International Football (non-USMNT)
- Thread starter SoxFanInCali
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Czech Republic 1-2 Armenia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02KMSD8pcv8
Gevorg Ghazaryan scores the winner in the 91st minute. Petr Cech saved it, but deflected it against G.G.'s head, and into the net it goes.
Denmark next. It's a long shot, but they could make the second round playoff. Armenia host Denmark and Bulgaria, and then travel to Italy (who will be fully qualified by that point). Group B is very tight. That loss in Malta is a killer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02KMSD8pcv8
Gevorg Ghazaryan scores the winner in the 91st minute. Petr Cech saved it, but deflected it against G.G.'s head, and into the net it goes.
Denmark next. It's a long shot, but they could make the second round playoff. Armenia host Denmark and Bulgaria, and then travel to Italy (who will be fully qualified by that point). Group B is very tight. That loss in Malta is a killer.
Honduras just missed an open goal that would have put it away. Still 2-1 over Mexico, 4 minutes plus stoppage to go.
Looks like that debacle finally knocked some sense into the powers that be. De La Torre is out.
http://m.espn.go.com/soccer/story?storyId=1546652
http://m.espn.go.com/soccer/story?storyId=1546652
A great night for CR7. A second half hat trick @ Northern Ireland secures 3 points and moves him ahead of Eusebio to 2nd on the all time scoring list. He now has 43 goals for the Selecao, 4 behind Pauleta. The next match is Tuesday at Gillette vs Brazil.
Bosoxen said:
I love that he blamed the players for the defeat.
Edit: Who coaches on Tuesday? Who are they looking at to lead going forward?
I love that he blamed the players for the defeat.
Edit: Who coaches on Tuesday? Who are they looking at to lead going forward?
Luis Fernando Tena will take over on an interim basis. He was the manager for the U-23 club and has the skins, having led them to the gold medal in the Olympics.
It's a tall order for him to make the massive turnaround necessary to salvage any points in Columbus on Tuesday. But it was a move that had to be done, though it was done way too late.
Infield Infidel said:
First, I erred above, CV would advance to the CAF playoffs with a win, which they fucking pulled off. Needing a win to advance, they went into Tunisia and won 2-0. CV wins the group
The five spots will be decided in 5 two-legged playoffs among these ten teams
Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, and the winner of group I, either Cameroon/Libya, who play tomorrow; Cameroon is one point ahead.
edit- Cameroon won 1-0 over Libya, so they are the tenth team. The draw is Sept 16, seeded based on FIFA rankings that are released on Thursday.
From the August rankings, it looks pretty likely that we know the five seeds:
18. Ivory Coast
24. Ghana
34. Algeria
35. Nigeria
36. Cape Verde
48. Burkina Faso
51. Cameroon
61. Egypt
78. Senegal
102. Ethiopia
Based on the FIFA calculator, based on results in the last month, Cape Verde are currently on 739 ranking points, Nigeria has 709, Algeria has 704, and Burkina Faso have 628. Even a 3-0 win over Nigeria on Tuesday wouldn't help Burkina Faso overtake the Super Eagles or Algeria, which could lose 3-0 to Mali and still be 50 points clear of Burkina Faso. Cameroon is well behind Burkina Faso in ranking points, even though they were only three spots behind Burkina Faso in the August rankings.
The one matchup I don't want to see--which probably makes it inevitable--is Cape Verde vs Egypt. Anything else and we're guaranteed seeing an unexpected visitor in Brazil.
18. Ivory Coast
24. Ghana
34. Algeria
35. Nigeria
36. Cape Verde
48. Burkina Faso
51. Cameroon
61. Egypt
78. Senegal
102. Ethiopia
Based on the FIFA calculator, based on results in the last month, Cape Verde are currently on 739 ranking points, Nigeria has 709, Algeria has 704, and Burkina Faso have 628. Even a 3-0 win over Nigeria on Tuesday wouldn't help Burkina Faso overtake the Super Eagles or Algeria, which could lose 3-0 to Mali and still be 50 points clear of Burkina Faso. Cameroon is well behind Burkina Faso in ranking points, even though they were only three spots behind Burkina Faso in the August rankings.
The one matchup I don't want to see--which probably makes it inevitable--is Cape Verde vs Egypt. Anything else and we're guaranteed seeing an unexpected visitor in Brazil.
