The [Horribly Unpopular] Soccer Thread

hoppyhoppyhippo said:

If you want a gif on the downside of beasley's game

http://s3.amazonaws.com/br-cdn/temp...916cc9448594fc866c6622f062eae7.gif?1402960557

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Some context to this GIF - happened shortly after a corner kick where Beasley was one of the two outlet men stationed about halfway between the box and the midfield line. Beasley made a run up the line to run down a pass from beckerman. Jermaine Jones (at least it sure looks like Jones, hard to tell for 100% sure when viewing replay on a phone in an area where I only have 3G service ) made a trailing run to try to win the ball that Beasley had lost. These two things left no one but Atsu on the left hand side of the US defensive half and set up the GIF you posted.

So yes, he was out of position for the counter, but he was doing his job by being that far forward on that play, its how the US was set up for the corner. Jermaine Jones left the space even more open by trying to run down the ball and leaving no one minding the left side (Not even necessarily faulting him for that, just stating what happened). There's plenty of things to rip Beasley for, I don't think this is one of them.

That said, I do think Beasley could/should have done better controlling the pass from Beckerman. By which I mean he should have controlled it at all. Could have avoided the issue altogether.

I'm done defending a guy who I didn't even want to be starting as of a couple games ago.

aygov said:

It was a gritty win, but we won. We were damn lucky though! Our possession play was terrible and I don't know if it was the heat, but when we got the ball there seemed to be no urgency to press with it. On the flip side when Ghana had the ball we seemed to be willing to let them knock it around rather then closing them down.

If we play that way against Portugal I can see us getting ripped to shreds..... but f*ck it! We won, so happy days for now!

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I'm so interested to see what the Portugal mentality is. Because they could very easily come out absolutely fired up because they need a win or demoralized as a result of their injuries/suspensions/lingering pain from the hammering they took.

I think US will perform better than they did against Ghana. 1) I think Bradley will be better simply because he is better than what he showed against Ghana. 2) I think some prep time to work on how to play w/o Jozy will help a lot.

I'm actually not convinced that Portugal is a better team than Ghana.

Grannyknot said:

I'm actually not convinced that Portugal is a better team than Ghana.

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Portugal has Ronaldo. That alone makes them better than Ghana. Ronaldo can do what he did against Sweden where he just went insane.

Grannyknot said:

I'm actually not convinced that Portugal is a better team than Ghana.

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But they have Ronaldo! They have to be good!

And Algeria score their first world cup goal in 504 minutes!

did everyone see this?



Apparently the page went through numerous edits, some of which are listed here: http://www.newsday.com/sports/socce...hana-leads-to-funny-wikipedia-edits-1.8467984

I didn't see that one, I saw the second edit though. Wikipedia after World Cup matches are always funny.

Well, that was depressing. I was at work for the game yesterday, and forgot my ipad (Yes, I don't own a cell phone) I asked about 15 people if they knew how USA were doing in the world cup. Appparently, the only English guy there (me) was the only person that knew they were even playing!!

Aside from that....Well done USA!!!!!!

hoppyhoppyhippo said:

Portugal has Ronaldo. That alone makes them better than Ghana. Ronaldo can do what he did against Sweden where he just went insane.

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Let's be honest Hoppy....
I could say the sky is blue & you'd be tempted to argue that it wasn't.

Grannyknot said:

Let's be honest Hoppy....
I could say the sky is blue & you'd be tempted to argue that it wasn't.

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The sky isn't blue, there's a whole thing with dust and sunlight

Algeria pushed Belgium harder than I thought that they would have. Good end-to-end action.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Well, that was depressing. I was at work for the game yesterday, and forgot my ipad (Yes, I don't own a cell phone) I asked about 15 people if they knew how USA were doing in the world cup. Appparently, the only English guy there (me) was the only person that knew they were even playing!!

Aside from that....Well done USA!!!!!!

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Bolded for sadness....

Ghana vs USA now holds the second highest TV ratings for group stage play in the US.

The match registered a 7.0 overnight rating on ESPN, good for second-highest rating for a group stage match on record in the United States. And that's not counting the 1.4 million who watched via WatchESPN.

