Over-educated soccer

Some guys who spent way too much time in school, ranting about the beautiful game.

[therustycorner]

The Need for Accountability in an Era of Playstation Football

Today’s dismissal of Carlo Ancelotti is unacceptable.

If the standard is simply Champions of Europe or bust, Perez will quickly bankrupt the club as that measure for success is not achievable. If the trend holds, Los Blancos will quickly paying former managers, via buyout clauses, more than the current roster.

It is one thing to have goals and performance expectations, but another to not tolerate any form of failure.

The message sent today is that Madrid’s administration is disconnected from the realities of modern football. To create the European and domestic juggernaut that Perez and company crave, they need stability from the top down. If there needs to be any accountability for the performances on the field, start with those most culpable, the current players and the administration who brought them in. The problem this season was not the manager, it was the woeful performances of Iker Casillas and Gareth Bale and the generally subpar control of the midfield (a direct result of the sale of Xabi Alonso).

Any future growth and development of the club must have team balance and accountability in mind. We cannot afford to be sentimental when our primary rivals have shown that they will prudent when it comes to team selection and empower their manager to to grow the team through his philosophy and not with an eye towards jersey sales.

[brandochunderdarkseas]

Qatar World Cup: FIFA task force backs November-December event

A FIFA taskforce has decided that the best time to host the world cup in Qatar 2022 would be during November/December. This is likely to cause a great deal of problems for the money (domestic leagues, and television rights). This could be the death knell for FIFA if it attempts to bring it to a direct confrontation. ONe of the ways that FIFA gets away with its litany of questionable actions is that the World Cup still draws a lot of popular acclaim. What happens if the clubs refuse to allow their best players to go? What happens if FOX, who has the television rights to the World Cup in the USA, gets mad because they were planning on a summer tournament and now there are clashes in scheduling? I would say that the benefit of this plan is that there are fewer players who will be affected by the heat, which in the summer of Doha could be deathly hot. However, I'm not really comforted by this due to the serious humanitarian problems going on in Qatar in order to get the cup running as it is? I think that it would be easy for federations to boycott due to the humanitarian problems alone, though that will never happen, but with the veneer of financial issues in November/December it could be more likely. 

There will be an ExecComm meeting in March, and we will see what they decide. 

[brandochunderdarkseas]

Justify yourself Brandoch, justify this ridiculous statement: 

The answer to all of that is that everything you see until about the middle of september is determined by what happened at the world cup.

Right, so all of the first bit of the season will be determined by the world cup. I won’t make this the whole article but lets point out a few cases. 

1. Angel Di Maria is at manchester united. Why is he at Manchester, particularly when he publicly stated he wanted to stay at Madrid? Well, someone in the front office of Madrid thought that it was a good idea to send a letter to Di Maria while he was on the treatment table the DAY OF THE WORLD CUP FINAL, asking him not to play in the game because he might stress his leg injury for the season with Madrid. Seriously, I’m not making that up. And so Angel says, no way, I’m leaving for a new team. And so he arrives at Louis van Gaal’s call, and instantly throws the Manchester united lineup into disarray. 

2. Players with quiet cups excel against their more successful colleagues. Cristiano Ronaldo is an aberrant, because he is nearly always divine, but 10 goals in 5 league games is a tremendous return in comparison to one good cross against the united states. Gareth Bale, who played no world cup, supports Madrid’s Achilles to phenomenal effect. Wayne Rooney,though England’s best player at the cup, still got the chance to have a holiday in comparison to many of his other United colleagues, and as such was United’s best player until his petulant swipe at Stewart Downing. Chelsea though is the best example, who cashed out on two players who did not have good cups: Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas, who have clearly been the best two players in the Premier league thus far.

3. Tiredness still rules. The big teams generally do one of two things: 1) buy a bunch of new players who did well at the cup or 2) start slow until their tired stars get their acts together. Manchester United are type 1) (angel di maria, daley blind, and marcos rojo), shoot, and also type 2).

