usmnt

report on Charlie Davies' comeback and some o_O scar pics

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/5655430/soccer-us-forward-charlie-davies-talks-recovery-espn-magazine

lineup
4-5-1 w/ edu at centerback huh

Howard;
Cherundolo, Onyewu, Edu, Bocanegra;
Jones, Bradley, Holden, Dempsey, Feilhaber;
Altidore.

i'll be curious to see how high dempsey plays. and gooch is really ready for this, is he? wanna see lichaj at some point

Does anyone else think the US goal was offside? I'm heavily medicated with Nyquil and my eyes are burning but F thought it was.

from that camera angle it sure seemed so.

gooch is driving me crazy, booting it out of the back

bedoya for feilhaber, is that all we've got as far as possible forward-looking changes?

^wrote at halftime but could have said it later tbh

huh. jones looked good, physical, except for his fuckup. same with holden, great except for his fuckup. so many chances, both jozy's and the set pieces. thank god for tim howard

fun times, good seats, lots and lots of poles

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs368.ash2/64641_444156571895_509986895_5400916_6674090_n.jpg

they looked like a team with a bunch of guys who don't quite know how to play together yet, and I still am not sure if 4-5-1 is something they can pull off. jones/holden were fun to watch tho.

http://worldsoccerreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/JJwhiteboard.png

What do you guys do with those things?

nod sagely

i'm still trying to learn how to watch the game. i want to understand a midfielder's most common passing locations. i want to see passing lanes before they develop. this was jones' first game with us. does the visual representation match what i saw on tv? what doesn't the chart tell me (in this case, about his physicality) ? if i look at enough of these what patterns will i see? i have so much trouble comparing two players against two different teams, could this help?

where, how, and who did he link up with? (have to reach to remember the who) what was his average pass length?

i'm american, i love stats and charts, this chart may not tell me much but can we be so sure that the tenth or hundreth chart won't reveal something? we never know where tactical breakthroughs are going to come, who will see the game differently. i will stick to national type and hope it's us lol

^ could totally get behind this level of analysis for spurs, tbh. the analysis of what players do that works during a game. i bet mourinho is up to his neck in this shit.

I assume you meant Allardyce

easy mistake to make, that

I'm not knocking the concept either btw - if there's going to be some revolutionary development in the game (there only appears to ever have been two so far as I can tell) then I'm pretty persuaded that it'll come from some kind of synthesis of this and set-plays. I'm sure not going to be able to spot it though.

i think it's fair to speculate that improvement on a systemic level can come from the analysis of repeated actions

/banaka

what were those two revolutionary developments ismael ?

442, sam allardyce

I've written about them before, but basically:

(i) the Scottish passing game taking over from kick-and-rush around the 1880s; and
(ii) the whole pressing/offside trap/possession system of Ajax in the 1960s.

We're basically still exploring the world invented by (ii). There's a terrific book (Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson) looking at the development of tactics through the ages, not sure if it'll've reached your shores Jibe. There are lots of interesting innovations discussed in it, but those two seem to be the big ones. The others usually mostly happen every few years when one guy stands in a slightly different position, and everyone else gets confused

And that's my 10,000th post. It's been a pleasure, I'd like to thank my agent, etc.

congrats, it was worthy imo

ok thx. that book looks quite interesting, will try and get ahold of it as soon as my finances allow me to.

football finances thread

It's a great read, enlightened me to many things + helped me relate my hockey tactical knowledge to similarities on the pitch.

apparently Spector is starting tonight, should be a lot of other changes too

also lol @ < 10k tickets sold for this match, wtf

apparently Spector is starting tonight

GAAHHHHHHHH

we are mediocre huh. lucky for us colombia is so far too

i love edu's composure on the ball. he doesn't make me start drumming my fingers nervously in possession.
it seems like holden out wide takes away a lot of what's best about him: getting involved, cutting into passing lanes. you'd think the idea would be he'd send in crosses from out wide, but i don't think he's had a cross yet.

EJ for jozy? lichaj for spector (hey, he was only burned twice! not bad). any other changes?

lichaj looked good
ummm, other positives?

