Yes, and the Netherlands are also the world champions.
Notes that Scotland are by miles the best side using this admittedly shaky statistical shenanigans
“We’re on the march with Ally’s army,
We are going to the Argentine,
And we’ll really shake them up,
When we win the World Cup,
Cos Scotland are the greatest football team”
Heeey, this England side really remind me of our 1978 disaster!
I suspect I’m being whooshed, nevertheless; the mathematical principle you’re citing is inapplicable in this case. First, football scores aren’t a linear measurement of the relative skill levels of the two teams—after some of these games, I wonder whether they bear any relationship to their relative skill at all, but then I realize that I just don’t understand the beautiful game. So I’ll move on simply quoting from the gambler and gaming theoretician Michael Caro in his excellent book, “Caro on Gambling”:
Or you could read and re-read blogs such as Zonal Marking or The Shin Guardian. Think I first heard about those two sites here, and if so, thanks everyone very much. They’re excellent for discussing soccer tactics and have really improved my enjoyment of this World Cup.
Unbelievably bad performance from England. I wonder what odds you could have gotten from William Hill if you tried to parlay the U.S. coming back from 2 goals down AND England tieing Algeria. Had to be on the order of 30 to 1, no?
I agree with the NYT, thought that Jozy was trying to buy the call when he fell; still, I wasn’t aware that a defender was allowed to put an opponent in a full nelson before the free kick. It would have made my life as a left fullback in high school a lot easier… I can see the argument that the whistle should’ve blown before Donovan kicked it, but I guess the ref was asleep when they discussed the concept of “advantage”. Just disgraceful.
Right now the US should be odds on favorite to win the group and play 2nd place in Germany’s group (which I think will end with three teams on 6 points). Right now they’re still in good shape to do that. Two goal win against Algeria and England beats Slovenia by one. Now, all Bob needs to do is get them playing from the get go.
Dio, you’re hilarious and oh so predictable.
I preferred the Slovenian with Bocanegra in headlock.
Looking at the highlights again tonight, I am really impressed with Donovan’s goal. He could have gone near post with his right foot, far post with his left, or make a cross to trailing attackers. Gerard (I think) had the same option in the Algeria game and tried the pass to bad result. Donovan went with option four and drilled it top shelf. That was a perfect decision, and one that the keeper was obviously not expecting.
Yeah it was definitely a good call to just blast it, the keeper’s natural aversion to being hit in the face by a fast-travelling ball did the rest 
I want to wear a Giggs jersey.
Fuck the rest of the world. I want a Welsh Giggs jersey.
After all, he’s the finest footballer who’s never made the World Cup.
Just finished watching the US game on DVR and I’m wondering just how much did Slovenia pay the ref for that game? That was one of the most egregious examples of bullshit officiating I’ve ever seen. If we lose we lose, but to see a win, and a great comeback win no less, stolen like that is beyond infuriating. I hope that stupid muddled jackass can’t find a youth league willing to take him on after this.
Germany, what the hell? Did you all go on a bender these last few days? I was surprised by Spain’s loss but this was really not expected. Well played Serbia.
England, I didn’t get to watch your game but from the tone of the posts in this thread I didn’t miss much. Please keep doing whatever it is you did today. It’s not that I don’t like you, if you were in another group you’d be high in my list of favorites, it’s just, well, you know. Sorry, hope you understand.
Also, US team, play every game from now on like you played the second half tonight and win or lose I will love you forever. Incompetent officiating aside it was the most exciting half I’ve seen in this World Cup so far. It’s ok, the next referee probably won’t have late-stage cataracts. Thanks.
He whatever you guys say - and I also failed to see what was wrong with the goal - you should have been down to 10 men after 10 seconds. Dempsey clearly elbowed Ljubjankic and any intentional elbow is straight red. Would like to see you guys come back from 2 behind while playing 90 minutes with 10 men.
Just saying that the ref got more than a ouple of things worng for both sides - in league footbal Dempsey would be suspended for this, but i doubt they’ll do it in the world cup.
When really, the World Cup is the place they should definitely be doing it. I have no qualms against players being punished based on video evidence viewed after the match has finished.
Anything that brings the game into disrepute at this level should be punished harshly.
For a change, a post from London (no grinning faces here to be seen).
I should pit Löw for one of the worst coaching performances in the history of the World Cup. Sure, not one of our players was even close to his top game: the goal allowed was a group effort of our back four plus the keeper and could have been avoided if only one of them had done his job.
But key to our defeat was the abysmal coaching prior to the game and while it unfolded. I have already pointed out that the coach(es) had decided to not change a thing after the first game. And while this might have looked like a sound decision, it totally ignored the well-known strenghts of the next opponent and the apparent weaknesses of our team.
Badstuber isn’t quick and agile enough to control Krasic, Podolski is no defender at all, so the left wing of the Australian game was bound to get into trouble against Serbia.
This could have been avoided easily, Löw had not one but several alternatives and dismissed them all – what’s worse, he didn’t react during the first half an hour when the obvious was unfolding on the left wing: this did not just affect the wing but also our central defenders and defensive midfield who had to help out on this side which opened large spaces in the middle for the now easily advancing Serbian players.
