I slam him because he doesn’t play Mr. Joseph Scally. And choosing Morris over Pefok.
World Cup 2022
- Thread starter Gotham Gator
- Start date
Nope. When I click on entries it just says the main entry period is locked.
Don't watch at a bar. Watch (or at least pregame) at a coffeeshop. ;-)
#fondmemories
Sidenote. I just looked up The Bulldog. Holy crap. I was there in 1990 and it was just a single coffeeshop, a cool (tho touristy) place to grab some Thai Stick. Much better places only a few doors down the side alley. But The Bulldog merch was very cool to my 17-year old self. Now it's like a whole huge corporate brand with hotels and bars and clubs around the world. I guess a cool logo and a posh location can work wonders.
Wow Belgium is OUT. Also Morocco won the group, so if Spain wins their group it’s a really tough R16 match vs Croatia. Now if Germany can get knocked out later it will be a wonderful day of soccer!!
Don’t forget we DOMINATED Morocco 3-0 back in June with this lineup:
I know a lot has changed with all the teams in this tournament, but just think about that Morocco match for a second, how we have yet to lose and outplayed England to a draw. I would have loved to see what we would have done in that group in place of Canada (I know we were in different pots).
Don’t forget we DOMINATED Morocco 3-0 back in June with this lineup:
I know a lot has changed with all the teams in this tournament, but just think about that Morocco match for a second, how we have yet to lose and outplayed England to a draw. I would have loved to see what we would have done in that group in place of Canada (I know we were in different pots).
Zero points for for me from Group F predictions. I had 1 Belgium 2 Canada.
Yeah, at some point the GGG out crowd decided they didn't like him and have just stuck to that, no matter the results.
The USMNT accounts on twitter are especially bad at it, generally laying out the below:
- If you give GGG any credit, or push back on any criticism, you are a "Berhalter apologist"
- Criticizing all of the US soccer media for not continuously pushing back at GGG during press conferences, even though they do ask probing questions. It seems like they often want the same questions asked over and over.
- Pushing that there is some kind of MLS player quota, even though the number of MLS players that have played in the WC so far is quite limited (and the only goal they gave up was to a MLS player!)
- Very seldomly, giving GGG "props" so they can say that they do give credit where it is due, but that is contained within mountains of criticisms (which some are definitely legit).
- On top of the last bullet, pushing back on US soccer media accounts that occasionally call out the constant, all the time, completely negative bashing of GGG and saying that the US soccer media isn't "allowing criticism" of GGG.
Gregg spells his name with 3 Gs.
that’s great. Don’t forget he wasn’t even a starter since he joined LAFC. So it was a career MLS bench player who scored on them. Perspective is a funny thing.
All true. Generally soccer is the only sport where I can check a post-game thread after a team wins (club, country, whatever) and routinely expect to find criticism by fans of the winning team and especially its coach. The style was wrong. The lineup was wrong. No, the subs were wrong. The shape was wrong. We should have finished better. This is admittedly completely anecdotal and possibly just my perception but I don't see this nearly as much in American football (pro or college), baseball, basketball hockey or whatever. There's some, because there's always someone. But mostly winning cuts down the criticism considerably. But soccer fans seem very invested in having a team play a certain way with certain players regardless of results (or game state, or fitness, etc), and they always bemoan how their players did not finish their chances at some ungodly rate.
My other theory is that soccer games are more likely to be contested until the last seconds than other sports, while not also generally having the score flip flop. Basketball routinely goes down to the wire. Hockey, football a bit less but still a lot. Baseball is its own thing with no clock. But those sports have regular lead changes. Scoring first is always good, but in soccer it's often determinative all by itself. Other sports don't offer the game after game after game experience in which one team takes a 1 goal lead (sometimes 2) and then tries to see it out it for 20-40-70 minutes while neither team scores and fans on both sides can reasonably think "Just one damn play will end/change this completely!". I think that does weird things to our brains.
For all that, my overarching approach is that it is it's hard to balance and reconcile the reality that (1) all of we fans are less knowledgeable than the coaches and we don't see practices and have no clue what the locker room is like, with (2) a big part of the fun of following sports is being able to judge, offer opinions, gloat, bitch and moan and that's just how it is. But one measure of balance I think we should accept is, when the guy in charge, who does this for a living, and runs the practices and is in the locker room gets results, give him the fVcking benefit of the doubt. And that doesn't mean never criticize, but damn, have some perspective, let up every now and again, and pick your moments.
Here's another galaxy brain take from less than a month ago where it was assumed we could not advance from group:
Number 2 ranked team in the world couldn't get out of group. Yes I'm salty.
spain needs to send thank you cards to germany. ha. would have been crazy to have japan and costa rica advance out of the group. spain is lucky to get through on GD.
what a game! and what a surprise from japan. they have always been a solid team but always had trouble against the top soccer nations. they came to play this year and having all those players in europe is showing in their international play, much like the US.
The cynic is me feels like this is the result Spain wanted. They get Morocco instead of Croatia in the R16 and now avoid Brazil in the quarterfinals, probably getting Portugal/Swiss/Serbs/Cameroon instead. That’s the easier path to the semis.
Germany, Denmark. Belgium all gone. Italy didn’t even qualify. Imagine the odds you could have gotten on that parlay a year ago. Mexico gone. Canada was obliterated.
Then you have some bizarro game specific results: Saudi beats Argentina but loses to Poland. Japan beats Spain and Germany but loses to Costa Rica.
Yes, once Germany went up 3-2. But before that, they must have been a bit nervy.
Makes me think about how this Forum would be if it promoted the worst (most inflammatory, most caustic) posters. That's the tweeter biz model. OTOH, here I can (and do) literally turn off the posters who aggravate me.
FWIW, I don't go on the Tweeter for this reason (among others).
