Any World Cup fans?

[Headbanger]

Originally Posted by Space Monkey

When all is said and done, we moved on from our group, which was expected and then lost to a team ranked 18 places below us. True, they did have an advantage playing in their home country, but I don't think that made a difference. We should have beaten Ghana, especially without Essian.

Sometimes coaches have confidence in unproven players that nobody else does. For some reason only known to Bradley, he decided to start Clark after he had proven earlier that he was in over his head. Bradley also showed a complete lack of confidence in Feilhaber, who was one of our best players everytime he stepped on to the pitch. Bradley has to shoulder part of the blame by making bad lineup decisions.

I always told my goalies to NEVER let a goal in on the short side. Cover that post. I always told my players to shoot far post, because you have to asume the near one would be covered. How Howard left so much room to the short side is beyond my comprehension. He also didn't get his hands up fast enough on the second goal. When confronted with a situation like he was in, you have to make yourself as large as possible. Extend your arms.

I'm not a Donovan fan, but he did himself proud this World Cup. I can't agree with the above poster on his demeanor before his PK. He made the kick guy, give him credit.

What we are missing is a world class striker. Maybe Altidore will be the one, after all he is only 22. Our midfield is our strength, and was the only part of our team that performed at an acceptable level.

The FIFA World Rankigns are irrelivant...useless, whatever you want to call them. Greece for crying out loud was ranked 13th and ahead of the US. Ghana is not the 32nd best soccer team in the world, as they probably fall in the 10-15 range, and in 4 years they will be even better with their core players like Essien coming back as well as their young players being 4 years older. If you played that game 10 times I would venture to say the US wins 5 and Ghana wins 5. That's how tight that matchup is.

[cj]

The sport of soccer has to be embarrassed by the officiating at the biggest tournament in the world.

[swami13]

Originally Posted by cj

The sport of soccer has to be embarrassed by the officiating at the biggest tournament in the world.

I haven't read much of this post but Thunder nailed it, the call disallowing the US goal a game or two ago made me lose the little interest I had in this.
The official can just blow the whistle without explaining why he blew it is just crazy, no explanation, didn't even have to talk to the press for 2-3 days.....crazy.

[ddog]

How much MONEY is bet on this deal again???????

What's the screening on these refs?

Has anyone seen Don King around????

[slewis]

Originally Posted by cj

The sport of soccer has to be embarrassed by the officiating at the biggest tournament in the world.

"Embarrassed" is being very kind on your part.

[slewis]

Originally Posted by swami13

I haven't read much of this post but Thunder nailed it, the call disallowing the US goal a game or two ago made me lose the little interest I had in this.
The official can just blow the whistle without explaining why he blew it is just crazy, no explanation, didn't even have to talk to the press for 2-3 days.....crazy.

Ever see a guy catch a 60 yd TD pass in the NFL...only to have the announcer say "there's a flag on the play....I think it's holding"...

Other sports are just as bad.....

I think the reason why the ref blew the whistle on that play you queried was that he realized he should never had made the foul call giving the US a free kick from the original spot leadind the set piece...... there was no foul there....

[slewis]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

Gotta love the Post............

Doesn't Murdoch the media mogul own both the Post and Fox????

Talk about one hand not knowing what the other is doing....

[swami13]

Originally Posted by slewis

Ever see a guy catch a 60 yd TD pass in the NFL...only to have the announcer say "there's a flag on the play....I think it's holding"...

Other sports are just as bad.....

I think the reason why the ref blew the whistle on that play you queried was that he realized he should never had made the foul call giving the US a free kick from the original spot leadind the set piece...... there was no foul there....

with the NFL the ref at least tells everybody the call and names the player who did it. just blowing the whistle without ANY explanation is insane.

[cj's dad]

Originally Posted by cj

The sport of soccer has to be embarrassed by the officiating at the biggest tournament in the world.

There is talk of a "goal" referee on a platform above and behind each goal, similar to ice hockey. FIFA will have to do something before 2014 in Colombia

[Bettowin]

They do need a few more refs. Not sure how many are on the field but there is a lot of ground to cover with a lot of players moving in quick spurts of action. Seemed to me the refs I could see were constantly out of position. The NBA has 3 refs for 10 players on a much smaller court and soccer has ??

[broadreach]

Originally Posted by cj's dad

There is talk of a "goal" referee on a platform above and behind each goal, similar to ice hockey. FIFA will have to do something before 2014 in Colombia

Lots of ideas/theories thrown about. Another one is that a computer Chip to be placed in the ball and the lines on the field will have detectors, underneath the grass. A monitor will then instantly show the referee the result/impact.

Something needs to be done, the game is too fast for the linesman and referees.

[cj]

Originally Posted by cj's dad

There is talk of a "goal" referee on a platform above and behind each goal, similar to ice hockey. FIFA will have to do something before 2014 in Colombia

Brazil.

[Space Monkey]

The goal that England got screwed on was the result of a flaw in the system. I don't blame the assistant referee (linesman) at all. His job is to stay with the last defender, so he can call offsides correctly. In this case the last defender was around the top of the box, 18 yards away. Once a shot is taken, in this case from about 25 yards, then the asst ref is to sprint to the goal line. The problem is, he can't outrun a 90 mph shot and be in position to make a call when the ball hits the crossbar and drops down. the ref is running, bouncing, can't get focused, and being at least 10 yards away from the goal, he can't possibly see for certain where the ball drops. Its every asst ref 's nightmare. I know, I've been there. There's nothing you can do. FIFA has shown total incompetence in not dealing with this matter before this. It was bound to happen.

[Space Monkey]

I agree Headbanger, the FIFA rankings are garbage. Ghana is underrated. But we still should have beaten them.

[bisket]

i agree clocker we were a better team than ghana. i guess thats why i'm so frustrated. fifa is happy with the way things are as far as the officiating. soccer is sorta like general hospital in europe. the more intrigue the better. i don't feel they used altidore anywhere near enough. the ball should have been going through him on offense. he should get a touch just about every gtime we were in the opposing teams side of the field. whenever he recieved a pass it wasn't in an opportune spot. we used our midfield like strikers way to much. which also made it more difficult for us to strike fast. in world cup soccer most goals are scored when the ball is distributed to the offense to quickly for the opposing team's mid field to react. using our midfield like we did negated this, and made it more difficult on altidore to do his job.