Okay, but what is really going on right now? Its the time of the cycle when the biggest teams are still struggling to get their legs right after the tournament. Smaller teams like Southampton, Swansea City, and (sorry villians) Aston Villa have put together a lot of hard work throughout pre-season and have produced collective efforts that have proved themselves successful against higher caliber opponents (swansea v Machester united/everton, southampton v. Arsenal, Villa v. Liverpool, and actually even though they don’t have lots of points Leicester city). It also means that when you pick games to watch, I’d suggest games with the mid-level teams (talent wise, not position so far) because they are going to be more exciting affairs. 

Also, there is a distinct Dutch air about the management in England so far. Contrast the fortunes of Louis van Gaal with Ronald Koeman, both who play the old dutch styles, but one which is seemingly to have a galvanizing effect and one which confuses outsiders. Brendan Rogers also gives off the air and tactical information reminiscent of dutch coaching manuals, but he so far hasn’t got the goals that he needs. It will probably come. His midfield is very dutch in style. 

So in summary: Titles and games will not be won in the midfield this season, so its goals and clean sheets that really matter. Chelsea are going to be very hard to beat, with the best attack and the best defense, but a little uninspiring (but solid) in midfield. Manuel Pellegrini is going to have a tough season since Yaya Toure is seeming to lose it, particularly in europe. A shout out to the marvelous Francesco Totti who scored a wonderful goal tonight against the citizens. What a player!

[overeducatedsoccer]

Choosing a champion: What American college football can learn from European Soccer

Wait! Wait! Before you run away asking how any sane person can compare football and football, I mean soccer and gridiron, I mean… well, you get it… let’s give due credit to one thing soccer does well: choose a continental champion from hundreds of club teams scattered over dozens of leagues.  This season’s edition of the UEFA Champions League kicks-off today.  Thirty-two European professional teams from eighteen countries compete to be the best in Europe, all while also competing in their respective national leagues.  The culmination of that process is the world’s most-watched annual sporting event: the UEFA Champions League Final.

I think we can do something similar with NCAA football.  Both associations have similar organizational structure, and both want to preserve the importance of the regional leagues (national leagues for soccer and conferences for football).  UEFA has tweaked the formula for the past 20+ years and now have a product that rivals any in sports.  Let’s take that lesson and apply it to the NCAA Division I FBS subdivision (the top tier of American college football).

The proposal

Sixteen teams are chosen based on their performance the previous season to compete in a round-robin group stage (four groups of four teams each) followed by a single-elimination tournament to determine the champion.  The sixteen teams are the previous year’s Power 5 conference champions (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC-12, and SEC) and runners-up, with the last six teams chosen at large based on some ranking system (e.g. the final AP poll results or some mix of polls like the old BCS rankings).  The previous year’s national champion would automatically get a berth if they wouldn’t otherwise qualify.

For example, this year’s edition would have the following teams:

The teams would be sorted into four groups.  First all of the conference champions are assigned, then the conference runners up, and lastly the at large teams.  Also, if possible, no two teams from the same conference should be in the same group (although in this year’s edition, there would be five teams from the SEC, so one group will have two SEC teams).  I assigned the groups by ordering each batch (champs, runners-up, at large) by AP ranking and then arranging in a snake-pattern, but if I had Adam Silver’s bouncy ball machine, I could have done it randomly.

Each group would play a round robin within itself, so the group stage is three games for each team (no home-and-away).  The top two teams in each group get two home games, and the bottom two teams get one home game.  I’d spread the games out through the whole regular season, so that each week there would be two nationally-televised games.  This year’s schedule would look like this:

Stop drooling on your keyboard.  Yes, it’s like having two bowl games every week.

Note that while all of this is going on, the teams are still playing their normal conference schedules.  The key improvement (from a fan standpoint) is that the non-conference games are now between two top teams.  No more cupcakes!  Every game counts, and these Champions League games will bring in hefty television and advertising revenue, much better for the bottom-line than playing against Directional State University.

