Soccer Archives - Page 14 of 17

Top Three Reasons Why You Should Watch the World Cup Third Place Game

Maybe the title of this blog post should really be “three reasons why the sports fan in your life wants to watch the World Cup third place game that might be good enough to convince you to watch it too.” It’s admittedly a thin line I walk, as a sports fan writing about sports for people who are more curious about the sports world than obsessed by it and who like to know enough to be conversant in sports but perhaps don’t really want every conversation they have to be focused on sports. I do, however, have some record of telling it how it is when I absolutely do not think a game is worth watching, and I happen to actually think the World Cup third place game between the Netherlands and Brazil on July 12, 4 pm, on ESPN is well worth the time. Here are some reasons why:

1. Third place games are usually great.

I will not go as far as to argue that the third place game is “often the best game” as the New Yorker does, but I will say that it’s often one of the most enjoyable games.

One of the unavoidable truths about soccer which influences almost every facet of the game is that every offensive move a team makes leaves it more vulnerable defensively than if it had not attacked. This is one of the reasons why soccer is so low scoring. A team that commits itself thoroughly to not being scored on, like the Netherlands did in their semifinal against Argentina by keeping as many players between Messi and their own goal as possible, can make it nearly impossible for the other team to score. In the third place game, there’s less reason for anyone to care that much about whether or not their team gets scored on. It’s for this reason that the third place game can be very high scoring. Since 1990 the World Cup championship game has averaged only 1.5 goals scored but the third place game has averaged 4 goals.

As long as a team you root for has a chance to win the World Cup, most fans are happy to make the trade-off of watching defensive soccer for the excitement of imagining that your team will actually win the World Cup. Once that possibility is gone however, it’s nice to watch soccer for its essential beauty — great athletes doing things with a ball and their feet, head, or chest, that given a million years you would not be able to replicate.

2. Brazil is like a roller coaster baby, I want to watch.

There have probably already been millions of words written in reaction to Brazil’s 7-1 loss to Germany in the semi-finals. My favorite article about it is from Grantland’s Brian Phillips. Here are just a couple of choice bits:

This wasn’t a match like other matches, wasn’t a loss like other losses… You could feel it wherever you were. It was the sense — obviously irrational, tautologically irrational, but still strong — that we were outside the realm of things that can occur.

Comparing it to an NFL game doesn’t work, for instance, because no NFL team is fanatically supported by a nation of more than 200 million people… And then, I’m sorry, but the scene in that stadium after the match, the intensity of the weeping — and not just the crowd’s, the players’ — did not, in deep and basic ways, resemble a big home playoff loss at Sports Authority Field. You knew as you were watching that Brazilian soccer’s idea of itself would never be quite the same, that the lives of these players would never be the same.

Knowing that Phillips is potentially underplaying the impact of that game on Brazilian players, coaches, and fans, how can you not be interested to see how they look and act and play a mere four days later, playing in the consolation game of a World Cup that they wanted to win so badly?

3. Swan song or cygnet chirp

First of all, baby swans are called cygnets. I have no idea how this is possible, but the internet tells me so. There’s always a little sadness in sport because players have such short careers. Soccer players are a little long in the tooth by 30 and well past their prime by 32. By 35 they are unlikely to be playing at the highest level anymore. (In fact, they are more likely to be playing in the U.S. professional league, the MLS, but that’s another story.) Events like the World Cup and the Olympics only heighten this bittersweetness because they only happen once every four years. I certainly felt a little sad thinking that their wonderful effort against Belgium might be the last time we see Clint Dempsey, DaMarcus Beasley, and Tim Howard play at a World Cup. For Dutch fans, the trio that they are feeling sad about is a trio of great players, Robin Van Persie, Arjen Robben, and Wesley Sneijder. This trio has lead the Orange attack for the last decade but seem sure never to win a World Cup. The closest they got four years ago when they lost in the championship game to Spain.

On the other side of things, time and age are also one of the reasons why hope springs eternal in sports. Again, because winning the third place game is not so important and because some of the more outspoken veteran players have openly groused about the existence of the game, we may see younger players in this game whose talent has been just raw enough to keep them on the bench for the tournament so far. You never know who might explode onto the scene.

— — —

To celebrate the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer?, Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball? and Reflections on the 2014 World Cup for the United States. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13.

