Posts Categorized as ‘World Cup 2010’

Featured, United States, World Cup 2010

Anger and Willpower: The New Life of Jozy Altidore

WARREN LENT – Jozy Altidore was pissed. He was pissed at you and he was pissed at me because we’ve been calling for his play to improve ever since Charlie Davies’ tragic car accident. The mojo between those two forwards was at its peak before Davies nearly lost his life near Washington D.C. A trying time for the US Men’s National Team as a whole was even more difficult for Jozy Altidore. Charlie Davies was a best friend and most trusted ally on the pitch for the starling striker. In an instant, Charlie was gone and Jozy was left to fend for himself in attack without a sturdy option to put beside him.

The World Cup flew by with some performances worth noting (shot on Robert Green vs. England, header down to Michael Bradley to tie vs. Slovenia, ground cross to Clint Dempsey that eventually landed for Landon Donovan vs. Algeria) but to the untrained eye, the score sheet was far too bare for Jozy Altidore.

Jozy was supposed to be US Soccer’s next Landon Donovan; a player they could trot out for all to see in order to show the growth of a country thought to be light-years behind most (prominent) footballing nations in the world.

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United States, World Cup 2010, World Cup 2018/2022

U.S. 1 -1 Argentina: A Couple Quick Hits

BRENT LATHAM – Well, that wasn’t so bad. A game that had the potential to get ugly in the first half turned on the strength of a halftime formation adjustment from Bob Bradley, and the Americans more than saved face in the final 45 minutes, coming away with a well earned 1-1 draw at the New Meadowlands.

Here are a couple off-the-cuff observations:

Is Bob Bradley a Tactical Wizard or a Bit Behind the Curve? (more…)

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United States, World Cup 2010

So Grant Wahl Wants to Be FIFA President?

BRENT LATHAM – Grant Wahl’s done it again. The CNNSI writer has unleashed a publicity campaign so brilliant in conception it could only have come from the annals of a six-grade class president’s playbook, or David Beckham’s crack staff.

Wahl, who wrote The Beckham Experiment, helping make himself quite famous, now says he wants to be FIFA President. And from the looks of things, though it may not have started that way, he might mean it.

All he has to do, he says, to be in the race, is to get one single country to nominate him.

Wahl’s tongue-in-cheek campaign is great because it draws attention to the precise problems posed by FIFA’s encrusted power structure: billions of fans worldwide love the game (Wahl is the American representation of that love in media form – the guy has almost 70m twitter followers), but those fans have no say in the international game. (more…)

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South of the Border, United States, World Cup 2010

Mexico Takes the American Route

BRENT LATHAM – There’s an ironic twist to the rivalry between the Mexican and American soccer communities that has become ever more apparent in recent weeks.

In the U.S. a large portion of the population, present company included, is constantly agitating for change and risk taking, from personnel to formations to coaching choices.  In Mexico, they’ve had far too much of such nonsense, and long for the stability of the American system – something the Mexican media seems to generally see as very positive for the program.

Mexico has now been through four coaches in a couple years – they have burned through a few Fed presidents of late as well. But those who decide these things seem to have taken a step back from the brink with the latest appointment, even if it did come after a Bob Bradley-esque campaign in which several managers apparently turned down the thankless job of coaching El Tri.

Now they’ve got Jose Manuel De la Torre, not exactly a big name – and that’s just the thing. In taking this decision, Mexico may have never so resembled the U.S. (more…)

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The Continent, World Cup 2010, World Cup 2014

How Antonio Cassano has Changed Italy

ANTHONY MANNINO - Forget Ronaldinho, Pato, Micheal Essien, David Beckham, Charlie Davis, and Fracesco Totti; Antonio Cassano was the most missed player at this past World Cup. All Italian fans including myself were wary of the world cup squad which showed no creativity. The results proved this with the squad finishing 0-1-2 at the bottom of group F. Italy looked flat, played with zero emotion, and no one could press the opposing defense. They looked like the team they were- a squad with zero competitive wins in the year 2010.

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United States, World Cup 2010

Dying Bravely Creator Speaks

I wanted to know more about Dying Bravely, the USMNT video making rounds on the Internet, so I got in contact with its high school-aged creator, Nick Butler. His answers are below.

1) What inspired you to put together Dying Bravely?
I’m on a forum that discusses the world game and what not. Every six or so months they have a competition to see who can produce the best video. I decided to do a theme about the US. As the World Cup progressed, there was no question I was going to create a US video.

2) How long did it take you to cut all the footage together?
It probably took me about four hours just to capture the footage from my TiVo onto my PC. I also had to find clips of previous World Cups. I spent at least four weeks working on the video. I wanted it to be as good as possible so I took my time, thought of songs I could use, the best title for it, how to present it, and all that other good stuff. (more…)

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World Cup 2010

FIFA World Cup 2010 Technical Report: Observations About the US

Assorted highlights from FIFA’s 2010 World Cup Technical Study Report.

The United States put themselves in a category with Spain, the Netherlands, and others.

It was this flexibility, together with the teams’ healthy aggression and the players’ excellent technique, that paved the way to success. Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Uruguay, Brazil, Ghana, Argentina, Chile and the USA all provided the best examples of this.

But whoa, they needed a playmaker. (more…)

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World Cup 2010

FIFA World Cup 2010 Technical Report: Referees

FIFA released the 2010 World Cup Technical Report and it contains some gems. I’ll get to some team-related highlights in another post, but I thought these observations on the state of the referees were interesting. You know, because they weren’t that good. Lesson: FIFA can spin anything. Someone get Sepp Blatter a job in Washington.

It should also be mentioned that despite the tremendous difficulty experienced, the vast majority of the decisions taken in the 64 matches were correct. Of the 145 goals awarded, 142 were correctly given. Furthermore, 13 goals were correctly disallowed for offside (100 percent accuracy) and two more goals should have been allowed, meaning that 96.88 percent of the decisions were correct overall.

Of the 663 shots at goal, only five were goal-line incidents. Of these, four were correctly judged and one incorrectly. There were 65 incidents inside the penalty area in the 64 matches. In 45 of them, it was correctly decided not to award a penalty and in five of them a penalty would have been the correct decision. 15 penalties were given, all of them correct decisions (100 percent accuracy).

But there were errors, yes? So how should we deal with them? (more…)

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