Well…I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that the US made the round of 16 in the world cup or that Belgium didn’t….and Belgium is ranked at #2 in the world….but that is how soccer works at times..and now we meet the Netherlands here in 28 minutes and I have mixed feelings of both excitement and dread since I know that we will have to play our best to move on to the next round but I’ll be happy no matter what…I know our guys are going to work their butts off and do their best and I am happy that Pulisic will be able to play after crashing into the goaltender scoring the winning goal against Iran…so, USA,USA, USA…go boys!
Tag Archives: USA
The US moves on…
Well…cripes, what a nail biter….the US scored one goal to move on into the round of 16 beating Iran 1-0…the goal was scored by Christian Pulisic who just crashed the goal to put in a headed cross by Dest but ran into the goaltender and had to go out of the match at the half due to an injury he got scoring…so now, we move on to the Netherlands at 10 Saturday morning and I’m not sure how I feel about that one…if we play like we played England, we have a good chance to do something…but if we play like we played Wales or Iran, it could get pretty ugly pretty early…but to get to the round of 16 is a pretty big deal and I will allow myself to be happy about that for a day or so…and then root for them again especially since we are such a young team…but I still think it’s weird that I know more of the players on the England team than I do on ours…might have to start watching MLS although at least 6 players on our team play in the Premier League….go USA!
Disappointing…
Well…haven’t come up with anything to write about in politics so I guess I’ll do a little more sports…it was a disappointing day yesterday with the US tying Portugal when it looked like they were going to win until the last minute…so, that makes the chances of us getting through to the next round pretty slim…have to beat Germany Thursday, which is not going to happen, or tie them, which may happen, or lose to them and then let the math and tie breakers drive us nuts until the Ghana/Portugal match ends. Not going to be a good day Thursday but I guess we can look at it that we tried hard and looked better than expected….not sure if I’ll watch the rest of the matches but I’ve invested too much time to quit now….I just hope Brazil loses this aft and makes it interesting…more later…
World Cup stuff…
Well…I almost forgot to come back to do this one with all of the soccer that has been on today…but that is the topic I wanted to talk about so that would be just too ironic…so far, the matches have been pretty good, especially the US 2-1 win over Ghana last night…one of the most hard- fought games I have seen in quite a while but the US can play so much better…but maybe not the next match with Altidore being injured and no one that I can see to replace him…that is one of the reasons I thought that leaving Donovan off the squad was a bad idea…he would have made a good backup for just this instance and Altidore has been injury prone throughout his career…I guess it will be left up to the no name forwards to break out…I hope they do…or maybe Dempsey? The Mexico/Brazil game just finished a few minutes ago with a 0-0 tie and I’m not surprised…Brazil didn’t look that good in their first match…Mexico looked okay in their first but still not what they can play….I do need to get a life and stop doing nothing but watching soccer….maybe tomorrow….
More World Cup…
Well…not the result I wanted or expected from the USA Ghana match yesterday but our guys tried hard and did overcome a lot of bad calls and adversity to get to the knockout round….so guys, I salute you! I am still going watch the rest of the games and we have a Germany England match going on right now that is going to have a great second half…the game should be tied at 2-2 but, inexplicably, England had a clear goal nullified since none of the refs saw it…I guess England knows how we feel now, huh?
I’ll probably update this later today after the Mexico game…might even go over to the Mex place for a beer but should probably give the stomach and liver a rest.
June 26th
Well…another early morning…up at 5:30 again…yeah, I know, you’re getting tired of hearing about that so I’ll try not to comment on that anymore…but no promises….It’s the big day today! USA/Ghana and I think that is going to be the focus of my efforts…didn’t drink a lot last night so I feel pretty good today and will be having beer at the Mex place during the game…maybe food, too but I have some chicken and pork loin chops marinating in a Jamaican jerk mixture that was so good the other day that I had to make it again. So, I might just grill some stuff instead…who knows?
Other than that, it looks like a normal, kind of boring weekend but I just need to start finding more things to do by myself….there is free HBO on the dish this weekend so I’ll take some advantage of that after the game…so I’ll warn you right now….going to feel like crap tomorrow and will probably be much less lucid than normal…if I am lucid at all…there are times that I feel I am but not every day…although it’s getting better as I get farther into this thing…I guess practice helps…more later…
USA, USA, USA…
Man….what a heart-stopping match between Algeria and the USA….and Donovan wins it in stoppage time. I couldn’t stand just sitting here so I went over to the local Mexican place to watch with some of the guys over there…the only other soccer fans I know so that was fun….even had lunch…great Mexican food at Cabana Tres Amigos…go there some time..yummy. As soon as the US scored I got a call from my daughter in Chicago checking to make sure I didn’t have a heart attack. England won, too, so her husband will be happy that they got through….I’m smiling….
World Cup update….
well…sitting here waiting for the chicken to cook and remembered that I neglected to do a World Cup update today…and there were unusual happenings to report. First, the US got robbed of a win by the most atrocious officiating I’ve ever seen; the ref calling off a good goal that would have won it for us for no reason whatsoever. Even the English announcers were appalled by the call…why can’t they get these things right? At least it was a tie and a point for us.
The bigger shocker was England and Algeria ended in a 0-0 tie which leaves us with a better tie-breaker in goal differential. But England looked terrible with no pace or creativity…what is wrong with those guys? Even the US looked better in the match…
Now, we have to win Wednesday against Algeria or we go home….should be fun..Algeria looked pretty good today but I don’t know if they can keep up that level of play…
World Cup so far….
Well…the World cup took a turn this morning when Switzerland defeated the heavily favored Spanish team by a score of 1-0. These guys were favored to take it all but I think that rating may have been a little too optimistic given that the US beat them in the Confederations Cup last year. I know, Spain has only lost like 2 games in the last hundred years but these tournaments can be surprising…just look at our tie with England which easily could have been a win for the US.
On thing I have noticed is that there haven’t been any teams, from the matches I’ve seen, that have played up to level that I expected…I was prepared for some elegant soccer like you see in the EPL and Champions league but most of the play looks disjointed, although Spain did put together some short spurts of beauty that you can’t help but marvel at…even Brazil looked ordinary yesterday…maybe we have a chance? Hope so….
USA, USA, USA!
Well…need to say a few words about the USA/England match from Sat afternoon…walked over to a local bar owned by an Irishman who, when he saw that my son-in-law was English, gave us pretty good service. But, we were there at about 9:30 for the 1:30 game so that was a long wait; especially for me since I could only have a couple of beers with coming back home later in the aft. Had corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast and it was some of the best I’ve had…not the weird tasting stuff you get from a can but really tender, home-cooked corned beef.
Oh, the game, I thought it was a good result for the USA to come away with a tie 1-1, but my son-in-law and the other Englanders were despondent that they could tie with the lowly US. I have to say congrats to Tim Howard, our goaltender, who took what I thought was a red card play when the English player came in studs up and put both feet into his chest. This was early in the match and he stayed in and made so many game saving plays it was hard to count them…doesn’t say much for our defense, though….
Now we just need to beat Slovenia Friday morning and we might get to the knockout stage…..