How to Watch the World Cup Semifinals: Argentina vs the Netherlands

Did you watch the 7-1 can of whoop-ass that Germany opened in Brazil’s home field? I may not be able to predict much about the second semifinal between Argentina and the Netherlands but I will give you a money-back guarantee (luckily this site is free) that it will be closer than the first one. What’s at stake is a place in the final game versus Germany. If Argentina wins, hope for the streak of South American World Cups being won by South American teams is still alive. The only thing worse for the Brazilian fans than seeing their team lose 7-1 might be seeing neighbor and rival Argentina win. If the Netherlands win, it would create a matchup between one of the most heated set of rivals in history. For perspective, in his excellent book, Brilliant Orange, the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer, David Winner writes this about the World Cup finals in 1973 which the Netherlands lost to Germany:

The events of Munich, July 7, 1974 are burnt into the Dutch soul the way Dallas, November 22, 1963 haunts America. It may be obscene to suggest any precise equivalence between the horrific murder of President Kennedy and the losing of a mere football match; yet all over Holland grown men wept the day the Dutch lost the World Cup final to their neighbors. A TV poll conducted on the twentieth anniversary of the episode revealed that every sentient Dutch person recalled precisely where they were and what they were doing. Playwright Johan Timmers studied the calamity and its aftermath and concluded: “The defeat of 1974 is the biggest trauma that happened to Holland in the twentieth century, apart from the floods of 1953 and World War Two.”

So, there’s that. Either way, the fans win with a culminating contest between Europe and South America over world domination, or a rematch with deep, deep historic and psychological intrigue. Before all that though, there’s a semifinal to be played.

Argentina vs. the Netherlands, Wednesday, July 9, 4 p.m. on ESPN

Krul Oranje — Dutch manager Louis van Gaal made the right choice by subbing goalies before the shootout in the quarterfinals. Will his lucky streak continue?

Argentina looked great in their quarterfinal matchup against Belgium. Even though they only scored one goal, I thought they looked quick and decisive on the attack. Belgium, as we United States soccer fans now know, is no joke on defense. The Argentinians also looked stout on defense, particularly in holding off a desperate late Belgian surge. Argentina is led by a diminutive star midfielder, Lionel Messi. Messi plays fearlessly and far more often than should be possible for someone his size, shrugs off hard tackles to keep running towards goal. His talents are going to be tried more than ever in this game because his midfield partner, Angel Di Maria, will likely miss the game with a thigh injury. The Dutch have been known to play “cynically” or “pragmatically,” both terms that mean, “with a willingness to kick, trip, and bully an opponent star player into submission,” so Messi may be in for a rough day.

The Dutch team is an historic enigma but a relatively straightforward story if viewed without context. These days they are a solid team with good defenders, tireless midfielders, and a pair of clever and skilled strikers, Arjen Robben and Robin van Persie. What’s weird about that is that for generations, the Dutch have played soccer differently. Starting in the late 1960s and coming to its apex behind star Johann Cruyff in the 1970s, the Dutch played a brand of soccer called “Total Football” that emphasized a free flow of players who would interchangeably take up each other’s positions depending on the context of the game. This ideal was so powerful that it remained, altered but lodged in Dutch tactics until their current manager, Louis van Gaal, changed things. Grantland’s Mike L. Goodman writes about this transformation:

Before Van Gaal, the Netherlands played a 4-3-3. That wasn’t a choice, it was an immutable fact of nature. Death, taxes, and the Oranje play a beautiful, interchanging, possession-based 4-3-3.

Van Gaal looked at all that history, took it out back, and put it out of its misery. He sold his team on an idea of playing defensively and directly, no matter what critics back home might think. Speed and man-marking suited this particular group, not possession and positional interplay. Imbuing a side with an “us against the world” mentality is nothing new. Doing it when the world is, in this case, your own fans and history — well, that’s something else entirely.

It’s a hard choice to go against decades of history but van Gaal seems to enjoy making tough and controversial decisions, like he did in the Quarterfinals against Costa Rica when he substituted goalies for the shoot-out. That choice worked. What choices will van Gaal make in this game against Argentina? It’s almost time to find out. Enjoy the game!

— — —

How to Watch the World Cup Semifinals: Brazil vs Germany

Neymar injury — How will Neymar’s injury affect the semifinal game between Brazil and Germany?

After all the sturm and drang of the first three weeks of the World Cup where it seemed like anything could happen, the four last teams left standing are all ones that have done it before. Between Brazil, Germany, Argentina, and the Netherlands, are 10 of the 19 World Cup winners ever and 19 of the 38 teams to have ever made the World Cup championship game. By my rough calculation, that’s 50% or more either way you look at it! The only team that has never won the World Cup is the Netherlands and they’ve made the finals more times (3) than any other team to not win it.

