on principle:

(Video uploaded by @OnTheDLPodcast)

There are a million things I could write about this match — the bogus offside call that denied Clint Dempsey an early goal, Tim Howard’s Peyton Manning-esque outlet pass to the open man that started the break, the 90 minutes of incredible tension in the pub where I watched the game that ended in a joyous explosion, Ian Darke’s fantastic call of that game-winner, etc. — but really, I think this sums it up:

Everyone who saw this will remember where they were when it happened. Every American kid who saw this now wants to be Landon Donovan. This is how a fan base gets built. From here on out, everything changes. If you think this World Cup is fun, America, just wait until 2026.

(Video courtesy of @WillBrinson)

It should have been a goal. It wasn’t. The list of people saying the Americans got jobbed stretches from Grant Wahl to Brian Phillips to Spencer Hall to Ricky Martin. Yes, that Ricky Martin. When Ricky Martin says you’re a bad ref, you are a bad ref.

Nevertheless, it happened, it is done, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Perhaps we should just be thankful that A.) the USA managed to get to that position after being down two goals to a country whose total population is small than the population of Philadelphia, and B.) England laid a big fat emu egg today with that scoreless draw against Algeria.

So with that in mind, let’s try to put this behind us and figure out what the USA has to do to move on to the Knockout Stage — and in all honesty, it’s not nearly as bad as where this team was a year ago at this point in the Confederations Cup.

Here’s how the Group C table looks right now with one game left:

Amazingly, the USA now has the goals scored tiebreaker over England going into the 3rd and final round on Wednesday, England plays Slovenia, and the USA plays Algeria. That tiebreaker is important, because now the USA merely has to beat Algeria to clinch a spot in the Knockout Stage. Here’s how it breaks down:

USA beats Algeria and:

1. Slovenia wins — Slovenia 1st, USA 2nd.
2. England wins — USA and England advance.
3. Slovenia & England draw — USA 1st, Slovenia 2nd.

USA draws Algeria and:

1. Slovenia wins — Slovenia 1st, USA 2nd.
2. England wins — England 1st, Slovenia 2nd.
3. Slovenia & England draw — Slovenia 1st, 2nd determined by goals scored tiebreaker.

Algeria beats USA and:

1. …well, that would be that for the USA, really.

As the old December NFL trope goes, the playoffs start now. The USA’s 2nd half comeback has put them in a position to advance with a win. That’s what it all comes down to now for the Americans — win and advance. Even though a draw against Algeria gives them about a 50-60% chance of advancing, this USA team would do well not to leave this one to a coin flip. Bob Bradley needs to get this one right from the first minute on Wednesday.

Leave it to Jeff Wortman and Paul Hogan, our old pals from Down Under who gave us this classic moment on Arden Street, to find just the right way to put the vuvuzela in its proper context. Bravo, gents.

(Spotted on @Superfooty.)

While most Americans’ footballing attentions are focused on Friday’s pivotal World Cup match between the USA and Slovenia, another U.S. national football team of sorts will be playing for some minor hardware on Saturday at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ.

USA Rugby is playing in the Plate Final, i.e. the third place match, of the 2010 Churchill Cup, an invitational rugby union tournament involving the USA, Canada, England’s 2nd team (known as England Saxons) and three invitational teams. The Eagles lost to the Saxons but managed to beat Russia, 39-22. Highlights from that match are in that video above. (Thanks to Simon for letting me know about it.)

All three finals will take place at Red Bull Arena on Saturday, with the USA v. France A game kicking off at 5:30. You can find more info about it here. It’s not that often that you get to see competitive international rugby union on U.S. soil, so if you’re in the neighborhood, you might want to give it a look.

Maybe we shouldn’t have been so shocked. Maybe we had become so accustomed to Spain’s recent dominance — it’s EURO2008 title, it’s perfect World Cup qualifying campaign, it’s run of 47 games with only 1 loss (USA! USA!) — that we forgot just how much a well-organized defense could stifle them. Jose Mourinho proved it against Barcelona in the Champions League semifinals. Spain is loaded for bear with Barcelona stars and lined up in a very Barca-like 4-3-3. Many have suggested they just didn’t know what to do without Lionel Messi out there.

