> BiefstukFriet wrote:

> Well done USA, loved that fighting spirit! As for the refs... You win some, you lose some, that elbow to the face in The first minute was worth a red card.

Anyhow, the 2010 cup seems to be the cup for the underdogs!:)

i disagree....  it wasnt a surprise that he didnt get a card for it, and if he had gotten a yellow, it wouldnt of been a surprise, but a red would of been a big overreaction...

i wonder if it speaks to the gap between the best and worst teams shrinking... the worst ranked team in the tourney performed pretty damn well against Brazil and Spain lost to Switserland... it seems like gone are the days where a team can have a practically guarenteed win..

yeah, the ref made several bad calls throughout the game, that were to the detriment of the US... the yellowcard on the US player, not going to bother looking up his name atm, was unjustified... he was nailed at the side of the face, the ball went straight down and hit his hand, how the ref could figure that someone being clobbered by a ball in the face could in a fraction of a sec intentionally hit the ball with his hand, is beyond me, there was nothing to indicate there was either. Dempsey had a foul called against him that was quite horrible, when the US had a golden scoring oppotunity in the box. and then there was the last big one where they disallowed the goal...

the blame can't all go to the ref though; the US allowed themselves to get into that bad of a situation.

> Commander Christ wrote:

> So basicly, the problem lies with a problematic attention span or a lack of patience?

no, it lies in games being decided by flops.

the main reason soccer will never be a popular spectator sport in the US is because it rewards diving way too much.  the hero of the match is the forward that dove and tricked the ref into giving his team a pk that ended up being the sole goal of the game.... no american can respect a professional sport league that has that taking place.

seems like this world cup is really low scoring.... so far no team has scored a goal and lost....

> [TI] Sitting Duck wrote:

> OK, I'm going to say one more thing because that last post is silly. The posts were there to start with, and the pressure and humidity did not change suddenly between him hitting the ball and it missing the goal, the wind was not a factor over that short distance with the ball hit that hard. They are conditions the players have no control over but the players judgement on where to kick the ball should have encompassed the playing conditions. You are also exaggerating how close it was to going in. We're not talking about the width of a hair here, or the distance that humidity or pressure may have caused the ball to swerve over that short distance, with the ball hit so hard and no spin put on the ball. And like I said, if it was hit closer to the keeper he would have saved it more convincingly, further from the keeper and it would have gone wide. Either way, it missed and it would have missed even if the air was more humid. He would have had more chance hitting it the other side of the keeper or laying it off to someone running in to the 6 yard box.

In my opinion England dominated the match and should have won, you can attribute that they didn't to skill, luck or divine intervention I don't really care.

This really is now all I have to say about this.

the fact that the pressure or humidity didnt change suddenly has nothing to do with my point. the players can only judge envirmental conditions to such a degree, not a degree where they can intentionally change the ball's trajectory by millimeters. you are arguing that the ball was shot within a millimeter of the ideal spot for the short sided shot, and you are judging that from casually watching the screen once.... you're so silly.

> [TI] Sitting Duck wrote:

> The width of the post is greater than millimeters, as is the width of the goalkeepers hands.

it did not hit the entire post or the entire goalkeepers' hand. it hit the inside of the post shown by the fact that it deflected inwards when it hit the post, a couple millimeters could of changed the deflection angle to the point where it would of still entered the goal.

> [TI] Sitting Duck wrote:

> They are pretty annoying, but if that's what they do in South Africa, then that's what they do in South Africa. If it was in Brazil we wouldn't complain about the pretty girls dancing in bikinis.

Avo, I think you're intentionally being obtuse. Obviously the final score is always the bottom line and it was a draw. So yes, both teams were equally good at scoring and avoiding conceding goals over the 90 minutes. It is possible to make more comment on the game than that though, I haven't looked at any stats but I would bet that England had more possession than the USA and had more shots (which isn't always an accurate reflection). I often find the number of corners each team has had to be a fairly good indicator of which team has applied more pressure. The fact that the USA goalkeeper got the man of the match award indicates that the ten outfield England players did better than the ten outfield USA players, with the equalising factor being that the USA goalkeeper played well whereas the England goalkeeper had a shocker. For the most part England dominated the game and were unlucky not to win.

possession was 57-44 in favor of England fyi.. pressure is just a small fraction of the game.... pressure is largely applied by the midfields, and i agree that the english midfield in the 2nd half did a much better job then the American one. but the American defenders were much more effective against the English forwards then the English defenders were against the American Forwards.  The fact that the US goaltender won man of the match award indicates that neither offense shined, and england's goaltender was out of the running for a horrible play he did. take away both goals, and either goalie would of been up for man of the match.

England did not dominate, and England was much closer to losing the match with Altidore's shot then they were at ever winning the match.  None of England's scoring chances not scoring a goal was England getting a bad break, such as the Ref making a bad call, or the ball taking a bad bounce, wind effecting the shot, ect; it was all the england team's performance being sub par for the england team. England did not perform well enough where they should of won. The only scoring chance lost because a team got a bad break was Altidore's shot, a slight different bounce off the post and it was a goal.

> [TI] Sitting Duck wrote:

> Stop saying "tie" it's a draw! England were unlucky, created far more chances than the USA and should have scored more goals. Goalkeeper errors like that happen from time to time so I feel pretty sorry for Rob Green that it happened in the World Cup in front of everyone! At least it was in the group stage so it didn't get us knocked out (yet). The second half save that everyone is going on about as 'redemption' for him wasn't that great though, it would be pretty embarrassing for a keeper to be beaten at the near post from that kind of angle. Not as embarrassing as the actual goal mind you!

Rob Green may have just doomed England to facing Germany in the next round

if you call shots straight at the US keeper scoring opportunities, then you're right with England having more of them. and the US defense handed England their only goal just as much as the English keeper handed the US their only goal.  And the shot off the post was the closest thing to a 2nd goal either team had, by far...

will be interesting to see the competition for 1C.... i think England firmly has the goal of 1C, while i think the American team has more a one game at a time mentality, and is mainly focusing and making it out of their group, and not so much placing well once they are out.

biggest surprise was how much the US had ball control....

> [TI] Primo wrote:

> US has a decent chance of making it past the group phase. After that I think you play Germany, you won't win that. If, with lots of luck, you manage to get first in the group, over England, you play Australia in the first knock out round, still too strong I think.

i wouldnt even say the US needs lots of luck; England isnt the most consistent team, and the US and England are playing each other in their very first games of the world cup. While England is still the favorite in the match, i dont think it would be a massive upset or come as a big surprise if the US beat them and won their other two matches.  In the Confed Cup, the Americans scored first against Italy, Egypt, Spain, and Brazil...  They have proved they have a strong offense this time around