Lucky for us, predictable does not mean unexciting. Let’s start with the first semifinal:

Brazil vs. Germany, Tuesday, July 8, 4 p.m. on ESPN

Brazil is going to need the full power of all 200 million of its citizens pulling for the team in this game because it is decidedly short-handed on the field. Brazil’s captain, Thiago Silva, will miss the match with a suspension after receiving two yellow cards in the tournament so far. The bigger, or at least more written and talked about, loss is that of Neymar, Brazil’s star midfielder. Neymar will be out for the rest of the World Cup with fractured vertebrae after being on the business end of a flying Colombian knee during Brazil’s quarterfinal game. Neymar was Brazil’s best offensive player and their team talisman, if not leader. He is a playmaking midfielder whose skill handling the ball helps Brazil earn free-kicks and keep possession. His also has four of Brazil’s 10 goals during the tournament. He’s also, like Jozy Altidore was for the United States, somewhat irreplaceable. There isn’t another player on Brazil’s roster who can do what Neymar does. How much will these absences hurt Brazil? According to Nate Silver, not that much, it simply brings them down from a decisive favorite over Germany to a slight favorite.

Germany, on the other hand, is a very deep team. They’ve been a machine during this World Cup, winning four of their five games and giving up only a single goal in their victories. Their one hiccup was against a desperate, attacking Ghana in the second game of the group stage. Germany is so deep that they have been bringing star players like Miroslav Klose, who is tied for the all-time lead in World Cup goals scored, and Bastian Schweinsteiger whose name means “pig overseer,” into games as substitutes. Germany has been impressive but not particularly exciting except when pushed to be so by a fiesty opponent. I hope, for the sake of the millions who are planning to watch this semi-final, that Brazil pushes Germany and creates an exciting game.

— — —

How Healthy is Soccer in the United States as a Brand?

US Fans — Fans gathered to watch the World Cup in great numbers but what will they do for the next three years?

One of the topics I’ve heard and read about the most since the United States team was booted (pun intended) out of the World Cup last week is what the team’s performance and our country’s World Cup fever might mean for the future of soccer in the United States. Cynics on the subject say that the country gets into the World Cup every four years and then studiously ignores soccer for the next three years and 11 months until the World Cup begins again. Soccer optimists (who owns soptimists.com???) claim that this year is different, that the interest in the World Cup is stronger than it’s been in the past and that we are closer than ever to joining the rest of the soccer loving world.

My friend Brian Reich of thinkingaboutsports.com falls somewhere between those two groups. Brian set out and sat down at the start of the World Cup to “watch every game of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, review every ad, and read/watch/listen to every bit of coverage and analysis I can find” and write about it on www.clumsytouch.com. His writing has been great fun to read and I admire and envy his dedication! His post on the question of soccer as a brand in the United States was innovative and insightful and I encourage you to read it in full here. His conclusion on the topic? That soccer’s current “resonance is deeply connected to the World Cup – a unique tournament, staged every four years” and that the “experience, the connection that people feel right now – cannot be sustained. A new and different approach to creating a ‘brand’ for soccer needs to be considered – before the energy is lost completely.”

What do you think? Is soccer gaining steam or slowly deflating? What would make you more likely to follow soccer between World Cups?

How to Watch the World Cup Quarter-Finals on Saturday, July 5

Arjen Robben will be watching you, will you be watching him?

The United States played wonderful soccer and, for a few weeks, our nation obsessed over the World Cup. The U.S. team is gone but the World Cup goes on. Yesterday, the two giants of the World Cup, Germany and Brazil, won their quarter-final games to move on. Germany beat France in what seemed like the first truly dull soccer game of the World Cup, and Brazil beat Colombia in a sibling-like fight replete with grappling, kicking, and complaining. It may have been a Pyrrhic victory for host country Brazil though, because they lost their captain, Thiago Silva, for one game due to a suspension, and their star player, Neymar, who is out for the rest of the World Cup with fractured vertebra. Today’s quarter-final games can’t match yesterday’s in terms of regional rivalry or traditional dominance but they may make up for it with compelling, quality play. Let’s look at them together.

Argentina vs. Belgium, Saturday, July 5, Noon on ABC and ESPN2

It’s always an interesting dilemma: after the team you are rooting for gets knocked out of a tournament, do you root for or against the team that knocked them out? It’s a choice that many American fans are facing in this game after Belgium knocked the U.S. team out of the World Cup on Tuesday. You root for them because by winning, Belgium validates the American loss. “See,” we can say, “the Belgians ARE really good.” Then again, we just spent 120 minutes rooting passionately against the Belgians with all their annoying skill and hair. It’s hard to switch over so quickly to rooting for them. I think I’ll be rooting for Argentina and their diminutive star, Lionel Messi. Messi faces the unenviable task of trying to surpass the legend of retired messianic Argentinian soccer figure, Diego Maradona, in addition to beating the flesh and blood opponents on the field. An article on fifa.com notes that Maradona had some of his most memorable moments against the Belgians. I hope that Messi creates some of his own against them today.