The team with the best record in each group advances to a four-team playoff (or the top two teams could go to an eight-team playoff).  Ties would be decided by the head-to-head result, and if there is a three-way tie, we have some other tiebreaker.  The playoff games could be played in January (like this year’s real system).  Or, in the case of an 8-team playoff, the first round could be played the week after the conference championship games.  The end result is an undisputed champion, based on two-years of performance.

Pros

First, great regular-season match ups (two key games every week), and a clear winner at the end.  This is a fan’s dream.  Also, the Champions League would have huge tv and marketing deals, bringing lots of money to the participating teams (and probably their conferences through revenue sharing).  This also adds importance to finishing well in the conference.  In the current system, the conference title is just a stepping stone along the way to a (hopefully) undefeated season.  Coaches also get a breather: it’s possible to lose a game (even the conference championship) and still contend for the national title.  In the current system, a single loss can ruin a whole season.  Because a team has to do well for two consecutive seasons, program building becomes even more important.  Lastly, the Champions League may be enticing enough to prevent the Power 5 from breaking off and forming their own division.

Cons

The biggest losers here are the non-Power 5 conference teams.  They lose the revenue and exposure from being the sacrificial lambs for the big boys.  Wyoming can’t travel to Tallahassee to collect a paycheck while losing 56-3 because the ‘Noles will have their non-conference schedule filled up with Champions League games.  Also, the good non-P5 schools will have to fight for an at large bid.  That’s harder if they can’t play and knock off any of the top 16 teams.  (Rule hack that might alleviate this: no P5 team can receive an at-large berth in consecutive years.)  A Cinderella mid-major team that has an undefeated season is shut out of championship contention unless they can earn an at large bid and survive the following season’s Champions League.  But honestly, Cinderella never had a chance under the old systems either.  There may also be some grumbling about how the at-large berths are chosen, but I think that’s unavoidable.  There will always be a 17th team that feels they got screwed, no matter how the teams are chosen.

Also, this would be grueling on the teams.  There are no more weak opponents to let them relax.  But maybe this is a good thing: the best teams will endure.

Wrap-up

Scroll back up and take a look at the fictitious schedule.  Imagine arguing about which group is the Group of Death and who got the easy draw.  Then imagine the best team from each group meeting in the playoffs. Isn’t it beautiful?  Write your conference commissioners and tell them you want the NCAA Football Champions League.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming...  UEFA Champions League Round 1 summary to follow.

Any suggestions?

[overeducatedsoccer]

The summer of our content

It was May, and I was bored with football. The teams your correspondents follow had gone through horrible seasons. In England, Steven Gerrard's untimely slip and more important Liverpool's impersonation of a teenager asked to bestow a kiss on a first date against Crystal Palace meant that the title went to Manchester 'what is this financial fair play thing anyway' City. In Italy, the title went to Fiat--I mean Juventus--by default, and everyone who liked football in that country spent their time giving plaudits to Roma, who came second. In Germany, the least surprising finish to a campaign ever meant that Uli Hoeness's tax case was the big surprise of the season for Bavarian Munich. I'm not even going to dignify the the French League with a response. The only league where we really saw something compelling was Athletico Madrid's capture of the title. Their manager, Diego Simeone, wears all black and gives the impression that he is the man that Mephistopheles sends to visit people when he is angry at them. Through an exciting blend of ridiculous team unity, snappy attack, and rugged defending they secured the title, surely making everyone think that their players would form the center of Spain's world cup team. More on that in a second. 

So the seasons ended, and I entered that end-of-season emotional slump, that time when you don't care that there isn't football to fill saturday and sunday. And then, on the horizon you see a glimmer, and its the commercialized narcissism of FIFA jabbing you in the face. Damn. After a few weeks, you hear of the players that won't be going: Radamael Falcao, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Marco Reus and it hurts even more. You listen to how FIFA has routed people from the favelas, how construction workers have died building these stadia, and the Brazilian government has brought in the shock troops to deal with protesters of governmental white elephants. You hear about the conditions for workers planning a competition 8 years away in Qatar. How can you feel good? How can you think that the tournament is worth all the money and the pain and downright evil?

