Friday’s Song

I heard this early Sunday morning while driving to work. I haven’t heard this song in ages! Warren G featuring Nate Dogg, “Regulate.” Old school stuff. Good stuff, good stuff.

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lyrics at lyricfreak.com.

MLS Rankings – July’s Second Week

I almost forgot to do this. Been busy at both jobs and have spaced on this. I remember watching the Columbus-D.C. game and remembering a comment about how painful it is to watch the MLS. That game was close to painful to watch. Maybe I’ve seen too many Barcelona, Porto, Manchester United, and international matches but those two teams on that day seemed to be far far away from playing “normal football.” The number one problem was the complaining, if a player got knocked off the ball and fell down. That part of the match was just ugly. Pick yourself up and continue playing please. Well, enough of that before this turns into an essay. Oh and Real Madrid continue to pull money from their butt (Kaka, C. Ronaldo, and Benzema so far). As a Barca supporter, that is desperation to regain a title that was lost after having it two years. I’m gonna stop, much more on this later I promise.

Here they are one day before matches are to be played tomorrow!!

Rankings for July 2009 (Week 2)

Rk	Team	+/-
1	Houston Dynamo	0
2	Chivas USA	0
3	Seattle Sounders F.C.	0
4	Chicago Fire	+3
5	Columbus Crew	-1
6	D.C. United	0
7	Los Angeles Galaxy	+3
8	Colorado Rapids	-3
9	Real Salt Lake	-1
10	Toronto F.C.	+1
11	Kansas City Wizards	-2
12	F.C. Dallas	+1
13	New England Revolution	-1
14	San Jose Earthquakes	0
15	New York Red Bull	0

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Upcoming Matches – Saturday Update
Saturday
(11) Kansas City 0, (13) New England 0
(1) Houston 1, (3) Seattle 2
(5) Columbus at (4) Chicago @ 19.00 (Another Match of the Weekend)
(12) Dallas at (8) Colorado @ 20.30
(10) Toronto at (14) San Jose @ 21.30
(7) Los Angeles at (2) Chivas USA @ 22.00
all times Central United States

Friday’s Song

Tis Friday yet again. Man, once the fourth of July hits, the rest of the summer seems to fly! I’m not looking forward to the summer ending. What am I saying? “Summer ending?” it’s only the third of July and school doesn’t go back into session until mid-late August. The song of this Friday is “My Prerogative” by Bobby Brown.

Oh man early 1990s hair. I don’t miss that at all!

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lyrics at mp3lyrics.org.

MLS Rankings – July’s First Week

The final week of June is complete and Houston went down to L.A. 1-0, but retain their spot on top as the strongest team. I’ve been preoccupied with the Confederations Cup, never expecting the United States to make it to the championship match! I’m still finishing the last bites from feasting on my words. Three of the four top teams from the beginning of last month keep their spot amongst the top ranks. Chicago is the fourth team who began the month near the top but with recent losses to Dallas (0-3), Houston (0-1), and D.C. United (1-2) have fallen down to seventh. It was a quiet month of June for Chicago, but this month they have more opportunities to recapture that early season form they lost. Houston can still retain the top spot by August 1st with winnable matches at K.C. (my home team), at Toronto, and against New England. The one loss can come against Seattle when they go there. The defending MLS Cup champions have a fairly good chance to remain near the top having three of their four matches played in Columbus. I’m only counting matches against other MLS opponents, not the SuperLeage or SuperLiga, whatever it’s called. Also not counting friendlies against Chelsea and A.C. Milan. So Brazil are 3-time Confederations champions and 5-time World Cup champions…that’s quite a resume. Oh and Real Madrid are throwing money at clubs signing as many foreign players as they can. Surprise, surprise…more on that at a later time. Here they are I know you’ve been dying to see them! Ha!