Then again, as Zonal Marking points out, maybe Spain’s problem is one that has dogged Barca in recent months — too much possessing, not enough attacking.

For all their possession, Spain didn’t create that many goalscoring opportunities. Whilst Switzerland defended well, the most notable feature of the game was quite how bad David Silva and Andres Iniesta were when they got the ball, how anonymous Xavi was, and how frustrating the full-backs were to watch. The Swiss can take some credit for forcing them into poor performances, but even the pressure on the man in possession doesn’t excuse constantly bad passes, poor movement and a lack of drive from Spain’s host of top-class players.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the aftermath of this, the World Cup’s biggest upset thus far, is that we haven’t heard the typical English excuse for Spain’s struggles — fixture congestion. Barcelona, Real Madrid and Valencia have spent the last two seasons competing in both Spain and Europe. Is it possible that after playing 50-60 games per season for the last 2-3 seasons, these Spaniards are struggling with fatigue?

Whatever the reason for this loss, this team has to shake off this loss and focus on what’s now required of it — winning its next two games in order to avoid Brazil in the first knockout round. Beating Honduras on Monday shouldn’t be too difficult. Beating Chile on the 25th? According to The Sports Section’s Josh Dean, that might be a tall order.

Man, the Chileans are fun to watch. The core of this team finished third in the 2007 under-20 World Cup, and now older and complemented with a cluster of experienced players, finished second in South American qualifying, scoring 32 goals in the process (just one fewer than Brazil). They are quick, talented, and entertaining as hell, and this was without their star forward, Humberto Suazo, who scored more goals than anyone else in South American qualifying.

Get your popcorn ready.

Oh, the vuvuzela. Everyone is talking about it. They’ll tell you how annoying that infernal buzzing is. They’ll show you how to cut that noise out. They’ll tell you it should probably be banned from stadiums, just for the sake of world sanity.

Not a chance, says Sepp Blatter. The High Lizard King FIFA President has come out in support of the vuvuzela, saying it’s a tradition in South African football, and the traditions of the host country should be honored. “Would you want to see a ban on the fan traditions in your country?”, he asks of us.

So that incessant buzzing will continue until July 11. And so will the vuvuzelas. Hey, haters gonna hate, right?

1. Meanwhile, the KSK Gay Mafia(TM) has found a buzzing sound more annoying than vuvuzelas — Peter King in Cape Town! Yes, it’s all part of Sports Illustrated’s grand plan: 1.) NFL writer gets sent to cover big event for a different football code, 2.) ?????, 3.) Hilarity ensues! Drew Magary dissects King’s first missive from South Africa, and he throws out this apt line: “Good fucking Christ, can anyone anywhere make a mistake in sports without some Boston asshole immediately piping up about fucking Buckner?”

2. The only thing more difficult than silencing the vuvuzelas? Buying tickets to World Cup games on FIFA’s web site. FIFA seems to have royally screwed the pooch online — not just with ticket sales, but with social media as well. Even Sepp Blatter’s safe and boring Twitter page seems like it was hastily conceived to hide FIFA’s lack of social media savvy.
   
3. While FIFA is blowing it, ESPN is killing it. Over at The Sporting Blog, Dan Levy has high praise for ESPN’s coverage of the World Cup, calling it “the best event ESPN has ever produced.” One thing Dan didn’t mention? ESPN’s 3D coverage. Anyone watching the World Cup in 3D? Anyone? Are those vuvuzelas or crickets I’m hearing?
4. Of course, while nobody’s watching in 3D, the leadership in Somalia is trying to make sure that its citizens can’t watch the World Cup in 2D, either. They hate us for our football, it would appear.
5. Finally, SB Nation shows us photos of Dutch fans, which begs the question: Whatever happened to the Girls of the World Cup web sites? Clearly, there’s some candy in South Africa right now, and not just the players serving as eye candy for the ladies. Someone is collecting and posting those photos to a Tumblr or something, right? Right!?

No words. Should’ve brought a poet.

(Courtesy of Lego Fussball and the Guardian.)

Andres Iniesta’s knowledge of the vuvuzela (courtesy of the boys at Dirty Tackle) should not be equal to your knowledge of the 2010 World Cup. Here are a few articles to get you up to speed:

1. The Run of Play’s Brian Phillips, who’s been even more visible than Bono during this competition, reminds USA fans that it’s okay to be disappointed with that 1-1 draw against England, because really, that team probably should have done better.
2. Over at Sport Is a TV Show, Fredorrarci takes a look at the 2010 French squad and declares them the most interesting team in the competition, because “they do possess the ability that ought to make them one of the favourites. That such talent flounders so is grim and thrilling.”
3. Eric Altshule at World Cup Buzz has a rather surprising amount of praise for many of the organizations we expected to get it wrong — namely, FIFA, ESPN & the referees. I have no complaints about ESPN, either, save for the continuing prevalence of Bono.
4. Fresh off his nice little profile on ESPN Chicago, Pitch Invasion’s Tom Dunmore asks what happened to all the goals. Of course, he asked this prior to Germany’s 4-0 deconstruction of Australia, which prompted Zonal Marking to remind us that Germany looked better than they were because the Socceroos were a tactical disaster.
5. Finally, the Guardian‘s Lawrence Donegan asked last week if the USA would switch on to the World Cup. The TV ratings say yes, they would, but Laurent Dubois reminds us that if soccer never became a mainstream sport in this country, that wouldn’t really be so terrible. (Hat tip to Must Read Soccer for that last link.)

While all of England is railing against Robert Green’s horrible mistake on Saturday and demanding more of Fabio Capello as a manager, many of my American friends are coming to me — because, y’know, I’m the “soccer guy” now — and asking me the same question:

Why was this game allowed to end with the score tied?

Soccer games can be won, lost or drawn, and the drawn part constantly trips up American sports fans. We expect every game to have a winner and a loser in this country. We play overtimes and extra innings to determine winners. When there are no winners or losers, we all get confused. Who was the better team?

America, it’s time for a teaching moment. Here is the thing you need to understand about soccer: winners and losers aren’t determined by each individual game. They’re determined by all of the games put together.

I know. This tripped me up at first, too, but once you adjust your mindset to this, the competition becomes much more interesting to follow.

Pretty much every soccer league, from the Premier League to MLS to your local rec league, works like this: a team gets 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie, or draw. League standings are determined by points, and the prizes, whatever they might be, are awarded at the end of competition based on how many points you’ve amassed.

Thus, the point of each individual game is not to determine a winner, but instead to determine how many points each team earns for its results. Each individual game serves the structure of the entire league season. The league is the thing, not the game. The game is not the main competition itself, but it’s just one chapter in the narrative of the league season.

In the World Cup Group Stage, which we’re in now, that narrative is only three games long. The Group Stage is basically 8 tiny leagues of 4 teams each. In each group, everyone plays each other once, and the two teams that have the most points at the end of the Group Stage advance to the Knockout Stage, which is the survive-and-advance bracket portion of the World Cup — the part that Americans can figure out more easily.

So why does this make draws valuable? Let’s take a closer look at Group C. England and the USA both got a point for that 1-1 draw, while Slovenia beat Algeria 1-0 on Sunday. So the standings look like this:

Slovenia 3, England 1, USA 1, Algeria 0.

Now let’s say England beats Algeria and the USA beats Slovenia in Friday’s 2nd round games. The standings now look like this:

England 4, USA 4, Slovenia 3, Algeria 0.

That point the USA got over England now puts them in a much better position than they would have been in if Robert Green’s hands hadn’t turned into Teflon. Take away that one mistake by Green, and the table would look like this:

England 6, USA 3, Slovenia 3, Algeria 0.

In that scenario, England only needs a draw against Slovenia to win the group, while the USA has to hustle a little harder against Algeria to ensure it advances to the Knockout Stage. Because of that one mistake by Green, however, it is England who has to work harder to win the group.

Why is winning the group important? Because the runner-up in Group C has to play the winner of Group D, which is very likely to be Germany. Y’all saw what Germany did to Australia today, right? Good. Keep that in mind as we go through this.

Now let’s go back to the table as it is now and look at what happens if the USA only gets a draw against Slovenia on Friday, while England beats Algeria:

England 4, Slovenia 4, USA 2, Algeria 0.

Thus, a draw for Slovenia against the USA feels very much like a win, because now Slovenia controls its own destiny going into the 3rd and final round. The USA could still get through to the Knockout Stage, but it would need help. In this scenario, if England beats Slovenia and the USA beats Algeria, the final tally looks like this:

England 7, USA 5, Slovenia 4, Algeria 0.

End result: England and the USA are through to the Knockout Stage, but the USA has to face Germany.

On the other hand, if England and the USA both get wins against Slovenia and Algeria, here’s your final table:

USA 7, England 7, Slovenia 3, Algeria 0.

Who gets stuck with Germany in the first knockout game is then determined by tiebreakers — goal differential, total goals scored, and so on. If the USA wins its last two games by a greater margin than England does, then the USA wins the group, and its chances of advancing in the Knockout Stage increase dramatically.

That’s why that draw was so damaging to England, and why the back page of the New York Post looks like this:

It’s not because the USA managed to get a draw against a higher-ranked opponent. It’s because the USA has put itself in a position to win the group and get a much more favorable draw in the Knockout Stage, which it could really use. This game was only one-third of the entire competition. The other two-thirds will determine what’s next for the USA.

Most American sports fans, however, don’t see this. They just see the final score of this one game and wonder why there’s no winner or loser. “All that running around for a tie? Lame!”, they declare. Brian Phillips wrote about this mindset a while back, explaining the “logic of competition” with the “logic of finitude.” The former requires a winner in every game. The latter requires that each game last a set amount of time, and if there’s no winner, well, so be it.

America has bought into the logic of competition, and so we have overtime and extra innings. Soccer has bought into the logic of finitude. Results still matter, of course, but the results are given their own values. Winning every game becomes secondary to amassing the most points in the overall competition. One game can impact the big picture, of course, but it’s only a small part of the big picture.

You would have thought Americans had learned about the importance of big picture after the 2007-08 NFL season. The New England Patriots won every game in the regular season, but they didn’t win the game that mattered the most — the Super Bowl. The point of the NFL season isn’t to win every game, but to win the last one. Winning the last game brings the trophy. The Patriots didn’t win that last game. So what good were the 18 wins before that if the Giants get to take home the prize?

In the Premier League, though, there’s no playoff at the end to determine the winner. There’s only the point tally, and when it’s all counted up after 38 rounds, 4 teams get to play in the UEFA Champions League the following season, and 3 teams get relegated to the next league down, where the TV money isn’t nearly as good. So if a team at the bottom of the table manages to get a draw on the road against a stronger team, that’s one more point toward staying in the Premier League for another year and making all the filthy lucre that comes with it.

Likewise in the World Cup, every point that every team earns matters in the Group Stage. In fact, those points matter a little more, because there are only 3 games to determine the winners of this stage. Would it have meant more to beat England? Of course. That doesn’t mean, however, that a draw was a bad result for the USA. It is merely the first chapter in the overall narrative.

Once Americans grasp that concept, they’ll begin to grasp soccer. It’s not the sort of game that we’re accustomed to watching, no, but once we grasp how it really works, we’ll begin to see just how much fun it can be.

I have officially parked my ass at Trali Irish Pub, Raleigh’s official World Cup HQ, right on that stool. I thought it was the best seat in the house. Then Triangle Soccer Fanatics chief Jarrett Campbell, who’s sitting at the bar (and who’s been all over the local news lately), told me he could refill his own glass from where he’s sitting. He won.

I’ll be here throughout the rest of today’s games. If you’re in the Raleigh-Durham area, stop by and say hey.

