World Cup

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scutdoc said:
I wonder if anything would've changed if Landon Donovan was on the team? Probably not.
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He's a better player than broadcaster, that's for sure.
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Bradley looked nothing like the captain of the ship at center midfield as he should have and that goes for group play, as well. His lob to Green in extra time today was his only bright spot in this World Cup that I could see.

Belgium was the better team, we had the better goalie. As has been thematic of this World Cup and of soccer that I have observed in general, playing not to lose is playing not to win. We look so much better and actually create opportunities to score, when our offense is more balanced with our defense.

I was happy to make it out of Group play and will be even happier if Alexi Lalas is not an ESPN analyst in 2018.
 
Last 15 min was awesome. So many opportunities. Howard had 16 saves. He was great. But USA sucks.
 
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WholeLottaGame7 said:
Dempsey's a great player, he's just out of his element when he's asked to play alone up top. I agree we haven't had an elite scorer in...ever... but that's not our only issue. We just can't control the ball for extended periods of time. We were outplayed by 3 out of the 4 teams we played, we were just lucky enough to capitalize on a couple good strikes on the one team we beat (Ghana). You can beat some teams by playing soft and then catching them on the counter-attack, but it's not a recipe for extended success.

We're still a long ways away from being a contender, despite the heart and passion.
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Jermaine Jones was also pretty much useless the latter two games. Couple that with Bradley unable to hold onto the ball and Dempsey alone up front and you don't have a recipe for success.
 
On average Belgium should beat the US 7 or 8 times out of ten; let's put it this way : there is no player on the US squad i would rather have on the Belgian team. Good game, should have been settled way before OT
 
dhb said:
On average Belgium should beat the US 7 or 8 times out of ten; let's put it this way : there is no player on the US squad i would rather have on the Belgian team. Good game, should have been settled way before OT
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Excluding Timmy, of course...
 
Thibaut Courtois is better than Tim Howard. He is the starting goalie for the current La Liga champion and UCL runner-up. He also won the Zamora trophy for being the La Liga GK with the least goals received. He is easily among the top 5 GK worldwide. Tim Howard had a career game yesterday but he's not as consistent as Courtois.
 
WholeLottaGame7 said:
Excluding Timmy, of course...
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Excuse me but i'll go with the goalie for the spanish league national champion who also had the least goals scored against during the competition (2 years in a row) and runner up in the Champions league over the goalie for the all mighty Everton who happened to have a good game and lots of balls directed to him.
 
I'll allow it. Probably Neuer, Courtois and then I don't know who else would round that top 3. Probably Buffon despite his age or maybe Keilor Navas. Casillas has been too fallible lately.
 
dhb said:
On average Belgium should beat the US 7 or 8 times out of ten; let's put it this way : there is no player on the US squad i would rather have on the Belgian team. Good game, should have been settled way before OT
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I agree with that, mostly.

Especially that the game should've been settled in the first 90. That game probably could've been 3-1 or 5-2 Belgium.

And it kills me that the US popped one over an open goal around the 87th minute from about 4 yards out. But those are the breaks.

Really would like to see Belgium take it all. Anyone but Brazil or Argentina (sorry sevo :)).

I was really hoping to see Nigeria or Algeria bump off France or Germany too.
 
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POW16 said:
Thibaut Courtois is better than Tim Howard. He is the starting goalie for the current La Liga champion and UCL runner-up. He also won the Zamora trophy for being the La Liga GK with the least goals received. He is easily among the top 5 GK worldwide. Tim Howard had a career game yesterday but he's not as consistent as Courtois.
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Goals allowed reflects a lot more than goalkeeping and a league champion would be expected to have an above average if not elite defense. I would argue that a goalie who saves 15 of 20 shots is better than one who saves 2 out of 3 (I say this as someone who played goalie on a lot of bad teams). Obviously that still does not account for things such as difficulty of shot, etc, but it's a start.

I'm looking for something like this: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/tim-howard-lost-but-he-just-had-the-best-match-of-the-world-cup/, but with a larger sample size (like a full EPL season).

It wouldn't be hard. For example, baseball has moved beyond saying "X player made the fewest number of errors, he must be the best defensive SS in the game." You can now say, a ball hit to Y spot with Z velocity will be fielded A% of the time, and thereby determine a player's value relative to his peers. It seems like it would be fairly easy to say a ball hit to X spot in the net from Y angle and Z distance from the goal, with A velocity, would be saved B% of the time.

So, I'm just genuinely curious if there's any data out there like that, rather than saying, "Oh Courtois plays on the best team, which shockingly gave up the fewest number of goals, he must be the best goalie."
 
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I don't know if there's "data" or stats for this. Maybe. The most commonly used piece of info is the ratio of goals allowed per games played. Call it simplistic but it's fair and in Spain, the award usually goes to a great goalie.

