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Dispatches

Dispatch from Cape Town: Rowan Flad on FanFest, USA-SLV, ENG-ALG

June 23, 2010 — by Suman

We just received via email a dispatch from South Africa: friend, former teammate, and archaeologist Rowan Flad on watching the US-Slovenia game last Friday at the FanFest in Cape Town, followed by watching England-Algeria live:

Today [Friday, June 18] we (me and my wife In Paik) attended our first live match of WC2010 – England v. Algeria.  We spent the day exploring Cape Town a little more, after having done Table Mountain and some other sites yesterday, first going to a sweet little coffee shop in Observatory (Obz), the part of town where we are staying, called “Queen of Tarts,” and then heading into the City Bowl area where we had a lunch of African tapas at a joint called “Africa Café.”  We then headed to the District Six museum, which was only a few blocks from “Fanfest” – the designated viewing area where a huge screen had been set up outside city hall for people to watch games.

Commentary

The Big E.A.S.Y. (via @johnglally)

June 21, 2010 — by Suman

Via an Englishman in New York, @johnglally (whom we hope will soon shift (or at least crosspost) his commentary from Twitter to CultFootball):

“I wonder why England players might suffer from complacency and overconfidence…”


Dateline = December 2009, when the group draw was announced.

Commentary

We Was Robbed!

June 18, 2010 — by Sean

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.

Commentary

USA USA USA

June 18, 2010 — by Sean

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

US v England impressions

June 13, 2010 — by Sean

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:

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