The number one match of all-time? USA vs. England in 2010, which got a 7.5 overnight rating. However, that game was on network TV (ABC) and it aired on a Saturday.

Let's not forget the numbers on Univision either, as there was an average of 3.8 million tuning in on Spanish-language television.

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(SPOILER ALERT: This website displays scores) http://www.mlssoccer.com/worldcup/2...hana-second-highest-group-stage-match-ever-us

"Holy crap" facts in bold. That's a ton of people tuning in on a Monday, early afternoon for a chunk of the country. We're getting close to big soccer country style of shutting down the country on matchday.

Reno_eNVy said:

Ghana vs USA now holds the second highest TV ratings for group stage play in the US.


(SPOILER ALERT: This website displays scores) http://www.mlssoccer.com/worldcup/2...hana-second-highest-group-stage-match-ever-us

"Holy crap" facts in bold. That's a ton of people tuning in on a Monday, early afternoon for a chunk of the country. We're getting close to big soccer country style of shutting down the country on matchday.

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That would be a pretty cool place to get to.

I was planning on hitting up the Watch party in grant part, but by the time I got their (45 minutes before KO) it was already packed and no really good viewing spots were to be had. Ended up going to a pub and standing on the patio because there were no damn seats anywhere. The patio was preferable to the inside of the pub where it was armpit to armpit and ordering a beer was a 10 minute ordeal...

Reno_eNVy said:

Ghana vs USA now holds the second highest TV ratings for group stage play in the US.


(SPOILER ALERT: This website displays scores) http://www.mlssoccer.com/worldcup/2...hana-second-highest-group-stage-match-ever-us

"Holy crap" facts in bold. That's a ton of people tuning in on a Monday, early afternoon for a chunk of the country. We're getting close to big soccer country style of shutting down the country on matchday.

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Real football countries shut down for the entire month

Our local "pub that shows soccer" was a madhouse.
We couldn't find a place to park, drove by it looking for a spot, saw the line out the door, & turned around to watch it at my house.

Game on!!!

When is the next USA match??

Homercidal said:

When is the next USA match??

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USA vs Portugal
Sunday 6PM EST

Mexico's goalie holy cow he better be getting a hooker from his teammates after the match

Yeah, but even beyond Ochoa, Mexico obviously has found whatever it was that they lost during qualification.

Punity said:

Mexico's goalie holy cow he better be getting a hooker from his teammates after the match

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Guillermo Ochoa deserves a stable of hookers for that performance.

What a great game!! Ochoa.. what can I say.. except, BRILLIANT!

Hot damn, Ochoa. Hot. Damn.

Gooooooooooollllllllll! It's boring, and then all of a sudden, goooooooooooooollllllllllll!!!!

What a contrast. Ochoa is a wall and Akinfeev a sieve. That was an absolute howler!

Pick time!!!!

Australia 1 - 3 Netherlands
Spain 2 - 0 Chile
Cameroon 2 - 1 Croatia

I was surprised by the double draw today. Now that we are one game in I need to relic at the points to see who is gonna be despairate (sp) going into game 3 or round 1.

Deacon.

Memorex88 said:

USA vs Portugal
Sunday 6PM EST

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Oh, darn, I think I'm painting my nail at that time... :cross:

Ok, seriously, I might tune in to a few games and try to see if I can enjoy them. I won't be able to sit and stare, but I may be able to tuen in and have it going while I'm doing other things.

Homercidal said:

Oh, darn, I think I'm painting my nail at that time... :cross:

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you only have 1 nail?
What happened to the rest of them? bite them off during the excitement & drama of a baseball game? :cross:

Back-to-back nice goals. I love that AUS isn't rolling over. Hopefully they can keep the energy up late into the game.

Anyone else see the rumors that Ronaldo could miss the rest of the WC?

And this is why I love the World Cup. Netherlands thoroughly rinse Spain, one of the best teams in the tournament, and are currently struggling with the Aussies!

Grannyknot said:

Anyone else see the rumors that Ronaldo could miss the rest of the WC?

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This is what I could find and I hope it's true. A Portugal without Coentrao and Ronaldo is a much less scary proposition.....

That was an enjoyable game!

About 25 mins left, but Spain looks done.

Spain are doing a France...

aygov said:

Spain are doing a France...

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white flag?