If you allow one wing to falter you disrupt the whole formation and skew it to this side of the field; that affects the transition into offense too because now neither the passing midfielders are in the position to immediately open a counter-attack nor are the more offence oriented players spread from wing to wing to widen the field which creates the gaps for vertical passes. They need to reposition themselves first, which gives the opposing team time to arrange their defence shape.
Big blunder. But Germany would still held the advantage due to their willingness to compensate the left wing’s weakness with a team effort and their individual class.
But then the coach decided to not react to the petty and pedantic referee too.
When Klose was booked and still continued to hassle opposing players needlessly in the midfield (no surprise there), he should have been substituted by another attacker asap (Cacau or Kiesling). There was no doubt that Klose was the prime candidate for a second yellow card and a coach needs to take care of such a situation if the player on the field isn’t willing to do so.
The Serbian goal was a result of the brief confusion that came after Klose’s dismissal. And still, the German team didn’t look too bad, they had more chances with one man gone than before and could have made a goal or two with a tiny bit of luck.
I won’t blame Löw for not changing the team immediately after the dismissal because of their fine reaction to the new situation but the advantages of some adaptations were so obvious that I was dismayed when the team hadn’t been reorganized during halftime.
The defence of Serbia was already in card-trouble and this should have been milked by adding players who love to go man-to-man and penetrate into the box with skill and speed. In other words, get Jansen on the field and Marin and Cacau and help Özil by adding Toni Kroos to the offence who is quite able to create plays and pass the ball like his team mate but is also a dangerous shooter and a better but not an unfair tackler.
But Löw decided to keep a willing but not quite working team on the field; and even this decision might have not been fatal if Podolski hadn’t missed the penalty, something he very, very rarely does wrong.
When Löw finally reacted, it was not just too late but also oh so wrong: Marin should have been the substitute for the luckless Podolski, both don’t work well together (damn it, we know that) and it showed. Özil had a weak day but he was still able to create dangerous situations and his absence had an immediate impact on the structure of our offence: it fizzled out. Like I said: Don’t get rid of him, help him!
And Gomez not just continues his inexplicable weak non-performances in international tournaments (as was already apparent against otherwise overwhelmed Australians), he wouldn’t have been the correct substitute player anyway because even in the league games he needs quite some time to get going – time that wasn’t there anymore.
So, Löw’s non-reactions helped Serbia as much as he could have possibly done and his late reaction secured the Serbian victory more than they could have ever hoped for.
I don’t want to see such lousy coaching again. Not ever.
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The US should just spot Algeria a goal at the beginning of their upcoming match. At least that way the US side will play 90 minutes, instead of farting around until Algeria scores on them and gives them the proper motivation.
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Poor Tim Howard will get no sleep this week. He already has a broken rib; and when he does fall asleep he will be haunted by nightmares of gleeful Algerian strikers drilling shot after shot at him, unmolested by the pathetic US back line.
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All thanks to England for choosing to rest through their match with Algeria and instead marshal their strength for Slovenia. Bit of advice for the English side though; when you put a ball into the net against Slovenia, don’t celebrate. Go kick it in again, just in case the ref didn’t see it go in the first time.
I have been listening to Why England Lose: And other curious phenomena explained.. The explanation of the 8 stages of England always losing the World Cup have proved remarkably prescient. England’s last match proved the authors’ point that English players play too much and are worn out by the end of the EPL season.
Dempsey’s elbow wasn’t intentional by any stretch of the imagination. It was reckless, no doubt, and I would have no objection to a yellow card. A red card for that, however, is pure insanity and would have been just as bad of a call as the stolen goal.
I have to disagree on that, sorry.
The finest player who never made the World Cup was George Best. Ryan Giggs is, however, certainly in the top five, and (I would suspect) the greatest currently playing.
Giggs’s name came up in discussion during the week; we agreed that he could easily have held a place in the England side, but (sadly) chose to play for Wales.
Well, the English league has 20 teams, same as Spain, Italy and France. Germany and the Netherlans have 18 teams, so they play 4 less games. I would have thought that top English players play about the same number of games as others. What’s more, many of the non-English players in the World Cup play in the EPL.
And apart from the Chelsea players who played in the FA Cup final, the last competitive game anyone in the England squad played was in early May, five weeks before the World Cup.
Agreed. Completely hopeless and I don’t know why I support this bunch of wankers.
♫"Are we Scotland, are we Scotland, are we Scotland in disguise? Are we Scotland in disguise?"♫
Stephen Gerrard, post-game: “Algeria made it tough for us. It was their World Cup final.”
(paraphrasing)
Gah, the delusional arrogance of the England players. Yes, I’m sure it was the Algerian’s dream to take on mighty, all-conquering England :rolleyes:. I noticed this hateful remark at the time and am glad that some papers and websites have picked up on it. I guess part of England’s problem is that the players believe the hype. They set out, both mentally and tactically, like they’re expecting to thrash “weaker” sides. If they played in a manner more appropriate to the fairly good middleweight team that they are, they would do a lot better.
Compare to Brazil, against North Korea. They knew they were better, but they were respectful of the NK defensive approach and didn’t panic. Instead they kept playing and eventually got a breakthrough. England would have been blasting panicky balls towards Heskey after about 30 minutes.