And then a few weeks pass, and your friends and family who don't follow football during the year know that you have been a fanatic since Alexi Lalas actually played the game, so they call you up and ask what you think and who is gonna win. You get the chance to play ambassador to your sport, and what happens? You start to remember why you love this game. You realize that the game has returned to the places that care about it. You dig up your copy of In Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano and read passages to people while on the subway, extorting them on the game, saying that games will be easy to see here finally. You finally get around to reading Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger's Tor: the story of German Football . You realize for the first time in a long while that you will whole-heartedly support your own national team, and not just feel sorry for your world class goalkeeper behind the cast of Muppets in Space. You hunker down, buy a new scarf, flip on the tv and hope than Ian Darke is doing the commentary. 

Okay, but the World Cup was months ago Brandoch, why bother us with it now? Why not talk about Manchester United's transfer rumors, or Tottenham Hotspurs on the top of the league. Why not mention that Dortmund (crushed by liverpool in preseason) beat Munich in the curtain raiser for the german leauge? The answer to all of that is that everything you see until about the middle of september is determined by what happened at the world cup. So allow me to indulge a little. Reminiscence will be important as well, due to the locations of the next two world tournaments. 

What happened: The best team won. The german national team absorbed the loss of Marco Reus and the knee of Sami Khedira to win the tournament without really being challenged. What do I remember of the german tournament? Two things

1) Miroslav Klose. He scored some important goals, but I remember him jogging off the field, looking absolutely dead-tired, but proud to have played another game. Yes, he now stands alone as the highest scoring player ever in the world cup, and for Germany, but it was being named to the starting lineup, and making it to 65 minutes or so that meant everything to him. Remember that, people play this game to play, and even those with the records cry when they know that their time is up.

2) The semi-final against Brazil. Well, poor Neymar was out due to a nasty challenge. Their captain and best player Thiago Silva was absent due to the stupidest yellow card of the tournament. And you feared for Brazil. I couldn't get the game on TV, and so I listened to it on the radio. And it was surreal. 

After that game, there was little doubt that tournament was over.

What was beautiful: James Rodriguez was beautiful. Besides being Adonis reincarnated, he played the games like Orpheus plays a lyre. Such love merged with such power. By far the finest player of the tournament. The cynical FIFA decision to consistently award the Golden Ball (tournament's best player) to the captain of the losing finalist continues (I believe this is the 5th time in a row). At least Leo Messi had the good grace to look embarrassed when receiving his award. If they really wanted to grace la albiceleste with the trophy, they should have given it to Javier Mascherano. 

What was ugly: Uruguay made me sad. Luis Suarez, 2013-2014's best player disgraced himself again. Oscar Tabarez went out and defended him, an old general of the game making himself look like a Charles Dicken's baddie instead of just shrugging and saying 'Dios Mio, no se.'

What surprised you: I have a list on this one.

1) CONCACAF surprised me. I mean, Mexico disgusted me by even getting to the tournament. Their inability to utilize their excellent players borders on maddening. But they played well, and deserved their progress to the next round. Costa Rica destroyed their opposition in England, Italy, and Uraguay, probably making them the surprise of the tournament.

2) That defenders still think that Arjen Robben might go to his right side. I mean really. Really?

3) That the US media has the gall to say that Jurgen Klinsmann has done anything less than a spectacular job with the USMNT. He and his team have been immense, and I was thrilled to see them play. Michael Bradley was terrible, but if Altidore had been fit and Bradley played to something like 25% of his potential, we might have played better football instead of just effective football. 

4) The chilean support of their squad was just a fantastic thing to see. I loved it, and wished we could have had more of them.