The Netherlands vs. Costa Rica, Saturday, July 5, 4 p.m. on ESPN

In yesterday’s post about the quarter finals, we used a quote from Deadspin.com about how there are almost never Cinderella stories in the World Cup. Well, if Costa Rica beats The Netherlands today, that might not be true. Costa Rica is ranked 28th in the world by soccer’s international body, Fifa. They are wedged right between Scotland and Romania, neither of which qualified for the World Cup. The Costa Rican team has very few players who could even have made most of the other teams in the tournament, including the Dutch team, but that hasn’t stopped them yet. Then again, they lucked out a little by being matched up against the unimaginative Greek team in the last round. Costa Rican striker, Joel Campbell, is capable of moments of brilliance, but he’ll have to play out of his mind for the Costa Rican team to have a chance.

The Netherlands is ranked 15th and came in second place four years ago. The Dutch are a perennial soccer power whose beautiful play is only matched by their unerring ability to lose when it matters the most. They have made more World Cup finals (3) than any other country that has not won a World Cup championship. This year’s Dutch team features two veteran, crafty offensive players, Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben. They are a funny pair: both 30 years old, van Persie is a classic pretty-boy striker; fast, good in the air, and even better with his hair. Robben plays more of a deceptive game. Watch out for him — he’s the bald one who wears number 11 and is equally proficient at faking the ref out as he is at faking out opposing defenders. I happen to really enjoy his play, but he’s definitely an acquired taste.

How to Watch the World Cup Quarter-Finals on Friday, July 4

— — —

Will Neymar lead Brazil to World Cup victory or will Colombia dance all over them?

The United States played wonderful soccer and, for a few weeks, our nation obsessed over the World Cup. The U.S. team is gone but the World Cup goes on. This Friday and Saturday are the four quarter-final matchups between the final eight teams in the tournament. There are very few surprises, which, as Greg Howard of Deadspin points out, is not that much of a surprise:

Soccer is strange, in that it isn’t very strange at all. One would think that such a low-scoring game would lend itself to randomness, to the odd fairytale ending, to relatively shitty teams fluking their way into the history books. This doesn’t happen.

The final eight teams may be mostly predictable world powers but that doesn’t mean the results when they play each other are predictable. From here on out, (with the potential exception of one game on Saturday which we’ll cover in the next post,) no result will be surprising. If you’re interested in seeing it out to the end, here’s a little information about the two quarterfinal match ups on Friday to feed our fledgling soccer addicted brains:

France vs. Germany, Friday, July 4, Noon on ESPN2

First things first here — this game gets bumped to ESPN’s second channel not for Nathan’s hot-dog eating contest, which is what I feared, but for the men’s semifinal of Wimbledon, which still seems wrong-headed but is definitely more acceptable. France vs. Germany is the first of two regional match-ups on Friday and, although tho countries have a long and horrible real history of conflict, they aren’t the biggest soccer enemies. France and Germany have only played against each other three times in World Cup history and not since 1986. France beat Germany 2-0 in 1986, lost in a shootout in 1982, and won 6-3 in 1958. In this year’s World Cup, Germany came in as the more heralded team but France has played more convincingly and excitingly. It’s possible that the result of this game will come down to the most coincidental and mundane of factors: France does not have the flu, Germany does.

Brazil vs. Colombia, Friday, July 4, 4 p.m. on ESPN

This is the best matchup of the quarter-finals by far. It’s got everything: the host country, two bordering soccer-crazed countries, and two young super-stars. As the host country, Brazil is under an enormous amount of pressure to win the tournament but I haven’t been impressed with their play so far. They seem too reliant on their one star player, Neymar, but a more positive way of looking on that would be that he is such a star that all the other stars on the Brazilian team seem pedestrian in comparison. Neymar is an interesting figure. He is young, 22, and this is his first World Cup. He is a slight figure and is often rolling around on the ground in simulated or real misery from one injury or another. He’s also quite brilliant. I first saw him in person playing in a “friendly” match against the United States team right after the 2010 World Cup. The 18 year-old Neymar had been controversially left off the Brazilian World Cup team that year and was clearly out for revenge against the people who left him off and the United States team bore the brunt of his fury. Brazil won that night 2-0 but it might as well have been 20 nothing. Neymar was everywhere at once and completely uncontrollable. Not only is Neymar on a mission to win the World Cup for the home country but also to wear as many hair styles as possible while doing it.

