Recent Comments
Re: “USA Gets the Battle Fever On, Beats Algeria To Advance to Knockout Stages”
Well it's Ghana. Ghana are an average team but a powerful physical team. They defend well and blow hot and cold up front. USA on the other hand attack well and defend hot and cold. This one is anyone's guess.
Very few African teams left, only Ghana and possibly Ivory Coast. This will probably mean that home support will rally around Ghana, like the way Irish supporters would rally around England if the competition was in Ireland and the host nation succumbed to an early exit..
Who knows?
Re: “England Defeat Slovenia, Look Good On the Way to the Round of 16”
Disagree again Mr. Diamond. Slovenia are a poor team. England are still shoving square pegs into round holes. Th players don't know where they are playing. They can't keep the ball. Rooney is misfiring like a 20 year old jalopy and the centre halves are living on pure luck. The Germans (If Schweinsteiger is fit) wil walk out easy winners on Sunday, lets face it their beer is much nicer Mr Capello.
Re: “USA vs. England: In Search of a Team, In Search of a Bar”
I disagree with the Gerrard appraisal Mister Diamond. I disagree, I disagree, I disagree...
Gerrard did the usual Steven Gerrard dance, and even before the plaudits on BBC tried to salvage some dignity from an otherwise dysfunctional performance I said knowingly to my better half. "They'll show the goal and the three tackles". Which they did. Why? Because that's all there was to his entire 90 minute performance.
England are crying out for a calm intelligent midfielder in the Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Wesley Schneider, Iniesta, Xavi, Alonso, Vieira or...MIKE BRADLEY mould. Unfortunately the Steven Gerrard/ Frank Lampard morphed midfielder is the epitomy of everything that's wrong with English football. Head down, run around, aimless dumb stupid.
It got so bad in midfield after an hour the england team totally bypassed the non firing engine and started launching long balls towards the front two. At one stage Ashley Cole didn't een look before he launched an 80. Yes, 80. yard high ball which I believe is known as a hail mary in your parlance.
England were awful for the last 86 minutes.
Awful.
USA are underdogs. Rank underdogs. But the behaviour of the media could turn them into England II. And you don't want that...
Re: “Every Single Famous Soccer Player to Miss World Cup”
Innocent of that one Mr. Asch, but do subscribe somewhat to that mindset. Looks like Robben is out seeing though he hasn't travelled to SA which is a huge blow for the Netherlands. On Capello's best XI...my 2c Green(GK), Back four (L-R) Cole, King, Upson, Warnock, MIdfield (l-R) Joe Cole, Lampard,Parker (not on the plane!), Johnson (playing PS3 in Manchester), Forwards Rooney, Carlton Cole (eliminated from selection by the fact there were already 2 coles on the squad and Umbro didnt have any more C, O, L, or E letters for his shirt...)
Re: “Every Single Famous Soccer Player to Miss World Cup”
Well....Ballack just walked around Stamford bridge pointing accusatory fingers at Anelka and Kalou for most of the season so he's no loss. Essien was always going to be missing seeing as though his last two years at Chelsea have seen him play fewer and fewer games through injury, and Rio Ferdinand? No loss really, Craig Bellamy made him look slower than an episode of 'Mad Men' in the first Manchester Derby and he's been carrying a back injury that was bound to kick in by game 3 anyway.
Take my word for it. Drogba will play. The paper-mache centre forward has the pain threshold of a 4 year old school girl and the least little niggle has the deceptively buff Ivorian screaming for his mammy whilst writhing in agony on the turf. Latest news is that it's a slight fracture of a bone near the elbow, any half decent footballer will carry on. Ryan Giggs played for half the season with his arm in a cast after breaking it.
Trust me, the ego is too big for Drogba to miss his last world cup, he'll play, and the real stars by the way are still all playing.
Ones to watch and savour. Robin Van Persie (Holland), Guissepe Rossi (Italy via New Jersey), Javier Hernandez (Mexico), Maicon (Brazil), Vidic & Zigic (Serbia), The entire Spanish midfield, Rooney & Ronaldo (Lets hope they draw each other at some stage), oh and some young lad called Messi is supposed to be quite good too...
Re: “Randy Johnson: In Praise of Menace”
Great to see the column back up 'n running...Pity the US soccer team are just on the cusp of crashing out of The Confederations Cup...But can they beat the mighty egyptians on Sunday???
A good point to debate is the ever increasing quality of the US soccer squad. Clint Dempsey had a fantastic season at Fulham and Tim Howard is a world class keeper. Throw in the steady but not quite 'household names' of Jay DeMeritt, Jonathon Spector, Carlos Bocanegra and DaMarcus Beasley and there is definitely a sense of justifiable optimism for next years World Cup..