Summary: What is the state of the modern game? Well, I would say that football looks like it did in the early 60's. Huh, Brandoch what the hell are you talking about? Well, Latin America produces the finest players with the most skill, verve, and joy. But Europe produces the best team players. And in a big shock, we at overeducated soccer will tell you that this has to do with money (Gasp). Coaching and facilities actually have a lot to do with building teams, and money produces those. The best coaches of south america, like their best players quickly are taken away to develop youngsters in Europe.

The quarterfinals were beautiful, and could have been taken directly from any of the world cups from about 1958-1970. We saw four from Europe: Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and France; and four from Latin America: Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. And you know what, again, they were the best teams, with the best players. Spain is full of great players, England is full of great players, and so is Italy; but because of structural problems in each, they failed to meet their potential. Furthermore, the structure of a summer tournament means that jaded professionalism won't help you win. Miroslav Klose giving his all just to play another game is what pushes you forward. Neymar hoisting the emotions of an entire nation (he really did) on his skinny shoulders was a beautiful thing, and I truly truly respect him for his real care. James Rodriguez may not make the grade at Real Madrid, but he gave the world his genius for 30 days and that is enough. Football is reminded that it can be art and it can be catharsis. Do not read the journalists the day after that match and believe that it has been explained; watch the game, stare at the faces, listen to 7 nation army from the stands, hear the songs of feet for this is the game, and now after watching the cup, you know it.

[overeducatedsoccer]

Defenders becoming scarcer, costlier

From Rory Smith on ESPNFC:

David Luiz's 50-million-pound move to Paris Saint-Germain has signalled a new era in football, one in which good defenders are hard to come by and cost a fortune.

I've been bemoaning the lack of skilled, tactically sound defenders for some time.  Smith blames harsher refereeing that discourages tackling, but I blame what I call the Michael Jordan Effect.  Wazzat?

One key reason why Jordan is the most popular (if not best) basketball player of all time is that his career peaked at the same time that ESPN, and particularly SportsCenter, was becoming a touchstone of American culture.  Jordan was a one-man highlight reel and epitomizes the glory days of sports television.  Because of those 3-second glimpses of fantasy, every kid wanted to be Like Mike.  Everyone wanted to dunk from the foul line and hit fade-away jumpers from the corner.  Key defensive skills like rebounding and blocking shots just weren't sexy anymore.  (Sorry, Patrick Ewing.)  When those kids became pros, the quality of defense in the NBA tanked and is only now slowly recovering.

I think we're seeing a similar phenomenon in soccer now.  The TV culture (and the FIFA video games, for that matter) puts a premium on scoring goals rather than stopping them.  Defensive tactics are "negative football" or "parking the bus."  There's no honor in frustrating the opposition while holding on to a 1-0 lead.  Those popular criticisms extend beyond tactics to individual players.  Particularly in the US the talking heads and sports writers have a fascination with defenders who score goals.  They seem to think that a center back heading in one corner kick matters more than the three goals he let go by him.

The key PR problem is that excellent defense is often the result of patience, positioning, and timing.  Consider Thiago Silva, who many consider the world's best active center back.  The man is a ghost on the pitch.  He disappears for minutes at a time and then suddenly appears at just the right place and time to walk away with the ball.  It's not flashy, but it's still magic.  A ten-year-old kid or ten-espresso commentator won't see his genius.

Oddly, the defensive drought hasn't seemed to affect the oddities that play between the sticks.  As the many fabulous displays at the recent World Cup show, we may well be in a golden era of goalkeepers.  But perhaps that's just because GKs are more in the spotlight -- they must cover the mistakes in front of them (e.g. Tim Howard).

[overeducatedsoccer]

World cup afterthoughts to come. Also transfer thoughts. Possibly the much hoped for Podcast. Watch this space. Your correspondents have been moving about a lot this summer, and typing on iPhones is not very overeducatedsoccer.

