Well, that was... disappointing.
To mis-quote a famous Kevin Keegan saying, we flipping murdered them one-all.
Lampard was fairly anonymous, Lennon didn't make as many runs into the box as he should have, and Crouch should have come on for Heskey ten minutes earlier. I am deliberately not talking about Green (though I am glad he did do that one save later).
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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (
 booster17) Posted at: June 12th, 2010 09:54 pm (UTC)
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Well, to be fair, the first twenty minutes or so were in my opinion mainly American pressure. We started bad, got a goal against the run of play and just held on for a while. But yeah, not getting that second goal set us up for the sucker punch just before half-time.
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Posted by: HJ (
hjcallipygian) Posted at: June 15th, 2010 12:49 pm (UTC)
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Most of the US defenders are just now getting healthy enough to play (especially Oguchi Onyewu), so they were pretty disorganized in the beginning. Howard spent most of the first twenty minutes screaming at them to get them into position. Once they got in the swing of things, though, they were able to tighten up.
Seriously, watch the goal -- Onyewu got spun around the wrong way and the other back was waiting for him to mark the guy who scored. With him finally coming along and playing well (he's our top defender) and Howard playing so well, plus how we marked the hell out of Rooney and put all scoring pressure on Heskey and the mid-fielders, I think it took England out of their game.
"I think" being the key phrase, of course. =)
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Posted by: Tara (
elementalv) Posted at: June 12th, 2010 11:05 pm (UTC)
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Shouldn't pretty much anyone be able to stomp all over Team USA's dreams of World Cup glory with scarcely a second thought?
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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (
booster17) Posted at: June 13th, 2010 12:14 am (UTC)
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Nah. See, you're actually not that bad.
On the other hand, I do suspect a lot of other people in the world are underestimating you. But then you did come runner-up in last years Conferation Cup (basically a dress rehearsal for the World Cup), beaten only by Brazil and knocking out Spain along the way. And they're big, big teams.
In fact, I believe you're the only team to have beaten Spain in the last three years.
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Posted by: MoragMacpherson (
moragmacpherson) Posted at: June 13th, 2010 12:39 am (UTC)
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Tee hee, the current Fark headline is "US defeat England 1-1," and most of the English in the thread have conceded that this is essentially true. Myself, I am desperately trying to understand how the offsides rules work in this damn sport (somehow, it's different than lacrosse or hockey, because that first Mexico shot would have been a goal in either).
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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (
booster17) Posted at: June 13th, 2010 12:59 am (UTC)
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Oh god, that Mexico goal. I watched that live, in a room full of people during break at work, and not one of us didn't consider that a fair goal. Dis-allowing it was certainly the letter of the law, but totally against the spirit of the law, I'd say.
And overall, meh. We were the two teams most likely to get out of the group anyway.
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Posted by: MoragMacpherson (
moragmacpherson) Posted at: June 13th, 2010 04:51 am (UTC)
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Who are the other two teams in the group? Algeria and Slovenia? Yeah, I suspect the Anglophones are going to be triumphant in Group C, but still, it'll be fun to hear John Oliver get a bit of comeuppance come Monday's Daily Show (there wasn't just a little trash talk going on, but all in good fun). But you're right: this wasn't exactly Turkey-Germany in the 2008 EuroCup, when I swore that there was going to be a deadly bar fight in the place I was watching it.
And my cousin, who knows these things, informs me that the offense isn't allowed to be ahead of the defense on the field in association football. To which I say: that makes no sense. Isn't that the point of being on offense: to get ahead of the defenders and put the ball in the goal? Can I interest your little island (and, fine, okay, the rest of the damn world as well) in a sport called lacrosse? The Indians around here cooked it up a few hundred years ago, and it's finally starting to spread around. Pretty much the same idea as football, but the offsides rules actually make sense, there's a lot more scoring, and you're allowed to hit each other with sticks. Everyone wins!
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Posted by: HJ (
hjcallipygian) Posted at: June 15th, 2010 12:53 pm (UTC)
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Offsides is pretty simple: there must be two players from the other team (of any position) between the goal and the attacker up until such time as ball begins its travel toward the attacker. Usually this is a single defender and the keeper, but I believe there was a play this Cup already wherein the keeper moved forward to draw someone offsides who was in proper position with the defender marking him.
I haven't seen the Mexico goal you're talking about, though.
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Posted by: I write (
absolut_jmo) Posted at: June 13th, 2010 07:17 pm (UTC)
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Even as I woohooed when we scored,as someone whose daughter plays in the goal, I felt SO badly for Green and so did my daughter. I have to say the one thing I enjoyed most about the whole game...neither team had anyone way overacting and bringing on the drama when they were 'fouled'. That is my biggest pet peeve when watching soccer though it is right up there with the vuvuzela.
Here's what I didn't get - why the hell did England not keep the pressure from the first couple of minutes on until they had at least a couple of goals? After the first one, it seemed they pretty much let the US team have moderately free reign of the game, and mostly stayed back to defend their goal.