With Us-Mex on ESPN, Honduras-Panama on BEIN, Red Sox on NESN, Poker on Deuce, and Motorcross on NBCSN, anyone have a clue if Brazil Portugal is being shown live on some DVR-able place?
(BEIN seems to be showing on 24 hour tape delay, and Fox Soccer channel seems to be gone from my lineup replaces with some FXXX movie crap)
Thanks.
(BEIN seems to be showing on 24 hour tape delay, and Fox Soccer channel seems to be gone from my lineup replaces with some FXXX movie crap)
Thanks.
DLew On Roids said:
Old friend Bob Bradley got another win for Egypt today. I agree that I don't want Cape Verde to play Egypt, but really all the lower pot teams are dangerous save Ethiopia. Senegal hasn't really played a full-strength squad but would assuredly get both Ba and Cisse for the playoff; Cameroon is similar to Senegal in that regard (although CV beat them last year in a playoff); Burkina Faso was in the Africa Cup of Nations final, are tough to crack defensively but have trouble scoring.
Also, Cape Verde got a shout out in Guardian Football podcast, which is awesome. While I know they only have 500,000 residents, i didn' know it was 177th in the world by population and would be the smallest WC entrant ever.
Jordan won a shoot-out with Uzbekistan 9-8 to win the Asian playoff spot. The match was delayed 18 minutes due to a flood-light failure during extra time.
Jordan will have a playoff with the 5th place team from South America for a spot in the World cup
Jordan will have a playoff with the 5th place team from South America for a spot in the World cup
England lead their qualifying group with 2 games to go, despite their only wins being against Moldova and San Marino.
Heard a rumor that BEIN (192) may change from Hond-Pana to Brasil-Port, at game time, at least in the northeast, but guide still showing H-P now.
Yep. Everyone interested in the result of Honduras-Panama is watching ESPN anyway. And any H-P interest is 99% based on the result, and not the game play / entertainment.Bosoxen said:
By regional, you mean Central America? Because i'm fairly sure there are more people who'd rather see Brazil change their socks than Honduras or Panama play soccer. Panama is one of the worst fanbases around anyway.
Honestly, though, I'm internally complaining about my own lack of friendbase that couldn't go to Foxboro tonight, and Fox, more than BEIN's choice.
But I'm 100000% positive that, if put on ESPN2 tonight, Brazil Portugal friendly would get higher ratings than Honduras Panama WCQ, with obvious importance for USA and Mexican qualification. The fact that World Poker could/would outdraw either game is a different discussion.
You do realize Mexicans don't make up 100% of the Hispanic population in the United States, right? There would be more people going out of their way to watch that game than to watch Brazil "change their socks." Besides that, what do you think are the odds you'd even see the big names like Neymar or Hulk?
Never mind that the friendly can be aired on tape delay with no risk of giving away the end result. A World Cup qualifier, on the other hand, is best aired live.
Never mind that the friendly can be aired on tape delay with no risk of giving away the end result. A World Cup qualifier, on the other hand, is best aired live.
Neymar, as well as TSilva, Maicon, and other world superstars bigger than all the fame in Honduras and Panama, are indeed playing btw.
At this point I am 10,000% more interested in Honduras-Panama than I am a Brazil-Portugal friendly.
Lincoln Financial and Citizen's Bank should hire some of those helmeted policemen/soldiers from Tegucialpa for their own stadia. Looks like a warzone over there.
It should be noted that according to the Pew Research Center, there are almost 800,000 Hondurenos in the United States. So while it may not be a huge number, it is a sizeable group. Anyways, with the result Mexico are now on the outside looking in on qualification. They are level on points with Panama for the playoff spot but are behind on goal differential. They still do control their destiny as they will host Panama next month at la Azteca in a must win match. If they limp to a draw, then they would have to travel to the Costa Rica and get a result- something that based on their current form seems unlikely - and hope that team USA takes care of business in Panama in match that really will not matter to the yanks.