Howard is a great GK but even in the EPL, De Gea, Cech and perhaps even Lloris outclass him. You don't need stats to realize that, just to follow soccer on a weekly basis between August and May.
 
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POW16 said:
I don't know if there's "data" or stats for this. Maybe. The most commonly used piece of info is the ratio of goals allowed per games played. Call it simplistic but it's fair and in Spain, the award usually goes to a great goalie.

Howard is a great GK but even in the EPL, De Gea, Cech and perhaps even Lloris outclass him. You don't need stats to realize that, just to follow soccer on a weekly basis between August and May.
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That's fine and well, but most major sports (baseball, basketball, football, hockey) have moved beyond the "you don't need stats, you just need your good ol' eyeball" test for player performance/evaluation. When hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line, you can't just say "So-and-so looks pretty good" and make decisions off of that, so I presume there is data out there.

Not trying to rain on anybody's parade, because I know that half of the fun of sports is being a casual fan and having passionate arguments about things you're not an expert on. I'm just positing that somewhere out there, there is probably actual data on who the best goalies are. And a lot of times, the data and the scouting line up. But sometimes they don't, and that's where you can gain an advantage. The Moneyball principle, so to speak.

If I can find anything without an excessive time/effort expenditure, I'll be sure to report back.
 
Soccer does seem behind the times as far as statistical analysis as well as other aspects. I recall reading somewhere that Milan was thinking of bringing in different coaches for their midfield, strikers, keepers, etc... It was being hailed as a big breakthrough where the NFL and MLB have had that sort of thing for years.
 
This is the crappiest Brazilian team I can remember. I sincerely hope Germany sends them home.
 
It seems like several of the big teams have been pretty crappy this World Cup. Even Argentina with Messi hasn't played well, I don't think. I won't be too surprised if Belgium beats them.
 
Now that neymar has a lumbar vertebral fracture the Brazilians and they're bandwagon will blame that on their loss to the German machine... even though I believe the Germans would have won anyway.
 
the-knee-that-may-decide-the-2014-world-cup.jpg
 
article-2681224-1F678F7A00000578-381_634x843.jpg


sometimes those flops are for real...

Today should be good.
 
pgg said:
You, sir, are dead to me. At least for a little while.

OK, Messi seems like a good guy. I like to watch him play. The rest of 'em can flop their way out of this tournament early.
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Am I still dead to you?

:banana::banana:

:)

Did you see that belgium dude jump up, not get touched and then hit the ground while holding his head?

Worse flop eva! ;)
 
:) Harrumph.

Didn't get to watch the game. Someone's hip needed a hemi and someone else's tib/fib needed attention so I spent the morning in the OR.

Hoping to be out in time for Costa Rica v Netherlands.
 
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pgg said:
:) Harrumph.

Didn't get to watch the game. Someone's hip needed a hemi and someone else's tib/fib needed attention so I spent the morning in the OR.

Hoping to be out in time for Costa Rica v Netherlands.
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Ahh that sux. Here is hoping you get out this afternoon...:luck::xf:
 
Can't believe we got put to sleep by the Argentinian non play. We were completely unable to bring pressure in the 2nd half...
 
Even when he's not scoring or setting up goals, Messi does at least 3-4 things per game that are just head and shoulders above anybody else. That through ball in the first half was impeccable, and that cross he chested and somehow almost got out of a triple team then was fouled just outside the box come to mind.

Anyway, with re: to the earlier topic of keepers and analytics, I have found a couple articles out there. Soccer analysis seems to be about where baseball analysis was 10-15 years ago, mostly the purview of independent bloggers, though some of them are quite good.

A couple samples:
http://www.statsbomb.com/2014/05/are-some-goalkeepers-better-at-saving-shots-than-others/
https://differentgame.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/marshalling-the-defence/

As expected for a position that has (relatively) fewer exposures, there's a lot of variation out there. But Cech is consistently up there, as is Joe Hart, which I was a little surprised to see (though I do mostly associate him with his gaffe in the last WC). Howard rates highly, as do Neuer and Buffon and Navas (though Navas drives me crazy with his theatrics). De Gea looks good in the 4-year sample but not in the smaller samples. Lloris looks pretty average in both articles. Courtois looks average in the article he appears in, as does Casillas.
 
I don't know any coach who in their right mind would pick Hart over Courtois or Casillas. Just my opinion, but those stats are pretty useless.
 
POW16 said:
I don't know any coach who in their right mind would pick Hart over Courtois or Casillas. Just my opinion, but those stats are pretty useless.
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Stats are rarely useless; like stats in medicine, you just have to decide how much weight to put behind them based on the strength of evidence/applicability of the study group. You can keep arguing that your septic patients do better on dopa than NE or that your OR patients do better transfused to a Hgb of 10, but at some point the mountain of evidence will start to outweigh whatever anecdotal evidence you've accumulated.