On the Colombian side of the ball, the star player is the similarly young and brilliant James Rodriguez. Rodriguez is leading the World Cup in goals scored and has “picked this summer to go full blown supernova on the soccer world” according to Billy Haisley of Deadspin.com in a fine profile of Rodriguez. Alas, I have less to say about the Colombian team because I haven’t been able to see one of their games yet but according to my Mom (who is a soccer expert in her own right,) Colombia has “Great teamwork and a star, Rodriguez. It’s a real pleasure to watch them.” If for no reason other than that they seem to be the most joyous team in the cup, celebrating goals with group dances, I hope the Colombian party continues.

Reflections on the 2014 World Cup for the United States

A few minutes after the United States lost 2-1 to Belgium and was eliminated from the 2014 World Cup, I posted “My hands and lungs hurt. That was a great effort by the US team. Also, its fans” on Facebook and Twitter. Now, after a nice consolation dinner and a night’s sleep, I feel like I should revise that statement: “My hands still hurt but now it’s more my throat than my lungs.” And expand upon it too. Here are some of my thoughts:

Brazil Soccer WCup Belgium US — There’s more to celebrate than mourn thanks to this United States team

Sports are better for die-hard fans when casual fans get involved. This may seem like an obvious statement coming from a die-hard sports fan who writes a blog about sports for casual fans but it’s true nonetheless. It’s way more fun to follow the World Cup and root for the U.S. team now that so many casual fans are interested and invested in the games. Soccer has been the sport with the least casual fans for a long time, partially because it is so low scoring, possibly because the best leagues in the world are in Europe, so following them involves watching early on weekend mornings and saying things like “Tottenham Hotspur” and “Crystal Palace.” Yes, nodding at other people wearing U.S. jerseys on their way to work (the die-hard fans) brought a smile to my face, but even better was talking to the many casual fans who were really enjoying the World Cup and soccer for the first time. I hope that this experience was a two-way street; that the casual fans out there who got into the World Cup found that they enjoyed it and got a lot out of it.

It is way more fun to root for the home team. Due to the vagaries of life, I only live near one of the teams that I root for, so rooting for the home-team is a relatively rare occurrence for me. It’s great! I’ve got to do more of it. My plan for years has been to become a fan of the football and baseball teams in the next city I live in, since I don’t have favorite teams in those sports, but maybe I should think more radically about changing allegiances. It’s much more fun to root for the team that everyone around you is rooting for and that the media you consume is universally supporting.

All of this is magnified when the home team is one that you can be proud of. The U.S. team may have ended the World Cup with what looks like a mediocre showing, one win, one tie, and two losses, but the way they played was inspiring. Sure, there are a few moments from the Belgium game that will stick in my memory and haunt me when I least expect it. Chris Wondolowski’s poorly hit shot in the closing minutes of regular time that could have, should have won the game is tough to swallow. The fact that we executed such a cool tic-tac-toe free kick in last ten minutes of the game which left Clint Dempsey alone with the ball in front of the Belgian net but he could not beat the keeper also lodges in my throat a little. But the positives overwhelm those sore spots. Tim Howard. Tim Howard! Tim Howard was a rock in goal, making what I believe was a record number of saves to keep the U.S. in the game. Without Tim Howard being heroic, we’re not even talking about the close calls we missed at the end of the game because we would have been down 4-0. Michael Bradley, much maligned as he was by the media during this World Cup for sub par play, was tireless during the game against Belgium. He missed some easy passes, sure, but in the last overtime, when everyone else was looking a little ragged, Bradley (who runs more than anyone during a game,) was the one trailing back to the defense, picking the ball up, and racing forward with it, over and over and over again. The two youngest players on the team, DeAndre Yedlin and Julian Green, both impressed and should give us great hope for the future.

The United States team was great and now they are gone. We can still enjoy the World Cup. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants and hyphens, and it’s okay to root for another team. My neighborhood pulls strongly (and loudly!) for Colombia. My household is part Dutch, so also pull for the orange jerseys of The Netherlands. I have friends at work who root for Argentina, France, Germany, and more. I see posts from old classmates and soccer teammates of mine who root for Costa Rica and Brazil. I’m sure I even know a few people who favor the Belgian team. It’s all good, even, I suppose after a few mean glares, for the Belgian supporters. The World Cup is an international celebration as well as a tournament. It’s a chance for nations to represent themselves to the international community as well as try to win. This U.S. team and our support of it was a fine representation of who I think we want to be as a country, so let’s lick our wounds, hold our heads high, and enjoy the rest of the World Cup.

— — —

To celebrate the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer? and Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball? The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13.