[foxsoccer]

The Hamburg pitch invader’s selfie with Bayern’s Javi Martinez - at least Martinez posed (via @demarkesports) pic.twitter.com/ioahwhujpd

— Archie Rhind-Tutt (@archiert1)

July 27, 2014

Bayern Munich snatched up their first title of the season on Sunday, winning the final of the...

[overeducatedsoccer]

Saw this in person. These guys were funny, dancing across the pitch. Mario was totally cool, looked like he was having fun.

[scienceisbeauty]

Physics of soccer. I’m curious to know how many players have read this paper.

Credit: Sungchan Hong & Takeshi Asai

Source: Effect of panel shape of soccer ball on its flight characteristics (PDF), Scientific Reports-Nature Publishing Group.

[overeducatedsoccer]

WC day 1

Brazil, the host, magnificently decked out in yellow and blue, shouts out the national anthem with so much power and emotion that it takes at least 20 minutes to remember that they weren't guaranteed 3 points in the opening game. Croatia supplied a team with grit, but more importantly, full of experience: Modric, Olic, Pletikosa, and Dario Srna (once called the croatian David Beckham) all supplied generous know-how to their younger colleagues. Intelligent coaching from the Kovac brothers (former players from the great 98 team), who were solid defensive experts allowed them to pull 11 players onto their half, and cut off passes to Brazil's inside forwards, but break with the purpose of Olic and Modric. If Croatia had a top class striker, as of old when Davor Suker and Robert Prosinecki, the game could have ended more deservedly. But three things conspired to rob the Croatians of a famous victory: tired legs in the heat, the referee, and two flashes of midfield genius. The penalty never was, so lets not even bother. Pletikosa dove too slowly, seemingly not getting enough of a push off towards the ball ( a consequence of the heat?). And Neymar and Oscar scored very similar goals, digging the ball from midfield and running forward on sprightly legs to finish expertly. 

Brazil and Croatia suffer from the same issue, the lack of a top striker. Fred and Jelavic are both incapable of drawing attention from both lines of defense and midfield, sintead being marshalled by a single central defender. This allows the midfielders of the opposition to compact upon the opposing creative midfielders, giving these #10s less time on the ball to work their magic. Brazil would be better off playing Neymar further forward because his motion moves defenders around, which in turn forces these defenders to ask for help from the midfielders, shifting around the pass-intercepting lines. This gives more room for the midfielders such as Oscar and Modric time on the ball, which is what everyone wants anyway.

[overeducatedsoccer]

[overeducatedsoccer]

NYTimes: Help for Referees, in a Can

[overeducatedsoccer]

NYTimes: Throw FIFA Out of the Game Yep

[therustycorner]

Fifa's Boyce 'would back' Qatar re-vote

Fifa vice-president Jim Boyce would support a re-vote over the Qatar 2022 World Cup if corruption allegations are proven.

Good News? or Best News?

At the time I hated the Qatar choice because it reeked of corruption, and now I feel vindicated. Overturn the vote FIFA, and remove the Cup from the continuing embarrassment of associating with Qatar’s corruption and numerous human rights violations.

[overeducatedsoccer]

Declan Hill and Jeré Longman in the NY Times with the first part of a series on match fixing and other bribery allegations from the 2010 World Cup.

A soccer referee named Ibrahim Chaibou walked into a bank in a small South African city carrying a bag filled with as much as $100,000...

[overeducatedsoccer]

Impressions from USA v Azerbaijan

The US Men's National Team played their first match with the 23 picked for the World Cup.  After mulling over the game for a couple of days, here are a few things that came to mind.