I'm not saying soccer analysis is there yet. I'm just throwing it out there that perception (especially untrained perception like ours) might not match reality, and if you're interested in more evidence-based analysis, it's available. Again, I recognize that that's not what everybody is looking for when they watch sports; some people claim that all the analysis sucks the fun out of watching. Personally, I think it just adds depth and complexity to my understanding of sports, so to each their own.
 
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What's ridiculous is that this crappy Brazilian team got so far. They should have been sent home by Chile.
 
sevoflurane said:
The big elephant in the room is Germany.
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and still is...


That being said (and I don't like dissing other teams...) Brazil's defense (less so the offense) really sucked.
German players are really communicating and doing some beautiful 1-2 passes while running into open space. Superb.
Argentina/Netherlands have their work cut out for them.
:wideyed:
 
FFP said:
What's ridiculous is that this crappy Brazilian team got so far. They should have been sent home by Chile.
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They should've been eliminated in group play. Group A should've been
Mexico - 7
Croatia - 6
Brazil - 4
Cameroon - 0

I'm not normally one to blame the refs for a game outcome, but the Brazil - Croatia opening match was a gift to the home team. A clear 2-goal swing changes the outcome of that game to a Croatia win (Brazil's 3rd goal was in injury time vs a wide open attacking Croatia).

But. FIFA couldn't let the host team B R A S I L go down in the opening match.
 
Netherlands made a big mistake today not putting Krul as goalkeeper in the shootouts. It was a cruel mistake.
 
I'm in São Paulo right now. Could not believe Germany stomped brazil so bad. Even worse, arg beat NED so now I don't get to see the classic rival match of Brazil x arg. Sucks!
 
pgg said:
He's a better player than broadcaster, that's for sure.
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I don't know much about soccer. But let me tell you what I find annoying.

After someone kicks a goal, the guy that kicked it usually continues running even faster! It makes me so tired. I mean...come on man, take a break - you just ran a LONG way really fast! Sheesh.

Actually, when I was an intern at Forest Park Hospital in St. Louis, the cardiologist (who I seem to remember was an Argentinan) told me story about how he used to do physicals on the professional soccer players and how he would have the treadmill at a very steep angle, at high speed, and how they barely had an increased heart rate (or something like that...I don't remember...it was many years ago). Anyway, he also talked about how huge all their hearts are.

These guys must have incredibly efficient and large pumps in their chest.
 
The sprinting after scoring seems a lot more genuine than the rehearsed and choreographed end zone celebrations in the NFL, that got so bad they had to start calling 15 yard taunting penalties on them. I prefer the Vince Lombardi philosophy: "When you go in the end zone, act like you've been there before." Barry Sanders did that, not many others do.
 
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What I want to know is this: hey Netherlands, remember when you put the taller goalie in against Costa Rica? Maybe umm... Do it again in the penalties against Argentina... Maybe!? Lol seriously why fix what ain't broken when you're talking about eyeing the World Cup.
 
wjs010 said:
What I want to know is this: hey Netherlands, remember when you put the taller goalie in against Costa Rica? Maybe umm... Do it again in the penalties against Argentina... Maybe!? Lol seriously why fix what ain't broken when you're talking about eyeing the World Cup.
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See my previous post.
 
wjs010 said:
What I want to know is this: hey Netherlands, remember when you put the taller goalie in against Costa Rica? Maybe umm... Do it again in the penalties against Argentina... Maybe!? Lol seriously why fix what ain't broken when you're talking about eyeing the World Cup.
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Yeah, they took out Van Persie and tried going for the win in overtime rather than resorting to penalties. Not that bad a move given Romero's skill.

On the other hand, while the Krul move turned out magically, if you actually look into it his performance wasn't that special. The last goal he blocked is only made in 46% of chances anyways.
 
sevoflurane said:
The better team won. ...:grumpy:
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The less bad team won.

Overall, there were 32 relatively crappy teams at this WC. None unforgettable. Actually, I hope to forget this entire WC soon (except for the 7-1).

Most of the top European club teams would beat easily the huge majority of these national teams.
 
FFP said:
The less bad team won.

Overall, there were 32 relatively crappy teams at this WC. None unforgettable. Actually, I hope to forget this entire WC soon (except for the 7-1).

Most of the top European club teams would beat easily the huge majority of these national teams.
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Of course they would. Most European clubs have open checkbooks and get the top talent from every country out there. That's like saying the All-Star or Pro Bowl team would beat the majority of NBA/NFL teams.

That said, teams like Germany, Argentina, France and even Spain/Brazil (despite their poor showings) would be competitive against European clubs. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features...hampion-beat-the-best-club-team-in-the-world/
 
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