How to Watch the World Cup: USA vs. Belgium

To celebrate the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer? and Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball? The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13.

altiore hamstring — Jozy Altidore hopes to get back into the World Cup after pulling his hamstring in the first game

The United States made it through the “group of death” into the single-elimination knockout round where we play Belgium at 4 p.m. on July 1. The game will be televised live on ESPN. It will be an incredibly anticipated game and although it may not get the high television ratings of the weekend game against Portugal, millions of people will be watching brazenly in bars or outside viewing areas or surreptitiously at their desks at work. If you’re thinking of being one of those people, here’s some information about the game which will help you sound knowledgeable and, I hope, enjoy the game!

Cohesion vs. Talent

Belgium is definitely the favorite to win this game. Although even soccer fans do not think of Belgium as being a world-class soccer country, by focusing on player development and then exporting players to the top European leagues, the Belgians have created a team full of world-class players. Sam Knight of Grantland.com wrote a wonderful profile of the Belgian team before the World Cup where he describes the develop and export approach and delves into the social impact that the rise of the Belgian team is having on the Belgian people. The Belgian team won its group comfortably, conceding only one goal against, but still failed to convince viewers of its dominant play. CBSSports.com described the Belgian performance as creating “the overarching impression was of a team that hasn’t yet found the team cohesion to match its individual quality.”

The United States, on the other hand, has played and acted like a very cohesive team. They’ve overcome an injury to their most irreplaceable (if not important) player. They took an enormous gut-punch when Portugal scored in stoppage time to tie their second game at two goals apiece and tear a definite spot in the second round away from them. Unperturbed, the United States played very well in their third game against a superior German team. The players on the U.S. team don’t all play at top-tier teams like the Belgians do but they do seem to play well as a team. Credit for this is hard to accurately distribute but it certainly seems like Coach Jurgen Klinsmann deserves a lot of it.

Goaltenders

This game features two of the best goalies in the world, Tim Howard of the United States, and Thibaut Courtois for the Belgians. Both goalkeepers star in the English Premiere League — Howard for Everton and Courtois for Chelsea. Playing goalie in soccer is a somewhat crazy thing to do because your chances of being humiliated is so high and it attracts, shall we say, colorful personalities. Howard is definitely that. He’s a classic product of New Brunswick, NJ, (where I went to college, hooray for Rutgers,) being half African-American and half Hungarian, the two dominant groups in the city. He was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome as a child and has been a very admirable and open spokesperson for people with the syndrome. Interestingly, there’s some thought, like from this soccerblog.com article from 2010, that Tourette’s helps Howard “sense things in the body movements of others that the rest of us screen out, some signal or vibration, some sensory cue. It’s almost like they can see what’s going to happen before it happens.” If true, that would be quite an advantage for a goalkeeper! Tourette’s is best known for causing verbal outbursts, sometimes vulgar, from people who have the syndrome. Howard screams at his defenders, but don’t kid yourself, that’s just part of the job and he does it well. While the 35 year-old Howard is at the end of his career, the 22 year-old Courtois is just beginning. He inspired a parody of the American Football Tebowing meme with people “Thibauting” by taking pictures of themselves pretending to make amazing saves. Courtois highlights are amazing.

Injuries

After three hard group-stage games, it’s no surprise that injuries are going to be a theme of the games in the knockout stage. Both teams have important players who are either going to miss the game or play at less than full strength.

Belgium

The most important injury on the Belgian side is to its most important player, Vincent Kompany. Kompany anchors the Belgian defense and is something of a spiritual leader for the young team. In a glowing New York Times profile, a fellow defender describes Kompany as, “He’s like the father of the team, taking care of everything and everyone.” He strained his groin in a group match and may not be able to play. The Belgians also have players with a pulled hamstring, a strained abductor, and a cracked fibula. Safe to say, they are not at full strength.

The United States

While we are likely to hear a lot about the twin broken noses of Clint Dempsey and Jermaine Jones (coincidentally the two best players for the US team so far,) the only truly significant injury for team U.S. is Jozy Altidore. Altidore, as you may remember, went down in the first half of the first game of the World Cup clutching his hamstring. He’s a big, strong, offensive player who excels at controlling a long pass and holding the ball while his teammates sprint up the field to join the attack. The U.S. doesn’t really have a player who can replace what Altidore does on the field, so for the last two games the team has played without anyone in that position. Altidore is a big question mark for the game against Belgium. Can he play? If he does play, how well and how long can he play for? Will he be used as a second-half sub if the team is down? If he plays, will the other players adjust well to having him back or have they gotten too used to playing without him?

The Result?

Who can say? It’s going to be a nail-biter. Go USA!

What is Stoppage Time in Soccer?

To celebrate the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer? and Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball? The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13.

Dear Sports Fan,

I’ve been loving the World Cup this year! One thing I don’t understand though — what is stoppage time in soccer? If the game is 90 minutes, why isn’t it over when the clock hits 90? How does it work?