One point that I think I heard on the broadcast last night that is an interesting contrast with the USA is to examine how some of the Mexico's best players have developed after their European moves. Dos Santos, Moreno, Chicarito, now Herrera all moved to Europe and have suffered a bit in playing time (more Chicarito and potentially Herrera today, the other players in the past at least). Klinsmann has placed a tremendous emphasis on players playing regularly, as does most of Europe, but at least in my head I would have always wanted Jozy, Dempsey, Donovan, etc at bigger clubs playing against better competition, but it's interesting (to me) to think about how my head may be really wrong here. Much of this may be chicken and egg stuff, maybe they're not playing much at their clubs because their current form isn't good enough for club or country, but I can't help but wonder if some of the problems Mexico has experienced in this qualification haven't been related to these players playing less in general or less featured roles for their clubs than they are asked to play for their country.
That's too much ado about nothing, though. Mexico's problems run way deeper than that, even though inconsistent club playing time doesn't help matters. Guardado plays pretty regularly for Valencia and he's one of the most inconsistent players on the team. Chicharito scored 18 goals for Manchester United last season in sporadic playing time. That these players get irregular playing time is not the sole cause of the team's poor form.
Take a look at Mexico's results in the Hex and the largest issue is pretty obvious: they can't score goals. Whether that's due to tactics or player inconsistency (Guardado and Dos Santos, in particular) remains to be seen. But under normal circumstances, bringing in a striker like Peralta will result in at least a hope of increased scoring chances. My reaction when he was brought in was that they were just shuffling chairs on the Titanic because the midfield was not linking up with the players up front at all, evidenced by the fact that Chicharito was basically nonexistent. That is an issue that has plagued the team for just about a calendar year now.
Which gets me to the larger issue at hand. I'd always found it curious why Carlos Vela, one of the key players in the "golden generation" had become a forgotten man. Now, he's not exactly lighting it up for Real Sociedad (14 goals in 38 appearances), but he's still a talented player that could really help the Mexican squad. It turns out that there were some personal issues between himself and executives of the Mexican federation, most notably de la Torre. It's curious that his name is now starting to pop up as a potential addition to the team for the next round of qualifiers. This leads me to believe that there is a deep-seeded dysfunction in the federation and that removing the manager is only a small part of what needs to be done. What else is necessary is beyond my comprehension. But the fact that multiple Liga MX managers were vying for de la Torre's job long before his dismissal says a lot to me about the stability of that organization.
Take a look at Mexico's results in the Hex and the largest issue is pretty obvious: they can't score goals. Whether that's due to tactics or player inconsistency (Guardado and Dos Santos, in particular) remains to be seen. But under normal circumstances, bringing in a striker like Peralta will result in at least a hope of increased scoring chances. My reaction when he was brought in was that they were just shuffling chairs on the Titanic because the midfield was not linking up with the players up front at all, evidenced by the fact that Chicharito was basically nonexistent. That is an issue that has plagued the team for just about a calendar year now.
Which gets me to the larger issue at hand. I'd always found it curious why Carlos Vela, one of the key players in the "golden generation" had become a forgotten man. Now, he's not exactly lighting it up for Real Sociedad (14 goals in 38 appearances), but he's still a talented player that could really help the Mexican squad. It turns out that there were some personal issues between himself and executives of the Mexican federation, most notably de la Torre. It's curious that his name is now starting to pop up as a potential addition to the team for the next round of qualifiers. This leads me to believe that there is a deep-seeded dysfunction in the federation and that removing the manager is only a small part of what needs to be done. What else is necessary is beyond my comprehension. But the fact that multiple Liga MX managers were vying for de la Torre's job long before his dismissal says a lot to me about the stability of that organization.
Bosoxen said:
Yeah, I'm definitely not positing it as THE cause or even a likely secondary or further cause. But it is eerily reminiscent to me of when Altidore was struggling for time throughout Europe, Onyewu went to Milan, etc... I remember personally feeling like any time an American get get over to a "big" league and get that kind of experience, it was worth it just to train. My thinking, certainly, has evolved. More about me than it is about Mexico, but it seemed relevant to some extent.
I agree with you about Mexico's attack. I think I've watched some or all of 3 of their qualifiers, and nothing is coming off for them. I think Chicarito's exclusion at United has really hurt, he was on some fine goal poaching form there for a while, and he's just not that player right now. As much because he has very little service and the strikers are very disconnected from the rest of the team. Dos Santos and Guardado are not consistent, but I do feel like they are being asked to do more than they are capable of. They're kind of supposed to create a bunch of offense for the team but I think I feel like they're similarly stranded forward in the 4-3-3 Mexico has been sort of playing, without a ton of passing options for some of the creative triangles I'd expect them to play.
