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2014 Thanksgiving NFL preview: Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers

The last of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games this year is between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers at 8:30 p.m. on NBC. If this game were a Thanksgiving food, it would be the roast pork, baked salmon, or Turducken that someone brings to the meal. It’s not traditional but damn, is it good. Tradition aside, you’re going to grab a few extra servings of it on top of that dried out token piece of Turkey breast you eat out of obligation.

Thanksgiving is the ultimate American holiday. Its focusses are family, food, and football. To celebrate the first two, it helps to know about the third. To that end, we’re offering a free copy of our Guide to Football for the Curious in addition to publishing previews about each of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games.

Plot

Unlike the two day games, this game does not have a set host city and team, so the league is free to pick what they think the most entertaining matchup will be each year. Before this season started, the matchup of the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers must have seemed like a slam dunk. The Seahawks won the Super Bowl last year and the 49ers have been to at least the conference finals (the game right before the Super Bowl) for the last three years. Both teams are in the NFC West division, and if that weren’t enough to create a rivalry, their head coaches, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh share a mutual disdain from their days coaching in college against each other. Before the season started, this game must have seemed like the perfect choice for Thanksgiving night because it was a heated rivalry of two very excellent teams. The schedule makers lucked out — it is a compelling game but for very different reasons than they thought before the season.

The first half of the NFL season for these two teams has proven that something can always go wrong. Both teams have struggled to win games, largely because their dominating defenses from the previous years have been anything but dominating this year. Nor have things been nice and easy in the dressing room. Seattle traded one of its most explosive players mid-season and as he left the city the team’s leadership spread rumors that he was unmanageable and violent towards his teammates. San Francisco has been beset by rumors that their team can’t stand their coach. It’s fairly common in sports for teams to dislike their coaches, but these rumors have suggested that the situation for the 49ers is worse than normal.

On Thanksgiving, both Seattle and San Francisco find themselves 7-4 (seven wins, four losses) and a full two games behind the Arizona Cardinals for the division lead. Assuming neither team can catch Arizona, these two teams will be fighting with each other and a couple of other extremely good teams for the two available wild card playoff spots. Between real animosity for the opponent and a clear need to win the game for playoff positioning, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if this were the best game of the day.

Characters

Jim Harbaugh, Coach of the San Francisco 49ers

Jim Harbaugh is a pain in the ass. That seems to be the consensus of everyone who has every played with or for him. He’s intense, emotional, almost childlike in his inability or unwillingness to control himself on the sidelines. He also wins. A lot. He’s known as a “quarterback whisperer” or someone who is able to mentor young quarterbacks to make the most of their potential. This year has been an interesting one about him, if not for him. His contract ends after this season and it’s unclear whether the 49ers will want to retain him, despite his winning record. There have been well documented reports of power struggles between him and the general manager of the team as well dissension among the players.

Colin Kaepernick, Quarterback on the San Francisco 49ers

Kaepernick is the young, talented quarterback being whispered to by Harbaugh. Kaepernick is an unusual sight on the football field. He is tall and slender but freakishly fast and strong. Once a well-regarded professional prospect as a baseball pitcher, Kaepernick retains an element of foreignness to his game. His arm strength is second to none and when he decides to run with the ball, he’s a threat to run by, around, or over defenders. For all his talent though, he can look as bad at any moment as he looked good during a previous play. He’s not particularly consistent and his decision making is questionable.

Chris Borland, Linebacker on the San Francisco 49ers

For the past three seasons, the San Francisco 49ers football team’s character was epitomized by its two amazing inside linebackers, Patrick Willis and Navorro Bowman. The 49ers were a strong, no nonsense, physical team and those two guys were their team’s leaders, role models, and muse. This year, they are both out with injuries. Who steps in? This guy, Chris Borland. Borland is a rookie who won Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year last year in his Senior season. He was drafted by the 49ers in the third round of the NFL draft. Since stepping into a starting role, he’s been a defensive leader on the team and has quickly become a rising star.