Need a pick-me-up after suffering through that horrid, horrid France v. Uruguay game yesterday? Perhaps the return of Special 1 TV will do it. Do it!

(Spotted on EPL Talk)

And the eyes of the world are watching now…

Peter Gabriel sang about a very different South Africa in that song, but indeed, the world once again turns its eyes to this country for the next four weeks, and even as the World Cup finally begins today, some are still asking the question: is South Africa up to this task? And what would be considered a success?

1. Ian Plenderleith at When Saturday Comes suggests that it doesn’t really matter who the host is. Once FIFA comes to town, they’re the only one who really enjoys the party.
   

   FIFA is not only your outside caterer, it also becomes the self-invited control freak that tells you exactly how to run your own party. At huge expense, it bullies you into remodelling and renaming all your rooms (“This bog is now the Coca Cola Personal Hygiene Facility”). It moodily threatens to move the party somewhere else if you don’t get your act together and finish the preparations on time. It dictates which beer and food to serve. It makes sure that it will be the guest of honour, quaffing vintage champagne in an exclusive VIP room with its best corporate friends, and you’ll only be allowed in wearing a butler’s uniform. And then when it’s all over, it packs up and leaves you feeling used and empty – like those huge, all-seater stadiums it insisted that you needed so that Chile could play Honduras.

2. Dave Zirin at the nation turns even more negative, suggesting that, as the old saying goes, “when the elephants party, the grass will suffer.”
   

   Our government has managed, in a fairly short period of time, to deliver “world class” facilities and infrastructure that the majority of South Africans will never benefit from or be able to enjoy. The APF feels that those who have been so denied, need to show all South Africans as well as the rest of the world who will be tuning into the World Cup, that all is not well in this country, that a month long sporting event cannot and will not be the panacea for our problems. This World Cup is not for the poor—it is the soccer elites of FIFA, the elites of domestic and international corporate capital and the political elites who are making billions and who will be benefiting at the expense of the poor.

3. Meanwhile at the Financial Times, Simon Kuper reminds us that this World Cup isn’t entirely about the economics. It’s about South Africa opening its doors to the world for the first time since the end of apartheid, something many never thought would happen 25 years ago.
   

   This week South Africans are welcoming the world. For most of them, that’s still a new sensation. That’s why so many are filling airports to greet the most mediocre visiting teams, and wearing shirts and beanie hats that promote their own hapless Bafana Bafana national team. There may not be many visiting fans, but there is what South Africans call a “gees”, a spirit, around this event. My grandmother, in her widow’s flat in northern Johannesburg, and Nesta, up in the Drakensberg mountains, are both old ladies now, but when the football kicks off I suspect even they will be watching with pride. They know how far South Africa has come.

4. Over at South African site SuperSport, Peter Davies would like to remind the foreign media to watch out for those stereotypes, please.
   

   As you emerge blinking from your luxury hotel room into our big blue winter skies, you will surely realise you are far more likely to be killed by kindness than by a stray bullet. Remember that most of the media reports you have read, which have informed your views on South Africa, will have been penned by your colleagues. And you know what journos are like, what with their earnest two thousand word opuses on the op-ed pages designed to fix this country’s ills in a heartbeat. Based on exhaustive research over a three-day visit.

5. Finally, two important moments in South African soccer history deserve a look: the formation of South Africa’s first multi-racial side in 1976, and the Bafana Bafana’s run in the 1996 African Cup of Nations.

Hat tips to Sport Without Spin and Must Read Soccer for some of these links. Also, our condolences go out to Nelson Mandela, whose great-granddaughter died today after a one-car accident last night.

As I’ve written here before, NFL owners have guaranteed contracts with the television networks for the 2011 season. That means they don’t have to play a single down of football that year, and the networks still have to pony up the cash. According to NFLPA boss DeMaurice Smith, that amounts to about $4 billion.