Rankings for July 2009 (Week 1)

Rk	Team	+/-
1	Houston Dynamo	0
2	Chivas USA	+1
3	Seattle Sounders F.C.	+1
4	Columbus Crew	+2
5	Colorado Rapids	-3
6	D.C. United	-1
7	Chicago Fire	0
8	Real Salt Lake	+3
9	Kansas City Wizards	-1
10	Los Angeles Galaxy	+2
11	Toronto F.C.	-2
12	New England Revolution	-2
13	F.C. Dallas	0
14	San Jose Earthquakes	0
15	New York Red Bull	0

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Upcoming Matches – Updated Saturday
Friday
(14) San Jose 0, (8) Real Salt Lake 1
Saturday
(6) D.C. United 1, (4) Columbus 1
(7) Chicago 2, (5) Colorado 1
(1) Houston 1, (9) Kansas City 0
(15) New York 1, (13) Dallas 2
(12) New England 0, (10) Los Angeles 1
all times Central United States

Champions Retain!

2009 FIFA Confederations Cup – Championship Match

at Ellis Park

2:3

USA: Dempsey 10′
USA: Donovan 26′
BRA: Luis Fabiano 46′
BRA: Luis Fabiano 73′
BRA: Lúcio 83′

Well, they were so close but the champions showed why they are the champions of the Confederations Cup (three times) and champions of the world five times. Brazil never panicked being down 0-2, they’ve been down before (not often). It just wasn’t to be this year for the Americans. Americans, be proud of the last three matches played the USMNT had. Those were hopefully signs of things to come!

What a first half for the U.S. Bradley should seriously think about moving Dempsey from outside mid to central attacking mid or even forward! The guy does nothing on the outside but put him in the middle near goal and he’s a threat. Every time he’s scored in this tournament, he’s been in the middle and near the goal. Even his shots have come from the middle of the park near the goal, he looks more comfortable up there too. I think it’s time for him to be converted! The second goal was a little bit of payback from Brazil’s second goal in the first match. Remember the Beasley mess up, when Brazil took it all the way down the field and scored? Well, the U.S. let the Brazilians know what it felt like. What an incredible counter attack from Davies and Donovan. The pass came from somewhere (can’t remember who) to Donovan. Donovan led Davies, who can fly. Davies’ return pass was perfect to Donovan, who touched it to the inside of the defender to his left foot (his weaker foot) and buried it past Julio Cesar. That folks, was the U.S. playing the beautiful game! Never did I expect the U.S. to be up 2-0 against Brazil and the U.S. have Tim Howard to thank for that 2-0 lead.

Second half…different story. Brazil came out early and pulled one back just 50 seconds into the second half. Luis Fabiano is quite a freaking striker! DeMerit could do nothing about Fabiano’s shot, he was there, the shot just went through his legs. I know how that is. The second half was open season on Tim Howard, as the U.S. kind of packed it in much like they did against Spain. However, unlike Spain, Brazil didn’t have very many risky passes. I was thinking, if they were going to defend like they did against Spain again, and be successful, that would be quite an amazing feat. Howard can only do so much by himself. With Brazil’s 24 total shots (11 of them on Howard) it was just unlikely that they would not finish their chances. Especially with a forward like Luis Fabiano who got his second of the match off of the crossbar from point blank range. Then the third, heartbreaking, goal from Brazil came from Lucio’s header just beating Howard to the far post. Game, set, championship point for the Brazilians.

Grade of U.S. performance vs. Brazil – 2009 Confederations Cup Championship Match
Offense: 3.5 of 5 (Outstanding first half! The Davies-Donovan goal was brilliant. However, they lacked the patience in the second half to build it up and get another goal.)
Defense: 3 of 5 (Tale of two halves really. The first half was great defense. Second half, perhaps tired legs and tired minds was the cause. A lot of shots were taken on Howard, Brazil capitalized on their onslaught of the U.S. unlike Spain.)
Goalkeeping: 5 of 5 (Howard = Animal…again! Wow! He did everything he could.)
Teamwork: 3.5 of 5 (Again tale of two halves. The teamwork was excellent in the first half. The second half, old habits were making appearances (i.e. lofting the ball up to the forwards))
Intensity: 3 of 5 (There in the first half, but dropped off as they tried to settle in and retain their 2-0 lead.)
Overall: 18 of 25; B- another descent performance. Unfortunately they fell apart in the second half and couldn’t get the championship.

This tournament had everything! A team who should have gone home after matchday 3, given new life. A team who should have been in the final, eliminated and given another tough fight from the hosts. This tournament has rewritten the logical things I’ve known about football. Spain-South Africa! What a match that was! Mphela’s free kick reminded me of Hugo Almeida’s free kick against Inter Milan a couple of years ago. In fact, when the announcers were saying how far out the free kick was, I was thinking, “He could just pull off a Hugo Almeida.” and did he ever!

…!

All of this after projecting winners first for South Africa when they had the 1-0 lead from Mphela’s earlier goal. Then for Spain when Guiza scored back-to-back goals in like a minute! Then after the second Mphela goal, the idea for the commentators was to just shut up and let them play! The consolation match was easily the match of the tournament.

Any excuse just to show this!

Now that we know the U.S. is capable of playing at a high level. They just need to sustain that level of play throughout the rest of qualifying and into the World Cup. They cannot play down to their CONCACAF opponents. I’ve learned a couple of things about this team during this tournament. 1). They are a much better team with two forwards than one. I hope Bradley (or anyone else who coaches the U.S. in the future) will never go back to the 4-5-1 formation. I’m not a very tactic oriented person, but 4-5-1 is garbage! 2). The U.S. need to be more patient especially with the lead. Knocking the ball around and keeping possession are what the great teams do when they have the lead, and even when they don’t. Look at Brazil, when they took the lead 3-2, they held possession very well. Spain does it well too, they just had two very awkward games. 3). We are relying too much on our “veteran” players. We have other capable bodies who need to get that playing time so they can learn and grow. You don’t grow as a player by sitting on the bench for five matches. I’m speaking of Adu and Torres. Adu we know has potential. Torres does have great potential to be the U.S.’s midfield maestro, if what I saw in the Costa Rica match was a normal performance for him. B. Bradley just needs to take a chance. What I would like to see the U.S. try (in terms of formation) is the 4-1-2-1-2:

Howard (GK)

Spector (RB) – Onyewu (RCB) – DeMerit (LCB) – Bocanegra (LB)

Bornstein/Feilhaber (CDM)

Donovan (RM) — Bradley (LM)

Dempsey (CAM)

Altidore (RS) — Davies (LS)

Something like that using the players that played in the tournament. Or even a 4-3-2-1, as I’ve seen mentioned. Yes, Dempsey is included even as much as I have hounded on him for his wasteful play as a winger. I think he would work well as an attacking mid in the center, because he seems more productive in the center close to goal. The problem with this formation is that it usually expects the outside backs to make forward runs into the attack as well. Spain, I think, uses this formation and Spain always has Sergio Ramos from the right back coming up and making those crosses into the box. When the right back comes up there’s always that option for either center mid to pass the ball outside to that outside back. The outside backs for the U.S. would have to be very conditioned, which would alleviate the other problem of transition. If the ball is lost, the right back has a far run to make to get back on defense, or the midfielders would have to hold up the attacking opponent so the defense can get back. The U.S. would have to control the ball and take care of it much better than they do now, because I know from doing it, running up and down the field for 90 minutes because of transition errors sucks. However, if properly executed, the formation is very effective (Spain). If triangles are important in football for passing easy quick passes around defenders (and they are), I’ve counted a least a potential 13 triangles with this formation. They would only work if the players moved off the ball and kept their shape.

Now that the tournament is over, here are my favorite XI from the tournament. The players who stood out and not necessarily the popular names.
GK – Tim Howard (USA)
D – Spector (USA)
D – Onyewu (USA)
D – Booth (South Africa)
D – Dani Alves (Brazil)
M – Ramires (Brazil)
M – Pienaar (South Africa)
M – Kaka (Brazil)
M – Xavi Hernandez (Spain)
F – Luis Fabiano (Brazil)
F – Giuseppe Rossi (Italy)

Others considered: Maicon (Brazil), Zidan (Egypt), Parker (South Africa), Julio Cesar (Brazil), Nashat Akram (Iraq), Katlego Mphela (South Africa), and Simone Pepe (Italy).

Confederations Cup finished, next for the U.S. is the Gold Cup, which we are hosting. Their first opponent is Grenada on 4 July in Seattle. Prediction?

4:0

I’m really being kind to Grenada. If the U.S. carry over their intensity, tactical formation and play, my “prediction” could be underselling the U.S. a little. If they play down to them or God forbid revert back to one forward, 1-0 or 2-1 is likely to be the score. Either way this is a win.