BreakPoint
World Cup starts today
It could go either way.
The number of goals in a typical soccer match is low enough for the result to be determined entirely by shot noise. 😄
I remember Tim Howard being interviewed on english television once:
Reporter: "So what's an american doing in goal for Fulham?" (I think it was Fulham)
Tim Howard: "Trying to keep the ball out of the net"
Great stuff.
England were poor in the first match, but time will tell whether they were just poor or whether the organisation of the US team made it hard for them. The US team have improved a LOT in the last years and I don't think any teamw ill have it easy against them (regardless how many might sneer at the idea of a decent US soccer team).
As for England, they certainly shouldn't play with both Lampard and Gerrard in midfield, It just doesn't work.
Apart from the US, Korea impressed me against greece and Germany were frighteningly good(against an inferior opponent). I'll reserve judgement for a game where they're tested properly.
Looking forward to the further games....
Things get interesting here in Switzerland on Wednesday versus Spain. Wonder who'll win THAT match....
Shane
Intaris wrote:@Diana,
the offside for Mexico.... Didn't SA have a field player on the line? Does the offside rule simply apply to the (last player of the opposing team) regardless of whether it's the goalkeeper or not?
Official text is something like "A player is in an offside position if he is in his opponents' half of the field and is nearer to his opponents' goal line than both the ball and the next to last opponent" but most equate the last player from the opponents with the goalkeeper. Obviously this is not the case. I certainly thought that it was NOT offside when I saw it first.
Shane.
I am a certified referee and I will give you the definition as best I remember it straight from the laws of the game. To understand this law there are two parts.
Offside position: A player is in an offside position if there are less than two players from the opposing team between him and the goal and he is on his attack half of the field.
An offside infraction(when a call is actually made): "A player is offside if, in the opinion of the referee, at the time the ball was played the player in an offside position meets one of the following three conditions
1) Interferes with an opponent
2) Interferes with play
3) gains an advantage from being in that position.
"
You are right, Shane. There is often a misconception that it is one defender and the goalkeeper. That is not true. The goal keeper is just one of the last two defenders 90% of the time so people often get it wrong. The keeper came out and in this case he was actually the second to last defender. The attacker was behind him (barely, but clearly was) so there was only one defender between the attacker and the goal at the time the ball was played. He gained an advantage from being in an offside position and was therefore called offside, correctly.
That said, I feel Wayne Rooney was robbed of a breakaway in the usa england game when Emile Heskey was called offside standing in the center circle, clearly not involved in play. However, being a USA fan, I have chosen to not complain 