Pete Carroll, Coach of the Seattle Seahawks

Pete Carroll is a charming trickster of a coach. It’s no surprise that of all the coaches in the NFL, he’s the one who became a robber baron in this .gif. He’s a rogue. He left his last college job at USC right before the school was sanctioned seriously by the NCAA for basically flagrantly paying star running back Reggie Bush. Now that he’s in the NFL, Carroll’s team has been among the league leaders in PED or performance enhancing drug suspensions. No matter where he goes though, he wins. Last year, he took the Seahawks all the way to the Super Bowl where they routed the Broncos early and won easily. He and Harbaugh hate each other as they have since they were rivals in college at USC and Stanford.

Marshawn Lynch, Running Back on the Seattle Seahawks

Marshawn Lynch is an extreme running back. He’s known as Beast Mode for his powerful and unyielding running style. If you want to know what I’m talking about, watch this. He also famously loves Skittles. The Seattle fans love him, so now when he scores at home, Skittles rain down from the stands. He has one year left on his contract after this year but is rumored to be leaving Seattle sooner than that. He has not been happy there this year. One of his friends/allies, Percy Harvin was traded during the year, and Lynch has reportedly been misbehaving behind the scenes. Of course, it’s hard to know the truth because the team has an incentive to sell the misbehavior story if they want to get rid of Lynch without their fans going crazy. What we do know is that last week after the game, Lynch decided to stonewall reporters in a half comic, half tragic way.

Russell Wilson, Quarterback on the Seattle Seahawks

Russell Wilson was the toast of the NFL for his first couple years in the league. He came in as a somewhat unheralded rookie and immediately beat out his competition in training camp so thoroughly that he was given the starting job. He didn’t disappoint. In his first two years, the Seahawks made the playoffs twice and won the Super Bowl once. Wilson became one of the most well respected quarterbacks around, succeeding despite being short for a quarterback. This year, like most of the team, Wilson has struggled a little bit on and off the field. On the field, his quarterback rating has dropped a little compared to his first two years. Off the field, he’s been accused of being both too close to management and “not black enough.”

Richard Sherman, Cornerback on the Seattle Seahawks

Richard Sherman was launched into the broader public consciousness when he allowed (or if you’re more cynical, decided to) his in-game passion to roll over into a post-game interview after last year’s playoff game against (you guessed it), the San Francisco 49ers. Sherman was briefly labeled as some kind of stereotypical football playing mouthful half-wit before people remembered that he’s every bit as much an intellectual achiever as an athletic one. This year, Sherman hasn’t played quite as well as he has in past years but I imagine he will be on top of his game for this one. He certainly has been on the top of his press conference game, as he showed in this light-hearted yet biting satirical rebuttal to the NFL’s fine for Lynch after his “Yeah” conference.

2014 Thanksgiving NFL preview: Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys

The second of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games this year is between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys at 12:30 p.m. on Fox. This game is the turkey. It’s the main dish, the Pièce de résistance, the FOOTBALL GAME in all capital letters. Like a Thanksgiving Turkey, it can be delicious — tasty and flowing with good football juices — but it’s also just a little overrated. I mean, it’s no coincidence that we, as a culture, basically eat turkey once a year.

Plot

The Dallas Cowboys have the nickname “America’s Team,” which seems to engender more hatred than admiration. They do have an very big, national fanbase, but it seems like every other team’s fans hates their rivals first and the Cowboys second. That’s convenient for fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, who are specialists in sports hate of all kinds. The Dallas Cowboys are simultaneously the Eagles’ division rivals AND the Dallas Cowboys. That’s two times the hate for the price of one.

The Cowboys and Eagles enter this game tied for first place in their division with eight wins and three losses each. Both teams have succeeded in an unusual way — by running the football. The overall shift in football has been to pass more and run less but each of these teams has succeeded by running (literally) against the grain. The Cowboys do this by having a great offensive line and an excellent running back. The Eagles do this by having better designed running plays than anyone else. Not that the Eagles aren’t talented or that the Cowboys coaches haven’t built a good offense, but this game can easily be seen as a battle between great players (the Cowboys) and a great system (the Eagles.) One piece of evidence for this has been the ability of the Eagles to lose their starting quarterback and not miss a beat. When the Cowboys had to go without their starter for a game, they not only missed a beat, they got beat.

Characters

Tony Romo, Quarterback on the Dallas Cowboys

The quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys is one of the most visible and pressure packed jobs in sports. Tony Romo has had that job since 2006. His experience has been mixed. He’s been a very good quarterback but the team, during his career, has had no success in the playoffs whatsoever. The Cowboys have developed a reputation for failing at the most important and pressure packed moments and Romo has been a big part of that. The snap that Romo fumbled while trying to hold for a game winning playoff field goal in January 2007 (so harrowing was this play to the Cowboys fans that it’s still the subject of articles and counter-factual videos) was the beginning of Romo developing the reputation for not being a “clutch” player. His defenders note that he’s actually led lots of game winning drives but they say it with a defensive tone in their voices.

Dez Bryant, Wide Receiver on the Dallas Cowboys

Dez Bryant is the prototypical modern Wide Receiver. He’s big, strong, fast, powerful, and capable of making incredible catches. He also has a reputation for being a diva and for flying completely off the handle. He has a reputation for bad behavior on and off the field. It’s almost an annual tradition to see articles like this recent one from NFL.com with the headline, “Cowboys Concerned about Dez Bryant off the field”. These articles inspire defenses of Bryant, like this one from Cowboys site, Blogging The Boys, and also from less biased sources like Deadspin which ran an article contending that the “Dez Bryant Smear Season is Upon Us”. It’s hard to make any personal conclusions about players like Bryant because the information we get is biased by a combination of team allegiances, financial motives, and cultural, racial, and even positional stereotypes.

DeMarco Murray, Running Back on the Dallas Cowboys

As opposed to Dez Bryant, DeMarco Murray is an interesting figure because of his situation. Like Bryant, Murray is going to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. Like Bryant, Murray is one of the best in the world at his position. Unlike Bryant though, Murray plays Running Back, which is the most physically damaging position, and because of that, it has the shortest expected careers. Running back is now seen as an important position for winning football games but one where the athletes who play the position are interchangeable and expendable. Murray has played wonderfully this year, but he’s also been used more than he’s ever been used before. Some people wonder if the Cowboys are simply planning to use him up and then get rid of him at the end of the year.

Jerry Jones, Owner of the Dallas Cowboys

Most team owners would not be worth profiling but Jerry Jones is different. Jones is not only the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, he’s also the President and General Manager of the team. He takes a wide ranging and important role in almost all the football operations of the team. It’s common to see him down on the field, talking to players or coaches. He’s long been criticized for insufficiently delegating authority throughout his organization and much of the Cowboys’ lack of success has been blamed on him. That’s why there’s no one alive who is enjoying this year’s Cowboys season more than Jones. Jones is a charismatic powerful man, so it’s depressing but not surprising that along with compelling and complementary profiles of him there are also accusations of abuse.

Mark Sanchez, Quarterback on the Philadelphia Eagles

Mark Sanchez took over as the starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles at the start of November when incumbent starter, Nick Foles, broke his collarbone in a game. Sanchez was a highly regarded player when he was drafted fifth overall by the New York Jets in the first round of the 2009 draft. His time at the Jets started well with two consecutive successful years in the playoffs but was downhill from there. Things got laughably bad in his last year there, epitomized by the infamous “butt fumble” moment when he dropped the ball after running into one of his own teammates. His attempt to rehabilitate his career is off to a good start but he’s still the object of a disproportionate amount of scorn from fans and media.

Chip Kelly, Coach of the Philadelphia Eagles

People who write about football have a bad habit of overstating the brilliance of football coaches. Not every coach is a genius. In fact, for a sport that rewards innovation as much as football, it’s a surprisingly conservative profession. Most coaches design offenses that are just slightly different from what everyone else is doing. Not Chip Kelly. Kelly has long been a bit different. From his college coaching days in New Hampshire and Oregon to the Philadelphia Eagles, Kelly has been more aggressive and innovative than most coaches. He’s great at finding ways to use simple concepts to create open spaces for his players to run into. The simplicity of his offense plus some innovative play signaling grant his team the ability to run plays faster than any other team. He’s now leading the charge into using sleep and activity monitors to regulate, monitor, and customize every aspect of his players lives during the season. Creepy but effective.

Conner Barwin, Linebacker on the Philadelphia Eagles

Connor Barwin is one of the leaders of the Eagles defense. He plays the outside linebacker position where he has to tackle runners, cover receivers, and attack the quarterback often. He’s also one of the more unique characters in the NFL. At 6’4″, 264 lbs, Barwin may be one of the world’s biggest hipsters. He rides his bike to work, is a regular at music venues, and a proponent of marriage equality.

LeSean McCoy, Running Backs on the Philadelphia Eagles

One of the most fun things about the Eagles is how run-heavy their offense is, even in an era when running has become almost obsolete on most teams. The team’s primary running back is a perfect fit to benefit from Chip Kelly’s ability to create plays that give running backs room to beat defenders in the open field. LeSean McCoy, known as “shady” (a name his mom gave him as a baby due to his quickly changing moods), is the lead back. He’s got an almost unbelievable ability to change direction quickly which he retains, as we saw last year, in deep snow. He also hysterically says his own last name, “McCoy” as he runs by would-be-tacklers. The ESPN article on how he came to believe in coach Chip Kelly is a must read to understand him and Kelly.

2014 Thanksgiving NFL preview: Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions

The first of the three Thanksgiving NFL football games this year is between the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions at 12:30 p.m. on CBS. Despite it being at the start of the day, this game’s Thanksgiving food analog is the classic Thanksgiving pies: pecan and pumpkin. It’s definitely traditional, like pies, the Detroit Lions, are an ever-present part of the day. And, like the pies, if it weren’t Thanksgiving, you might not find this game as tasty. While the other two games on Thanksgiving feature teams battling it out for first place in their divisions and a playoff spot, this game has one team still alive for the playoffs but the other lost its relevance several weeks ago.

Plot

For years and years, the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving game was a bit of a joke. Every year, the Lions would host a game and every year it seemed they would lose. Truthfully, they’ve been a bad team for a long time:

They’ve won one Thanksgiving game since 2003.
They’ve made the playoffs only once since 2000 and haven’t won a playoff game since 1991.
They’ve only had two winning seasons since 2000 and during that time became the only team in history to go winless for an entire 16 game season.

This year, everything is upside-down. The Detroit Lions are having their best season in a long time this year. They are 7-4 (seven wins, four losses) on the season but for the first time all year, find themselves in second place in their division, behind the Green Bay Packers. The Lions have lost two games in a row, so they are reeling a little bit, but they also must be liking their chops in anticipation of facing the Chicago Bears in this game. For years, the Bears have been the big brother that beat up on the Lions but this year the only big they are is a big mess. The Bears may have hit their low-point three weeks ago when they lost 55-14 to the Green Bay Packers on national television and dropped to 3-6. I was, frankly, surprised that their head coach was not fired following that game. Since then, they’ve won two games against sub-par opponents but these wins have not inspired much confidence at all.

Characters

Jay Cutler, Quarterback on the Chicago Bears

The quarterback of an NFL team is supposed to be its leader and moral center. Jay Cutler subverts that expectation publicly by appearing noticeably disinterested and disengaged from the game. He is so expressive in this way that he’s inspired a popular Tumblr blog called “Smokin’ Jay Cutler” that features photos of him with photoshopped cigarettes dangling from his mouth in honor of “the most apathetic looking athlete in the history of sports”. Cutler is a strong-armed quarterback (he once controversially claimed to have a stronger arm than legendary Denver quarterback John Elway) who is prone to making bad decisions with where he chooses to throw the ball.

Brandon Marshall, Wide Receiver on the Chicago Bears

Brandon Marshall is one of my favorite NFL players. He’s an outspoken advocate for mental health and lives his beliefs on the subject by speaking openly about his own struggles with borderline personality disorder. He’s every bit as passionate on the outside as Cutler is apathetic. Marshall plays his heart out on the field and sometimes blows his vocal chords out screaming on the sidelines.

Matt Forte and Alshon Jeffrey, Running Back and Wide Receiver on the Chicago Bears

Matt Forte and Alshon Jeffrey are important figures on the field and quiet ones off the field. Forte, from Louisiana, and Jeffrey, from South Carolina, are both understated stars. They let their play on the field speak for them. Forte is an excellent running back who does a lot of his damage on screen or swing passes. Jeffrey is a tall, powerful receiver, who often overpowers the defenders assigned to guard him. They both represent a type of quiet athletic elegance.

