No one in their right mind would say that France and England don’t have great players. The problem is that most of them play the same position.
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Commentary
We Was Robbed!
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.
CommentaryMVH
MVH Preview (Most Valuable Hottie): USA vs. Slovenia
Hey guys! I’m new here. I don’t know too much about football – but I do know about hotties, and football happens to be full of them. So here’s my pick for MVH (Most Valuable Hottie) of this otherwise disappointing game:
Zlatan Ljubijankič (born 15 December 1983 in Ljubljana) is a Slovenian striker currently playing for the Belgian Jupiler Pro League club K.A.A. Gent and the Slovenian national team. In his earlier hottie years, he played for NK Domžale, winning the much coveted ‘journalist’s Slovenian Player of the Year-Award in the 2006-07 season’ (yeah, Zlatan, work that!)
Zlatan is the standout babe of the game, and also happens to have scored a beautiful second goal for ‘Little Slovenia’ (is it cool to say that? NYT’s doing it so guess so!). The combination of his impeccable bone structure and rugged, Eastern European-y good looks (that masculine brow! those deepset eyes! that commanding, slightly crooked schnauz!) all atop a lean striker’s build… perfection. Congratulations, Zlatan, on being the sexiest man of Match 22!
Commentary
USA USA USA
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.
Commentary
A Listicle: 5 Reasons Spain Lost To Switzerland
This was an upset that absolutely no one thought would happen, except, perhaps, for Switzerland’s veteran German coach Ottmar Hitzfeld, who has, as they say, seen it all, or at least he’s seen the film of how the United States beat Spain last summer in the Confederations Cup. His surprisingly simple game plan gave the world a blueprint to beat the European champions. Journalists like the venerable @sidlowe are saying that Switzerland’s goal was “absurdly silly and fortunate,” but France went down to such a goal against Senegal and never recovered in 2002. It looked unlucky at the time, but seems indelible in retrospect.
Because Spain’s football is considered the standard for beauty, symmetry and international poetry, watching the Swiss defend them out of the match was a little like watching Republicans outmaneuver Harry Reid. It simply isn’t fair! Still, Spain will have to be more than poster children for liberal self-congratulation in their next game. They will have to adjust. Here are five issues Spain will have to understand if they are going to survive what is now a very tricky group:
Commentary
Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Footballers
[Editor’s note: With this post we introduce Ryan Reft, who co-founded and contributes to the group historical/cultural studies blog Tropics of Meta (from which this essay is cross-posted).]
Don’t waste your time on soccer kid it’s a game for commie pansies …
– Sports columnist Dick Young
Commentary
US v England impressions
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:
