Hey, Sun, do you still stand by this analysis?
All right, to be fair, the Three Lions are tied for second in Group C with the USA. Like the Yanks, England has drawn both their matches. But the two sides have to feel very different tonight. Team USA came back from two goals down to tie Slovenia, the group leader, and by rights should be leading the group tonight — they scored a third goal that was nullified on a phantom foul. England, meanwhile, played to a sloppy 0-0 tie with Algeria, who had lost to Slovenia 0-1 in the opener.
So to advance to the knockout round, America has to win over the consensus worst team in the group, while England has to beat a squad that’s shown some life. What’s more, Team USA has to feel good about the way they played in the second half today, while England, which came into the tourney ranked eighth in the world, has to be wondering what’s happened since the fifth minute in game one.
Ultimately, the US is in great shape to make it to the sudden death round, and once there, to maybe steal a game or two, make it to the quarters or — who knows — maybe the semis. That was their hope in the first place, anything more is gravy. England was a team that had the idea of winning the cup — and right now, you have to see them as no more than even money to get out of their pool.
All can be made right if England wins next week. But if they find a way to fail to get out of their group while the Yanks do? Expect a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth to come from London — and a great deal of Schadenfreude from Cardiff, Belfast, and Edinburgh — not to mention Washington, Algiers, and Ljubljana.
Hmm. I’m beginning to think you guys had the right idea with American Football – just because you invented a game, you don’t have to teach the rest of the world to play it.
England always expects to win the World Cup – as a country we overestimate our soccer* prowess to a ridiculous extent. I’m so sick of hearing about nineteen bloody sixty-six as if it’s at all relevant.
*Perfectly legitimate British English word, incidentally. Complaining about USians calling Association Football “soccer” is just an excuse to complain about USians.
Having said that, the source at your first link is overreacting a bit, I think. When sports teams collide, smack talk proliferates. Complaining about “disrespect” is weird – is “fuck the fucking Yankees” disrespectful to New Yorkers?
My familiarity with soccer comes solely from my kids having played it in grade school and high school. This is the first time I’ve really paid attention to World Cup soccer. So I was very surprised by that “phantom goal” in the U.S. game.
Not, mind you, by the astonishingly bad call. Bad calls happen. I had to tell both my kids when they played sports at one time or another that yes, it was a bad call, yes, you are right to be outraged, no, there’s nothing you can do about it except play hard enough to overcome it.
No, what surprised me was that the referee didn’t have to tell anyone a) what the foul was and b) who committed it. What’s THAT all about? There’s no way this is going to catch up to the current major sports in the U.S. with that kind of officiating structure.
RonF: I’ve heard lots of explanations for why soccer “isn’t popular” in the USA, but “vague officiating structure” is a new one on me. Do you really think that it’s because of an insufficiently legalistic implementation of the rules that soccer hasn’t reached mainstream popularity (and not, say, because the US team isn’t world-class)?
It’s a good argument, anyway, for video replays in moments like these (I understand a recent, similarly bad call in a US baseball game led to parallel calls for video replays).
is “fuck the fucking Yankees” disrespectful to New Yorkers?
Fuck no it’s not disrespectful to Newfuckinyorkers! Who the fuck do you think we are anyway?
Sorry, utterly failed to resist the temptation to swear like a New Yorker at that one.
Actually, no – soccer isn’t popular enough with native-born Americans for enough of them to even know about this issue. I think the main reason that soccer isn’t popular in the U.S. is because
1) despite the best efforts of the various urban park leagues, relatively few people kids play it compared to football or basketball or baseball
2) lack of tradition in the U.S. for it
3) to become a big league it has to crack the market that MLB and the other big-time professional sports
4) it’s too low scoring
5) ties are allowed and common (yes, I know hockey allows ties, but only during a regular season with 82 games, they’re not allowed during the playoffs).
Having said that – I think your description of my objection as “legalistic” has missed the point. When something happens in a game, people want to know what happened and who did it. When a player scores a potential game-winning goal after a dramatic comeback and it’s disallowed because of a foul, it seems pretty reasonable to me that the fans should be told who did it and what they did. Every other sport I’ve ever watched – the four main North American professional team sports plus tennis and lacrosse – all manage to do this with no problem. Even soccer as it’s played by my kid’s high school team does this. Why would anyone allow an international tournament game to be virtually decided by a call by a referee who does not account for or even describe his decision? It seem absurd. Apparently it serves the rest of the world but it won’t satisfy Americans.
Alex, if you’re willing to say, do you identify as male, female or neither? I’m trying to figure out how many comments we get are from men, and I know most of hte other handles.
(SeanH, I’m assuming I’m intended to read your handle as indicating maleness. Let me know if I’m wrong.)
Mandolin, you are correct, I am cis-male and don’t mind being identified as such.
RonF, I don’t really disagree with your objection – you’re right that the ref should have to make clear what happened (as far as I can tell the vagueness of the call is one of the reasons he’s now under investigation by FIFA, although I could be wrong about that). And for what it’s worth, I didn’t mean “legalistic” in a bad way – just, “like a legal system”.
I’m trying to figure out how many comments we get are from men,
On this thread or in general?
I’m curious to know the ratio on the “nice guy” thread of late, since my subjective experience was of it being absolutely run into the ground by male commenters who refused to talk about anything other than themselves.
“On this thread or in general?”
In general, over a relatively limited time span. If I have time to do it.
SeanH, let me ask this then; was the referee’s refusal to immediately identify what foul was committed and who committed it a violation of FIFA rules? Or does FIFA permit this and he’s been dropped from further officiating because he just did a bad job?
In answer to the post’s original question, it seems to have worked out for them in the end. Not as easy as they expected, but they are advancing to the next round.
Where they play Germany. Heh.
Where they play Germany. Heh.
Interesting political dynamic. Not quite as interesting as if the US’d been playing Germany but still…