Overall, I'd definitely defer to you on Mexico and your knowledge of the team. I don't follow the squad specifically, just have a passing familiarity with the players. Expectations are a funny thing, and Mexico looked to be taking off just a few short years ago. Probably important for those of us in the USA to keep in mind.
teddykgb said:
You've touched on some of the main problems with the makeup of that squad with the bolded. Chicharito is at his best moving without the ball and flicking on crosses or poaching goals off of rebounds. Mexico sets him up too far back and he is often forced to create his own chances, which is decidedly not his forte. The other problem with that 4-3-3 formation is that it takes away the strength of the most dynamic player on the team, Dos Santos. He and Chicharito are at their best when they're in a 1-1 configuration up top with the left and right back supporting the attack from the outside. That setup gives Dos Santos more room to maneuver and create to either side, rather than being pinned to the sideline, and allows Chicharito to create space in the attacking zone with his movement. Dos Santos is easily the best dribbler on the team and is their best option to create an attack out of nothing (see video below). It's no coincidence that the downturn of the team began when de la Torre stubbornly started playing him out wide.
Maybe that occurred in order to play the back line further back, since one of their weaknesses was setting up on counter-attacks. They have managed to improve in that area, the Honduras game notwithstanding. But at what cost? Their attack is now too narrow and too disjointed because they lack that player that can connect the midfield with the forwards. They used to have such a dynamic system under Javier Aguirre but now it's too predictable and stale. I can only guess to what extent that's de la Torre's fault but that has to change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5z3-i560g4
New rankings are out.
1 Spain
2 Argentina
3 Germany
4 Italy
5 Colombia
6 Belgium
7 Uruguay
8 Brazil
9 Netherlands
10 Croatia
11 Portugal
12 Greece
13 USA
17 England
19 Cote d'Ivoire
21 Mexico
24 Ghana
42 Japan
67 New Zealand
1 Spain
2 Argentina
3 Germany
4 Italy
5 Colombia
6 Belgium
7 Uruguay
8 Brazil
9 Netherlands
10 Croatia
11 Portugal
12 Greece
13 USA
17 England
19 Cote d'Ivoire
21 Mexico
24 Ghana
42 Japan
67 New Zealand
Cape Verde were disqualified for fielding an ineligible player. Tunisia gets their spot. No word if CV can appeal
I'm pretty bummed.
I'm pretty bummed.
Infield Infidel said:
That's too bad for CV, but how stupid are some of these African federations? There have been so many games invalidated for using ineligible players.
Ethiopia
Equatorial Guinea (x2)
Cape Verde
Sudan
Burkina Faso
Gabon
Togo
FWIW, Cape Verde only finished first originally because their 4-3 loss to Equatorial Guinea was overturned due to EG's ineligible player.
It's pretty bad, but on the other hand, these federations are understaffed, usually by part-timers. Cape Verde's coach is an air-traffic controller, and coaches part-time. Apparently, they don't have the resources to keep track of red cards given 6 months ago. It sucks.
I would figure that CAF could remind these teams beforehand, but then again, they don't really have their shit together either. Such is the state of African football. That many of these teams get fielded and get to their destinations is itself an accomplishment.
I would figure that CAF could remind these teams beforehand, but then again, they don't really have their shit together either. Such is the state of African football. That many of these teams get fielded and get to their destinations is itself an accomplishment.
Well, they aren't going down without a fight http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/us-soccer-world-capeverde-idUSBRE98B0S220130912
Infield Infidel said:
At least this starts to make some sense of it. Counting to 4 isn't particularly hard, no matter what your day job is. But if they felt the suspension was void because the game was void, then at least there's a reason why this happened. I still don't understand how/why there have been so many.
I just watched the wild highlights from France-Belarus, and Lloris let in two ghastly goals, one where he whiffed a save, and another from about 30 yards, near post at an acute angle. France still won 4-2.
http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/worldcupcentral/id/694?cc=5901
http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/worldcupcentral/id/694?cc=5901
teddykgb said:
As best I can tell, this is the rule from FIFA (it's from the 2011 version of the rules, but I doubt it changed):
Rule 18
4. An expulsion automatically incurs suspension from the subsequent match,
even if imposed in a match that is later abandoned, annulled and/or forfeited.
The Disciplinary Committee may extend the duration of the suspension.