Smith, however, has formulated his counterattack, and it’s a big one:

On Wednesday, the players association filed a Special Master claim, contesting that the league took lower revenue (the kind that would be shared with the players under any agreement) in exchange for guaranteed money in the event of a lockout in 2011 (not a cent of which the players would see) in a renegotiation of television contracts. Smith and the players say that this is a direct violation of the fiduciary duty the owners are required to act under — they must seek revenue with an equal eye for the good of the players as for themselves.

You can read the whole background on this claim here, but the long and the short of it is this: If the arbitrator of this case rules that the NFL acted in bad faith at the negotiating table, the NFLPA can effectively block the owners from getting their $4 billion until a new collective bargaining agreement is in place.

This, my friends, is some serious hardball. Smith is betting that this move will convince the owners to stop stonewalling and start negotiating. The owners are already claiming the NFLPA’s charges are “meritless,” and it appears the owners are digging in to fight this point.

If you want to see the 2011 NFL season happen, you will absolutely side with Smith and the NFLPA here. NFL owners don’t want the 2011 season to happen. Smith and the NFLPA do. The owners will piss all over you, and you’ll take it, because they have the product that you want, and they know you’ll shell out huge sums of money to get it, even after a whole season is canceled.

You and I won’t stop being football fans. The players know this. They’re on your side. They want football in 2011 just as much as you do. I would encourage all of you out there not to fall into that stereotypical “billionaires v. millionaires” argument that always pops up around labor negotiations in sports. This time around, it is merely  ”32 rich bastards v. everyone else.” Here’s hoping they don’t let the bastards win.

1. Looking to place a few friendly wagers during the World Cup? Everybody’s doing it, right? The irrepressible Barry Glendenning of the Guardian has slapped together this handy punter’s guide, designed to help you place “a handful of decent-priced punts that could help fund the professional counselling required once those value‑free jingoistic wagers on England have gone south.” This includes a wager on which player will be first to reveal a T-shirt with Jesus’ name on it. Barry seems to like South Africa’s Steven Pienaar for this.
2. Of course, you should never place those wagers unprepared. That’s why the good folks at Wired have put together a short list of services to help you with making your picks. You have less than 24 hours to enter the various bracket prediction pools (and fantasy leagues) out there, so these sites might come in handy. Sadly, Wired neglects to mention Zonal Marking, which has been offering excellent tactical breakdowns of some of the more interesting teams participating in this World Cup. (ZM has declared Chile to be “the most tactically exciting side.” We might want to look in on one of their games.)
3. Speaking of gambling, the boys at Akamai wager that they have the network infrastructure capable of delivering live streaming video of this year’s World Cup to anywhere in the world. GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham takes a closer look at Akamai’s efforts, in which Akamai suggests that World Cup streaming traffic could be “two or three times as heavy as what was measured during President Barack Obama’s inauguration — thus far, the high point for traffic volume at about 1 terabit, or 1 trillion bits of data, per second.” So if your stream starts buffering, you know whom to blame.
4. Then again, maybe your vice isn’t gambling, but drinking. Hey, it worked for Brazil in 1994, right? In that case, you could refer to EPL Talk’s World Cup Drinking Game. Chances are you’ll have to down your drink at least once during the England v. USA game.
5. Finally, and because the English are always in desperate need of another reason to drink, Dirty Tackle has highlights of this year’s Soccer Aid game, a charity match benefiting UNICEF that features retired footballers and celebrities. In an England v. The Rest of the World match, England lost. On penalties. The winning penalty taker? Woody Harrelson.

   Sleep well, England!

When Brian Phillips, the mad genius behind The Run of Play, started writing an online novel about soccer in the United States in the 1920s, most soccer fans probably figured it was all just a pleasant little bit of World Cup-inspired fiction. As it turns out, though, there is a lot of truth in this buried bit of American soccer history, which Phillips uncovers in this must-read article for Slate.

In the 1920s, soccer was big in America. Not big in the way that baseball was big (this was the era of Ruth and Gehrig) or college football was big (these were the days when Ivy League rivalries played out as violent eruptions in the mud), but at its height, the top American soccer league had tens of thousands of fans, featured some of the world’s best players, and looked set to challenge the fledgling NFL in the competition to supply the nation with a post-October pastime. Along the way, this country’s early soccer entrepreneurs also managed to alienate the United States from the international soccer community, lay the groundwork for America’s greatest moment of World Cup glory, and generally create one of the most bizarre and fascinating might-have-beens in U.S. sports history.