Martellus Bennett, Tight End on the Chicago Bears

Martellus Bennett is a receiving tight end with almost limitless talent. As a member of the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, he showed tantalizing moments of superb play mixed in with a bunch of mediocrity. This year on the Bears, he seemed like he had finally put it together to play consistently at a high level, but has slid backwards over the past month. His persona slants more towards brash than anything else. His nickname, which he gave himself, is “The Black Unicorn” based on an answer he gave to a reporter who asked him about his conditioning in 2012: “I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, I’m faster than I’ve ever been. I could run all day. I’m kind of like a black unicorn out there”

Calvin Johnson, Wide Receiver on the Detroit Lions

Calvin Johnson’s nickname is Megatron and, over his years playing football, he’s either evolved to fit the name or the name was a perfect fit for him to begin with. He is how you imagine a football playing robot would be designed. He’s tall — 6’5″. He can leap — 43 inch standing vertical jump. He is fast, very fast — 4.35 second 40 yard dash. Yet none of these raw measurements can express his excellence at making amazing catches when his team needs him to do so. He is a fantastic player.

Matthew Stafford, Quarterback on the Detroit Lions

Matthew Stafford is one of those classic enigmas of football. Because football is such an intertwined sport, it’s often hard to isolate the performance of one player from another. This is Stafford’s sixth year in the NFL but each one of them has been with star receiver, Calvin Johsnon. Even after six years, it’s hard to tell if Stafford’s good performances are due to Johnson’s brilliance or whether he would be successful on his own. Stafford plays football like a swashbuckler. He takes risks, throws from all sorts of strange angles, and plays through a lot of big hits.

DeAndre Levy, Linebacker on the Detroit Lions

Finally, we give the defenders some attention. DeAndre Levy is the leader of Detroit’s defense and potentially a prototype for a new breed of NFL linebackers. As the game has slanted more towards passing, a linebacker’s ability to cover tight ends and even wide receivers has become more important. Levy is one of the smallest linebackers in the league, which helps him in pass coverage, and one of the most explosive, which helps him defend the run. According to Robert Klemko in a fun profile of Levy in The MMQB, “Levy is an oddball with a prospector’s beard, a quiet nature and an uncommon zeal for travel.” Sounds like a fun guy to me.

Ndamukong Suh, Defensive Tackle on the Detroit Lions

Ndamukong Suh made his name as one of the NFL’s biggest bad actors, back when being violent ON the field was enough to qualify you for NFL bad boy. Now that we live in the era or Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, Suh’s offenses seem quaint in comparison. Elizabeth Merrill wrote of Suh in her profile of him for ESPN, “He likes to surprise people, finding immense enjoyment in debunking the notion that he’s a thickheaded hit man… he didn’t get his degree in basket weaving or, say, communications. He matriculated through a rigorous engineering program.” Suh is an enigma, a truly destructive force on the football field who seems to be a righteous dude off the field.

Brothers Fuller? Kyle Fuller, defensive back on the Chicago Bears and Corey Fuller, wide receiver on the Detroit Lions

This game could feature the rare sight of a pair of brothers literally playing against each other on Thanksgiving. If they were both healthy and playing, Kyle might easily be covering Corey, trying to keep him from catching a pass. Alas, Kyle hurt his knee this past weekend and may miss the game and Corey is relatively far back on the Lions’ depth chart.

Marc Trestman, Head Coach of the Chicago Bears

Trestman took an interesting path to become a head coach in the NFL. He made a name for himself as head coach of the Canadian Football League Montreal Alouettes, where he won two championships and became known as an offensive mastermind. That reputation has been sorely tested this year in Chicago where his highly talented offense has sputtered and stalled more than it has excelled. He’s definitely on the hot-seat and could be fired at the end of the year.

Jim Caldwell, Head Coach of the Detroit Lions

Way back in 2010, columnist Bill Simmons and his readers had tagged Caldwell as an almost absurdly unemotional coach. As coach of the Indiannapolis Colts, Caldwell was seen as almost a care-taker thanks to quarterback Peyton Manning’s hands-on domineering nature. As much maligned as he is, Caldwell has the Lions playing as well as they have for more than a decade, so he must be doing something right.

Cue Cards 8-27-14

Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.