Thanks,
Andrew,

Colombia v Cote D'Ivoire: Group C - 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil — “Your delaying tactics will not work here,” says the ref. “I keep the only official time!”

— — —

Dear Andrew,

Stoppage time is the time between when the clock shows that time is up in a half, period, or game, and when it is really over. It’s definitely a strange wrinkle that exists only in soccer and it’s typical of the type of absolute power that soccer gives the referee. It also encourages bad behavior among the players and hints at some of soccer’s darkest moments. Here’s how it works.

At the start of a game, the clock starts counting up from zero. The first half is forty-five minutes long; same with the second. In the knockout stage of the World Cup, a game that is tied at the end of regulation time will play two fifteen minute halves to try to decide the game. If it is still tied after that, the game will be decided by a penalty kick shootout. During all of this, the clock that you see on your television is unofficial. I mean, I guess it’s official, but it’s basically meaningless. The only time that matters is the one on the watch of the referee on the field and the “fourth official” who stands on the sidelines. The refs are allowed and supposed to stop their watches whenever various things happen. According to FIFA, the international body that runs soccer, these things are:

substitutions
assessment of injury to players
removal of injured players from the field of play for treatment
wasting time
any other cause

FIFA’s rules go on to say that “the allowance for time lost is at the discretion of the referee.” The clock on the television may count up to 46 minutes or 48 minutes or 49:36 before the ref blows his whistle to end the first half. When the second half begins, the clock has been reset to 45 minutes? Why? In soccer, the ref’s watch is what matters, and a half is 45 minutes no matter how long it actually takes. If your watch or the television clock told you the first half took longer, you were mistaken. It took 45 minutes. Yep — the amount of time that a soccer game is played for is totally up to the ref who is explicitly allowed to add time to the game for literally anything.

You might be thinking that this is a lot of power for the ref to have. It is! Soccer generally gives more power to the ref than other sports. In NHL hockey there are two refs on the rink, in NBA Basketball there are three, and in NFL football and MLB baseball there are a gaggles of officials big enough for a healthy poker game if not a square dance. In soccer, the ref is alone on the field with the players. He or she makes every important call, and because soccer is such a low scoring game and fouls can result in penalty kicks that almost always result in goals, foul calls are often extremely important. The fact that the ref also is the only one with the power to end the game fits into the pattern of the nearly all-powerful ref. When combined with gobs of money, the power of the ref can easily become problematic. If you’re interested, read this recent Telegraph article about how an investment company planned to fix the result of international soccer games by hiring corrupt refs.

hublot stoppage time — Roughly two minutes added to this half

A downside of the stoppage time rules is that it encourages players to waste time if their team is winning. You see them do this by choosing to stroll off the field by a scenic route to the sidelines when being replaced by a substitute, by taking their time to put the ball back into play on a throw-in or a goal kick, and by rolling around on the ground in agony for what seems like hours after being touched lightly on the ankle by a passing butterfly. It seems counter-intuitive that this would work. If anything, the fact that the ref can stop the official clock whenever he or she wants should prevent delaying tactics from being effective, but the truth is that refs only ever really add between one and five extra minutes to a half. I’ve seen six but I can’t remember ever seeing seven minutes added, no matter how silly the players were being. So, delaying the game when your team is up can be an effective strategy if you do it flagrantly enough. The Wall Street Journal just released a statistical analysis of the games in the group stage of the 2014 World Cup and found that:

“The amount of histrionics your players display during a match correlates strongly to what the scoreboard says. Players on teams that were losing their games accounted for 40 “injuries” and nearly 12.5 minutes of writhing time. But players on teams that were winning—the ones who have the most incentive to run out the clock—accounted for 103 “injuries” and almost four times as much writhing.”

Stoppage time has been around for a long time, although like the actual duration of a soccer game, no one is exactly sure how long. The Chicago Tribune claims that timekeeping in soccer has been done this way since at least 1913. The custom of publicly estimating how many minutes of stoppage time will be added (this is what’s going on when the fourth official on the sideline holds up a sign with a number on it at the end of the half or game) has only been around since 1996. I’m not sure that the customs are connected but soccer stadiums invariably take the time off their scoreboards ten or fifteen minutes before the end of the period as a form of crowd control. Given the long and horrible history of soccer stadium disasters, this is a common sense maneuver. Although the uncertainty about when the game is going to end adds a certain type of drama, it also takes the edge off the craziness that a last second attempt on goal could create.