Make with the clicky, people.

Today’s World Cup Reader focuses on Saturday’s big Group C match between England and the USA, which has reached Strasburgian levels of hype in the last couple of weeks. Not surprisingly, lots of people have lots to say about this game:

1. Over at Pitch Invasion, Andrew Guest looks at Soccernomics authors’ data about the parental backgrounds of English players and attempts something similar with America’s roster, leading to an interesting discovery:
   

   Comparing the demographics of the US player pool with the stats on English players offered by Kuper and Szymanski offers space for cautious optimism: the American players come from a diverse enough social class background to suggest that there is more than one route to the pinnacle of the US soccer pyramid.  Likewise, comparing the US player pool with the demographics of the US as a whole demonstrates a healthy and somewhat representative blend of races, ethnicities, and immigrants—it is a team I plan on being proud to root for.

2. The Daily Mail has a chat with Clint Dempsey, who sees many similarities between the USA squad and his club team Fulham, who pulled off a ton of upsets to reach the Europa League final last season.
   

   “We’re very strong defensively like Fulham and try to pick our moments when we go forward. Fulham beat Manchester United by staying compact defensively, with two solid banks of four and choosing our moments to get forward. We both play 4-4-2, our outside midfield players tuck in rather than being wingers and we keep two solid banks of four. We try to frustrate our opponents and make life difficult for them. The USA play in a similar style to Fulham and we’ll try to do the same thing. We have players who believe they can win every game.”

   Thankfully, the USA doesn’t have to win every game to advance out of this group. Wins over Slovenia and Algeria will be enough. That’s the one thing USA supporters need to remember — the England game is the sizzle, but the other two games are the steak.

3. Dan Levy at The Sporting Blog points us to the Guardian’s take-down of Carlos Eugênio Simon, the referee chosen for the England v. USA match:
   

   Simon, 44, retains the support of FIFA although his propensity to court controversy could unnerve Fabio Capello. The Brazilian authorities felt compelled to sanction him last November after he disallowed a Palmeiras goal, scored by Obina, in their 1-0 defeat by Fluminense, the official judging the scorer to have fouled an opponent in the build-up. The Palmeiras president, Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo, duly went public with his frustrations at the referee’s performance.

   “He’s a crook, a scoundrel … just a shameless bastard,” Belluzzo said at the time. “He must be in someone’s pocket. If I met him in the street, I would slap him. What he did was unbelievable and he was helping Fluminense. He should be driven out of football.” His comments were noted and, after a dialogue with the national referees’ association, Simon was eventually suspended by the Brazilian federation for “a repetition of mistakes committed during the competition.”

   Seems like a chill bro. Simon should get along swimmingly with Wayne Rooney.

4. Over at EPL Talk, Paul Bestall takes a closer look at Ledley King, the Tottenham defender who will be tasked to team up with John Terry to stifle America’s attack. For all the talk of the USA’s shaky backline — most of which is quite valid — everyone else forgets that England’s defense now depends on a player with a gaping hole in his knee. When King is healthy, he’s quality, but his legs remain a house of cards.
5. EPL Talk also shows us the inevitable EA Sports match simulation of England v. USA, which England wins, 2-1. It’s clearly an inaccurate representation of that game, though. Bob Bradley has never looked that animated on the sidelines.
6. Finally, those lovable scamps at Dirty Tackle list 10 things that will happen if the USA pulls off the upset on Saturday. I fully support item No. 6:
   

   USA to get first dibs on any future decent England left back, who will be naturalized, passported and placed in the American backline faster than you can say “Jonathan Bornstein?”

Also, if you’re on Twitter, you should follow StuHoldensHair. Just because.

Don’t forget to sign up for the Dave’s Football Blog World Cup Fantasy League! You could totally win a scarf, dude!