Yesterday — Tuesday, August 26

Almost Perfect — A very rare and exciting thing in Baseball is a “Perfect Game.” This is when a pitcher pitches the entire game without allowing a single person from the other team to get to first base. Not even who! San Francisco Giants’ pitcher Madison Bumgarner had a perfect game through seven innings but allowed a hit in the eighth. No one else got on base though and that runner did not score. It was still an impressive and notable performance by Bumgarner.
Strong Little Fifteen — The U.S. Open’s opening round was enlivened yesterday when fifteen year-old CiCi Bellis from California beat the tenth ranked player in the world, Dominika Cibulkova. When told after the game that she was trending on twitter, Bellis said, “I know some of my friends were doing hashtag like ‘takedowncibulkova,’ something like that,” she said. “I know three of my friends did that.”
Sports as Soap Opera — Two interesting non-game-based sports stories developed further yesterday. One is heartening — Michael Sam, the first openly gay professional football player, made it through the first round of cuts on his team. Still, his team has to go from 75 players to 53 by this Sunday, so we’ll have another week of watching this story before things are settled. The other story is bizarre — a couple days ago, USC football player John Shaw hurtled into the news when he explained to his team that he had sprained both his ankles badly by jumping from a balcony onto concrete to save his nephew from drowning in a pool. As the story became big news, it also became… suspect. Now the story is that USC has started to back away slowly with its hands held up, gesturing to the world that they don’t know what happened and aren’t fully supporting Shaw until they know more.

Wimbledon Men's Finals 2014: Federer vs. Djokovic

We all know the story: can the aging great champion hold off his younger competitors for just one more day? The thing is, that story was done for Roger Federer years ago after he was caught and surpassed, first by Rafael Nadal and later by Novak Djokovic, his opponent today. At age 32, which in tennis years is old, old, old, that classic plot just doesn’t work for Federer anymore. It’s actually hard to find sports parallels for what he’s doing in this year’s Wimbledon. Now Federer is John Glenn returning to space at age 77; he’s Miss Marple solving crimes in her dotage; he’s Sean Connery headlining action movies into his late sixties. Just by getting to this year’s finals, Federer has done the remarkable. If he were to win, he’ll propel himself straight into the inconceivable.

Tune in (or click in if you’re one of the millions of people who no longer tune their televisions…) to ESPN to see what happens. The match starts in a few minutes at 9:00 a.m. ET but could go for as long as four or five hours. I’ll be rooting for Miss Marple. Will you?

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.

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.

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: 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!

How to Watch the World Cup: USA vs Ghana

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.

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The United States Men’s National soccer team plays their first game of the 2014 World Cup on Monday June 16 at 6:00 pm ET against Ghana. It will be televised live from Estadio das Dunas in Natal, Brazil on ESPN. If you are not a normal soccer junkie, this is one of the handful of games over the next four years that you might really enjoy watching. Here’s some suggestions to wring out the most enjoyment possible from it.

Know the Stakes:

This is the first game of the World Cup for the United States but the stakes are already extremely high. As we covered in our How Does the World Cup Work? post, the opening two weeks of the tournament are the group stage. This is a round-robin tournament in groups of four teams with only the top two advancing to the knockout round, a single elimination bracket of sixteen teams. The United States got very unlucky and was placed in what is widely being called the “Group of Death” because it collectively has the toughest teams. The United States will play Ghana and then Portugal and then Germany. It’s a rule of thumb that to have a chance of advancing, a team should aim for at least four points (three for a win, one for a tie, zero for a loss.) Of the three teams, Ghana is thought to be the weakest. FIFA (soccer’s unthinkably corrupt governing body) ranks Ghana 37th, Portugal 4th, and Germany 2nd. The United States is 13th. I know it’s only the first game of the tournament for the US team but if they are going to advance, they almost definitely need to win the game against Ghana.

Know the Characters:

Soccer is a beautiful game to watch but even its strongest proponents will admit that for people who are not used to watching it, it can drag at times. One approach is to appreciate soccer through the sheer sex appeal of its players. A complementary approach is to get into the plot of the game. Here are some of the characters:

Clint Dempsey

The captain of the US team, Clint Dempsey is also the heart and soul of the team. He’s a fiery dude whose brash, untraditional style has an air of the avant-garde to it if the avant-garde was as likely to punch you in the face as produce artwork. He also has an appealing Olympic-personal-interest type back-story that confirms American stereotypes about soccer so its bound to get a lot of airplay. Dempsey grew up in a trailer in Nacogdoches, Texas, playing soccer with primarily kids (and adults) of hispanic decent. He cut his teeth playing in adult offshoot of the Mexican professional league when he was a fourteen year-old. According to this great Sports Illustrated article, he would infuriate the adults with his skill and attitude and then had to handle them trying to injure him. He played at Furman University and then the New England Revolution in the US professional league, the MLS, before heading to the English Premiere league where he played for Fulham and later Tottenham. Dempsey became widely known as the best American non-goalie to ever play in the EPL before coming back to the US to play for Seattle last year. He’s 31 now which is a little past prime for a soccer player but he’s still clever and ferocious and capable of creating some magical moments for the US team.