I hope this post has helped take the edge off the craziness of stoppage time,
Ezra Fischer

How to Watch the World Cup: USA vs Germany

To celebrate and prepare for the World Cup in Brazil, Dear Sports Fan is publishing a set of posts explaining elements of soccer. We hope you enjoy posts like Why do People Like Soccer? How Does the World Cup Work? Why Do Soccer Players Dive so Much? What is a Penalty Kick in Soccer? What are Red and Yellow Cards in Soccer? and Why do World Cup Soccer Players Blame the Ball? The 2014 World Cup in Brazil begins on June 12 and ends on July 13.

Jermaine Jones is and has been awesome in the World Cup

With dread. At least that’s how I’m going to watch the third and potentially final game of the World Cup for the United States team. Here’s a quick recap of the tournament so far.

The United States got a little unlucky and ended up stuck with three strong teams, Germany, Portugal, and Ghana in the so-called “Group of Death.” BAD
The United States beat Ghana 2-1 even though Ghana outplayed them. GOOD
Germany clobbered Portugal and then tied Ghana, leaving the United States with the opportunity to clinch a place in the next round of the tournament if they could beat Portugal. GOOD
The United States was clearly the better team in their game against Portugal and had a 2-1 lead after ninety four minutes of play. GOOD
There was one more minute in the game. UH OH
Portugal scored. AGHHGH!!!!
Wait, hold up, the United States still has a great chance to move on to the next round. All they need to do is win or tie their game against Germany or lose but have the Ghana vs. Portugal work out in some very reasonable ways. NOT SO BAD

So, after two weeks of exciting play in what has been by far the most entertaining World Cup in my memory, this is where we are. And… it’s just all going to go horribly wrong from here on out, I can feel it in my bones. One of the reasons I write this blog is to try to explain to non-sports-infected people what it’s like to be a fan. Sean McIndoe of Grantland did a great piece last year called “The 20 Types of Depressed Sports Fans” and I always tend to be number 9, The Pessimist:

Long before it becomes clear that the game is going south, this fan will annoy everyone by coming up with increasingly negative scenarios that he insists are about to unfold. Eventually, his lamentations become a source of constant background noise, like a dripping faucet.

I’m also a devotee of the “reverse jinx” philosophy which suggests that you can use your natural “dripping faucet lamentations” to literally affect the course of an upcoming game if you state them loudly and often before the game. Without further ado, here are my lamentations in advance of the United States game vs. Germany:

Many are suggesting that there will be some unspoken collusion between Germany and the United States to tie the game because if they tie, they are both guaranteed a spot in the next round with Germany in first place and the United States in second. This isn’t going to happen. There is a pretty big difference between first and second in the group because the second place team will probably play Belgium while the winner of the group will play Algeria, Russia, or Korea, all of which are likely to be much easier to beat than the surprisingly mighty Belgians. Germany is going to try to win.
If Germany tries to win, they are likely to win. They’re ranked second in the world by FIFA and they have played excellently so far. They’ve also had an extra day of rest compared to the United States and they didn’t just play in the rain-forest of Manaus, where the U.S. vs Portugal game was. All four teams who have played in Manaus went on to lose their next game. It’s that brutal of a place to play.
This “Manaus Effect,” said by soccerblog.dallasnews.com to be “as deadly as skinny dipping in the Amazon,” has negative consequences beyond our game with Germany. If we lose to Germany, our best bet for advancing to the next round anyway is for Portugal to beat or tie Ghana. Unfortunately, Portugal will also be suffering from having played just four days before in an 84 degree, 70 percent humidity sauna.
Now we get to the really superstitious part of this. Here are the results of the U.S. national team in World Cups since 1990 when they qualified for the first time since 1950 and when I first started following them:
- 1990 — lost all three games.
- 1994 — Lost 1-0 to Brazil in the knock-out round. Not bad.
- 1998 — lost all three games, including one 2-0 to Germany. Ouch.
- 2002 — made it all the way to the quarterfinals!!! Lost 1-0 to Germany.
- 2006 — won their first game, tied their second, (sound familiar?) lost their third game 2-1 to Ghana. Eliminated.
- 2010 — made it to the knock-out round. Eliminated by Ghana, 2-1.
You have to admit, if there’s a scenario that should make U.S. soccer fans bones’ jangle, it’s playing against Germany and facing elimination, if we lose to Germany, by a victory by Ghana.

Because this is a massive reverse jinx powered by true sports-pessimism, I’m not going to point out how wonderful it has been to see American fans turn out with real passion in droves to support the United States team. I’m not going to point out that Nate Silver thinks the U.S. team has a 75.9% chance of advancing. I’m definitely, definitely not going to point out that if the U.S. manages to beat Germany and then beat Algeria, Russia, or South Korea, it would play the winner of France vs. Nigeria in the Quarterfinals on July 4th.