(we need to put it down on record that our first shot on goal was in the 55th minute)

I was at the Fire/KC game so I missed this. Doesn't sound like much of note. From the descriptions I've read/heard it sounded like a 4-3-3? Last time I saw that Costa Rica kicked their ass.

yeah i guess it was a 4-3-3, in the first half. jozy was so marooned and alone i'm tempted to call it 4-3-2-1. but i'm bad with formations. brek shea looked okay, not totally outclassed at this level with his first cap, so that's something. EJ came in at HT and edu went out (i think, i missed some) so the formation changed but i'm not sure how. the second half was better, dempsey with some spark, but yeah, you didn't miss much.

the pronunciation of Lichaj's name sounds exactly the same a "lihai" （厉害） which is a common slang word in Chinese that means "awesome."

same for (Luis) Figo in Italian (actually 'fico', but close enough) - any other examples?

in case there are any Brian McBride fans around... buy a shirt!

gooch goes after ibrahimovic after a dirty tackle

posted this in the italian thread but it makes more sense here:
http://i51.tinypic.com/2h6c8m0.jpg

btw congrats to Brian Carroll Logan Pause on callups, who the hell are you again?

guys with cool nicknames who got callups: Mix, Boss. bunbury needs a nickname

i think his twitter is TealBunB which isn't too bad, lil southern rap ref

Pause is the Fire's MVP from the last season. Good club guy, plays dmid, dunno why he's getting called for this exactly.

worthwhile stats
The average number of caps on the roster is barely eight. Only four members of the side – Guzan, Jonathan Bornstein, Clarence Goodson and Jonathan Spector – can claim more than 15 appearances in an American jersey. Aside from the six potential debutants, another five guys have fewer than eight caps to their names.

ppl seem to be either waaay pissed off at the inclusion of guys like Pause, Borchers, and Carroll or waaay excited about the inclusion of guys like Agudelo, Diskerud, Agbossoumonde, etc. (not using nicknames because their real names are pretty sweet imo)

the wild thing is Bornstein is going to captain this bunch

have bradley and holden ever played together in central midfield?

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing no. Big Bradley seems to like Holden on the wing when he's in the game.

It's kind of weird how many capable central mids there are in the pool now.

well, how many are leading the premier league in tackles?

Truly. I'm excited for the Gold Cup tbh.

the PK was Canada's first SOG all match

lmao the crowd groaned at the end of regulation. I agree, sucks that htey have to play more of this.

and hilariously, even if Canada wins, three of their key starters are suspended for the next match

lmao Canada just took the lead

HAHAHA tied again.

I want to like Busio but he has been frustrating up to that point

he had maybe one decent moment prior to that but agreed.

I did lol at the announcers falling all over themselves to compliment Cowell's play as he repeatedly made the wrong decision with the ball in the final third (though admittedly he improved a bit in extra time).

loling at USMNT fans freaking out on Twitter as if this was the Pulisic/Zimmermann version of the squad not being able to beat Canada

prediction: US 5-3, and any misses aren't saved but are shot over the goal

lol

After all that trash talk that is amazing

Ok lol, b team

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

lmao....oh my fucking god

prediction - this one goes backwards

Cowell seems to have both a cross neck tat and a cross razored into his mullet

yeah lol....and god that hair

It's a shitty version of Ferreira's look

Saint Turner

lol. at first he seemed like "lol that crossed the line mate" and then was like "man I suck"

Panama having 66% possession not something I thought I'd see

imagine spending $200+ to take your kids to *this* match

LMFAO

No more Roldan plz

kinda glad someone else gets a chance to win this time. if the US had managed to win the tourney with this terrible roster of misfits, lord.

really dk why I watch US vs T&T matches cos they always are lopsided and prove nothing but I'm itching for a football match so...here we go anyway

(big asterisk next to "always")

watching teams sit in a low block for 90 minutes and throw 9 men inside the box is oh so thrilling

lmao T&T player sent off. well this is about to be even less entertaining

still 0-0. jfc this is embarrassing

lol 3-0 within 8 minutes

Mexico losing the first leg to 78th ranked HOnduras wasn't something I anticipated, even with Mexico's current decline

celtic's own luis palma on that honduras squad <3

Sergino Dest sent off just before halftime due to the most childish tantrum I've ever seen.

Got mad that the ref ruled a ball out of bounds and punted it into the stands. Then screamed and insulted him and blew him a kiss.

Entire squad, especially Walker Zimmerman, totally laid into him.

They were winning 1-0, 4-0 on aggregate at the time!

USWNT vs Canada match is a farce.

it rained heavily and the pitch is waterlogged and the drainage is abysmal. the ball is barely moving and is often getting stuck in puddles.

the match's sole goal came when a Canadian defender attempted a routine backpass to their goalie, and to her horror, it moved two inches before getting stuck, and Trinity Rodman ran to the ball and poked it in the goal.

if I'm Canada i'm filing a protest

sorry it was Jaedyn Shaw