Michael Bradley

If Dempsey is the heart and soul of the team, Michael Bradley is the engine. He plays tirelessly at the center of the field for the US team. He starts the attack by distributing the ball up the field and he’s essential to defense, pressuring the best playmaker on the other team and tackling with precision and strength. If Dempsey’s background and style confirm the stereotype of the fiery latin influence, Bradley confirms the stereotype of the overly intense passion that white America is said to approach soccer with. I can’t find the article now (please send me a link if you know it) but I recently read an article about Bradley getting into a physical fight with his father following a national team game a few years ago. Oh, and his father was the coach of the national team when it happened. That’s right, Michael’s father, Bob Bradley was the US coach from 2006 to 2011, so Michael is used to being in the spotlight. Now he’s his own man and widely thought to be the best player on the team.

Jurgen Klinsmann

When Bob Bradley was fired in 2011, the United States soccer leaders turned to Jurgen Klinsmann to take over. Klinsmann is a former star of the German National team. He was a great goal scorer who helped lead the Germans to a World Cup victory in 1990. He later coached the German team in the 2006 World Cup and was criticized during the lead-up to the tournament because he “commuted to Germany from the United States.” That’s right, the German born Klinsmann has lived in California for years and loves it there. Klinsmann is known for his offensive soccer tactics and he’s clearly not worried about coming off as offensive in other ways too. He made news in the months preceding this World Cup by leaving Landon Donovan, the last team captain and the most well known American player of the last decade, off the team and by blithely telling the media that the United States “cannot win this World Cup because we are not at that level yet.”

Landon Donovan

That’s right, the player who Klinsmann left chose not to bring to Brazil is there anyway, at least his presence will be. Donovan, who is still playing in the MLS, was quickly snapped up by ESPN as a World Cup analyst. If the United States team does well, the story will be Klinsmann’s brilliant choice to move on from Donovan. If the team doesn’t do well, Donovan will be even more front and center because the story will certainly be about how his absence hurt the team.

The Weather

I’ll let my Dad’s favorite media organization, The Weather Channel, handle this one:

Torrential rains have plagued the site of the opener, Natal—a coastal city of nearly 1 million people in northeastern Brazil—for three days, inundating streets, blocking off roads and triggering a landslide that destroyed at least two homes and forced the evacuations of at least 50 others.

The rain is expected to continue through the game on Monday.

The Game

Okay, after all that, there’s a game to watch. Find yourself a good bar and some Soccer fans to cheer with. If you want to pick up more information about “How to Watch the World Cup Like a True Soccer Nerd” then this wonderful Grantland article is for you. Enjoy!

How a Basketball Team is Like Inigo Montoya

Spurs Heat — Will the Spurs take their revenge on the Heat this year?

The San Antonio Spurs are like Inigo Montoya three-quarters of the way through the Princess Bride. I know what you’re thinking… have I finally and forever lost my mind? The Spurs are an NBA basketball team and Inigo Montoya is a fictional Spanish sword-fighter. You are technically correct but bear with me and I’ll tell you why they are similar.

In the Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya is single-mindedly obsessed with finding the man who killed his father and defeating him. The death of his father at the hands of a distinctive, six-fingered man, so haunted and infuriated Montoya that he trained harder and smarter than anyone and became one of the greatest fencers in the world. So armed, he pursued his enemy with unequalled intensity and focus until he could say to him, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

Last year, the San Antonio Spurs faced the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. The Finals are a best four-out-of-seven series and after five games the Spurs led 3-2. They needed to win only one more game to win the championship. In the sixth game, they led by five points with 28 seconds left in the game. They were so close to winning the finals that the rope used to keep spectators off the court had already been deployed. Then the unthinkable (or at least the very unlikely) happened and the Heat came from behind to win in overtime. In game seven, the Spurs were behind by only two points with less than a minute. They had the ball. Then the unthinkable happened again. Tim Duncan, one of the greatest and most reliable players of all time, missed a shot he’s made a thousand times. Watch the video. Pay close attention to Duncan’s reaction a few seconds after missing the shot and then again a few seconds after that when the Heat call time-out. If there’s a sports equivalent of witnessing your father being murdered, it’s what happened to the Spurs last year in the finals against the Heat.

