After this morning’s game we’re throwing all our support to the Desert Foxes. England have replaced Green with James between the sticks, which apparently is a better choice. Let’s not forget his nickname is Calamity James…
England are heavy favorites, but Algeria did knock out two-time defending African Cup winners Egypt to qualify for this cup. There’s a chance, especially if Gerrard and Lampard continue to trip over each other in the center of England’s attack.
All the vitriol after the bump!
Where to begin? We deserved to be down 2-0 in the first half after such poor defensive play and an attack that looked to bypass the midfield in an ugly dump-and-run tactic. We were pulled out of position time and again on defense, and in offense our players refused to check to the ball, preferring to set up along the box as if a set piece were being played.
That all changed in the second half. Bradley must’ve given them a real spanking, and he pulled Torres for Edu, with Fielhaber in for ineffectual Findley (moving Dempsey up top). Edu didn’t do a whole lot, but he SCORES GOALS – he did the same thing for Rangers at the end of their season, and he did it again today. Problem is we were robbed by the ref (who also gave a ridiculous booking to Findley in the first half). Following the terribly officiated Germany match prior to ours, the refs have gone from great to crap overnight. Let’s hope England get the same treatment later today.
Today we find out if our team has a real shot at the knockout round. Slovenia are a scrappy team that put out Russia on the way to qualification, so they’ll be no pushovers. Let’s hope it’s the Slovenians who will be the jittery unsettled side when the game starts, and that we’re the ones who score an early goal for once.
The cultfootball team will be off joining in the watching and hopefully some celebrations afterward, so no liveblogging (sorry all you poor computer-tethered bastards, we still love you, promise). We’ll put up a little recap and some other various thoughts later.
Okay everybody have fun out there, and let’s keep it clean.
The lynchpin game for Mexico today, and they’re favorites to put down an unsettled French squad who by all rights shouldn’t even be at this tournament. Should be an exciting, attacking game with lots of pretty passes and deft movement. Should be…
Still a little groggy from the trip into Times Square for the breakfast-time Korea match, so please excuse us in advance if we confuse the occasional accent grave with an accent aigu.
Past the bump for all the action, sportsfans!
After much anticipation, the tournament favorites start their campaign to add world glory to that ’08 euro. No baby-faced striker up top for the boys in red, so please, enjoy this action shot Nando instead.
Switzerland finished at the top of their group in tournament qualifying, so are certainly no team to be dismissed outright. Let’s save that for the second half.
Follow the play after the bump!
Big excitement for us here today, as we don’t have to travel far to be in the heart of Italian Brooklyn (only as far as my couch, in fact). We’re eating cannolis and drinking Moretti, and we’ve got a pot of marinara on the stove to dip our bread in.
Let’s see how the old men of Italy perform. They tend to start off slowly in these tournaments.
Follow us live after the bump! (We expect auto-refreshing today, so you shouldn’t have to keep reloading the page to get updates. Let us know if it isn’t working …)
Well we didn’t exactly overwhelm the brits, but we certainly snapped back from having our net violated so early in the match. Our defense is our obvious weak point, with our center backs being drawn too easily out of position, and the wingers drifting into the middle and leaving attacking players free on the flanks. Basically any overlapping or diagonal run was confusing the American marking system.
We did cause some problems, and at the very least we got to see a lot of this:
