Recent Comments

Yeah, Weah had an off night for sure. I kept commenting on it during the match as I watched with my wife. And I could tell he knew it when he was subbed out in the second half. He knew he had a bad game. He was loose with the ball and looked slow. The only opportunities he created were from offsides positions. He just didn't look sharp and that hurt us.

Very nice fish. Jealous

I agree with everything you say here. My frustrated post from last night post game was more an indictment of what I saw in the match. Weah had a terrible game, he said it himself. Reyna's inability to make quick decisions showed up a couple of times on turnovers. Granted I can be transparent enough to say I was focused on Reyna's performance last night, because I wanted Luna to get the call-up to the squad. I think Luna has the talent to find the decisive pass that a lot of our reserve midfielders lack.

Our starting XI can go toe to toe with a lot of teams, and can put up a fight, which is why I think we will fair well in our 1st knockout game. However, Poch will need to find viable reserves to make the kind of run that we want as a nation of supporters.

Yeah Young is hard to trust

I'm happy to have been wrong with the frequency of the "dead rubber" matches. I wonder if any of the group standings would be different if they had kept the old tie-breaker rules that started w/ GD/GF before h2h?

I kinda think the groups are small enough that the points/GD sort themselves out regardless of h2h. I imagine that it all aligns. If you beat a team h2h you beat them on points and GD and they'd have to have a pretty epic result to overcome that. I don't think there have been any cases yet where the h2h tie-breaker is different than the GD tie-breaker would have been.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't see how the results are any different with the h2h tie-breaker rule taking precedence over GD/GF. The only difference I can see is that a couple of teams were completely eliminated from contention before they played their last game. The example I've been using this whole time, Turkiye, won their last game to get to 3 points but they still find themselves in 4th due to the AUS-PAR draw. Had that game ended differently, it would become more interesting as Turkiye finished with 3 GF (more than both Aus/Par) and a GD of -2 (matching Par, and only 1 behind Aus). The whole group might have been different if not for the h2h tie-breaker because the US wouldn't have locked up the top spot, necessarily. Would have been a long shot (and it obviously didn't happen) but if Australia had won by 5 goals they would have jumped the US to take the top spot. Knowing that could have been possible, the US probably doesn't make 9 changes and they probably play differently and win that game against Turkiye.

Funny, those of us who grew up in the Atlanta suburbs (Sandy Springs) always thought the moat was further out.

I think both are true. Our starting XI are solid and I think could go toe to toe with most of the teams in the tournament. Defense is an issue, but that's true for a lot of the attacking teams. When you attack with 6 or 7 and press high you leave yourself susceptible to counter attacks. Canada, Morocco, US, Germany, Uruguay, Norway, Sweden, England and Croatia have all given up multiple goals, in part because they tend to be front-footed, which leaves a lot of space in behind for their opponents to attack and capitalize on. That's the nature of the beast. To make a deep run in the tournament teams need to have depth. Teams like France, Spain and England have that depth. Norway, US, Germany, Argentina aren't quite as deep. Defensively, I think the US probably has more liabilities than the top teams, but it's always going to be difficult to defend when you're pressing high if the opponent is able to play through or over the press. That is part of what makes teams like France and Spain so dangerous. They have the depth and talent to defend in a mid-block and the pace and technical skill to exploit the space in behind when teams leave that space for them. Spain struggled to unlock Curacao's low block (same as England vs Ghana) in part because they are built to sustain attacks and counter attack with speed and technically precise attackers. Unlocking a low block requires a special type of talent (like a Messi, or Modric) which not every team has. I think Argentina can ride Messi to a deep run. The rest of that roster built around him his well drilled. I'm not sure they have the depth to go to the final again.

I think the US has attacking pieces (Balogun, Pulisic) but they do lack depth there. The midfield starters are adequate but their backups I think leave something to be desired. The defense is just okay, but that's kind of true of a lot of the teams in this tournament.

Half the cities I have been to, it seemed like the demilitarized zone was inside the city limits rather than outside.

Going out. I actually got a ride back to midtown with some 70 year old Hokie who lived in VAHi that I befriended.

To me it looked like you had a bunch of guys who never played with each other playing with each other. Kicks to nobody abounded. If they keep playing that like that our streaking of never winning three games in the cup will continue.

Don't care ever again to step foot in Morgantown.

.9900 or higher on 247.

For this class, the Composite has it at .9835, but not .9831. and she is .9830, so.... .0005 points from a 5*

For ESPN, it's 96