Jozy Altidore doesn't need to score, but it sure would help.  The Sunderland forward is suffering PTSD from his awful club season, and it shows.  He's reluctant to pull the trigger and shoot.  There were several times when he got the ball inside the 18 yard box with plenty of space and just froze.  However, he did a decent job of holding up play and making space for the other striker.  This worked great with Wondolowski, who needs freedom to do his buzzing around the box, but Dempsey plays a different game.  Best realistic case is Altidore getting the ball deep with his back to goal, drawing attention, and then Clint charging forward to put it away.  Jozy also played well on the counter attack.  He's able to gain possession, bully around the defenders, and buy valuable time for his teammates to get forward.  However, he needs to regain his confidence if he's going to be effective.  He's our only back-to-the-goal forward, so if he can't start, tactics will have to change.

We need Clint Dempsey in good form.  The team lacked killer instinct.  Wondo was his foxy poaching self, and Bradley was pushing hard from deep in midfield, but Altidore's shyness seemed contagious to everyone else.  No one was making runs at goal.  No one was even taking pot shots from outside the box.  Nerves reduced much of the game to a passing drill.  Some of that was caused by Azerbaijan's 11-man defense, but we're likely to see the same thing if we have to play from behind in the Cup.  We struggled to come from behind in qualifying and nothing has changed in that regard.

The midfield diamond is going to work.  It needs polish, but we dominated midfield possession.  Bradley and Jones played well together and Zusi, when central, provided the connection to the forwards.  Bedoya was mostly anonymous: not great, not bad.  The one concern is consistent use of width.  Zusi is naturally a wing player and sometimes drifted out into space all alone.  The narrow midfield also invited the fullbacks to come forward, and that's dangerous for this team.  Beasley in particular doesn't have the speed to get back to stop a counterattack.  He needs to stay in position.  Fabian Johnson had a couple of good overlaps late in the game, but again, I think that exposes our soft underbelly of a defense.  Mix Diskerud made a good appearance late as an offensively minded sub.  I was hoping to see how Beckerman fit in, but we'll have to wait for that.

We'd better score, because we're not going to keep clean sheets.  Sorry, folks, but the central defense is horrible, and Beasley is really playing out of position at fullback.  I spent most of the game with my eyes on the centerbacks trying to diagnose the problem.  First, we do have good tacklers.  Our defenders generally win the ball in one-on-one situations.  However, their positioning is atrocious.  They ball mark instead of man marking and always seem a step behind mentally.  And Klinsmann clearly knows this: he instructed them to zone mark on set pieces. Yes, our World Cup team can't be trusted to mark anything more mobile than a blade of grass.  There was one particularly amusing corner kick late in the game where you had the US defense standing around in their neat pattern by the near post with the entire Azerbaijan team plus Tim Howard floating around behind them.  Luckily the kick was low, but there were 4 unmarked guys waiting for the ball at the back post.  Something has to change.  Timmy is great, but he can't do it all himself.

Donovan wasn't missed.  I think Jurgen made the right choice, but it hurts me to say it.  The guys who played in this game all showed energy and drive, but Landon only turns on when he wants to (by his own admission).  Maybe he would have gone to Brazil at full speed, but it was a risk.  The young guys in particular are giving all they have.  I know a lot of people dismissed the selection of Green and Yedlin, but Klinsmann is already planning for 2018.  If anything, the omission of Donovan may be a quiet sign that Klinsmann doesn't expect us to escape the group stage and wants to maximize the experience gains from the trip.

Conditioning will be an issue.  The team really started to drag after the hour mark, prompting the late subs that led to the goals.  We're going to literally melt in the heat and humidity of the rain forest.  This may be my harshest criticism of the coach.  One of the US's great advantages is geographic diversity.  We should have been training in conditions similar to Brazil to acclimate.  Train in Houston or Orlando or any other place in the South.  Don't train in 65 degree Northern California.  If 60 minutes in that weather against a mostly stationary opponent is too much, we don't have a chance later.  The big test will be the Nigeria friendly in Jacksonville.  Then we'll see if we can literally take the heat.

[overeducatedsoccer]

Yaya Toure has confirmed he is unhappy with Manchester City after his agent revealed the midfielder felt the club had shown a lack of respect.

Really? A birthday card?