This year, instead of under-playing the factor of revenge, as teams often do following losses, the Spurs this year have been single-minded and open about their goal — to get back to the finals and beat the Heat. It’s almost as if they’ve been repeating at every practice, during every game, and at every press-conference, “We are the San Antonio Spurs, you beat us in the Finals. Prepare to be defeated.”

We’re almost there. The Heat are up three games to one against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals and the Spurs are up two games to one against the Oklahoma City Thunder. We still have a little ways to go but if the Spurs make it to play the Heat in the finals, my money (or at least my heart,) is on Montoya to beat the six-fingered man one last time.

Federer – Nadal For the 33rd Time

We take a brief break from Olympics previews and Super Bowl hype to talk about a tennis match that’s going to be played on Friday morning at 3:30 a.m. ET in Australia between two rapidly aging tennis players. Why is this worth breaking into our regularly scheduled programming? Because for almost 14 years, since the first time they played, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have been the most compelling personal rivalry in sports and there’s a chance that this could be the last time they play until they’re both on the senior exhibition tour. So grab your television remote, program your DVR for ESPN at 3:30 a.m.. Don’t make any mistake about it — delete some stuff, add an hour or two to the scheduled end time, and make sure nothing else supersedes it. Then figure out how to call out of work on Friday.

What’s so Great About their Rivalry

nadal federer — Federer, regal, Nadal, resolute.

[Editor’s note — I wrote another post about Nadal and Federer way back in 2011. It’s still available here.]

There’s many factors that play into a rivalry. One is the consistent excellence of both players in comparison to the rest of their competition. During the heart of their careers, from 2003 to 2011, Federer or Nadal won 26 of 32 grand slam (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, or the U.S. Open) tournaments. More impressive in a way is that for their careers, all but three of their losses in Grand Slam finals have been to each other. From 2005 through 2010 either Nadal or Federer was the number one tennis player in the world and the other was second.

As remarkable as those numbers are, they are augmented by the ease with which Nadal and Federer’s rivalry can be translated into narratives. Federer is almost five years older and was established as the number one tennis player in 2004. For three years beginning in 2005, Nadal sat in the number two spot. Able to surpass all his other competition but not Federer. Then in 2008, the younger Nadal finally overtook Federer. Time takes its toll on everyone, right? Not so fast — Federer battled back to be number one in 2009, only to have it stolen back by Nadal in 2010. The story would have been great if it had just been “younger great player overtakes older great player” but the back and forth, the rallies by each player that mimic the rallies within a tennis match, make it epic.

Epic too is the stylistic clash between the two players. Federer is often described as a magician. When he is at his best, he makes creative, surprising shots that no one else would think of, much less have the ability to make; and he makes them seem effortless. Nadal is his natural opposite. He’s a fierce competitor who wears his opponents down by taking their best shots and returning them faster and harder than they were hit. Federer is right handed, Nadal is left handed. Federer dresses himself like the tennis royalty he is, replete with golden insignias and elegant tennis bags. Nadal favors neon colors, sleeveless shirts, and at one point in his career, capris. Federer projects calm and control on the court. Nadal is all furious grunts and obsessive compulsive pre-serve routines.

Although it used to be common, Federer and Nadal have only played each other twice in grand slam tournaments since 2009. This Friday will be the third time in the last five years and there’s a chance it could be the last. Federer is 32 years old, which is quite old for a tennis player to be competitive. Nadal is only 27 but has been hampered by serious knee injuries in the last few years. It’s definitely a “fourth-quarter” competition towards the end of their rivalry. This only makes it more compelling to me. I love it when two players who have such history with each other play. There’s a sentimentality, a respect between the players that is rare; and a deep seeded hatred. Regardless of what they say in public, while they are still playing, these guys want to beat no one more than the other. That this might be their last significant meeting only brings the magnifying glass down a little closer. And based on the weather in Australia these days, things could get pretty hot!