Heroic USA hold Italy

Eurosport ^ | 6/18/06 | Reda Maher

[Berlin_Freeper]

A heroic defensive display by nine-man USA held Italy to a 1-1 draw in Kaiserslauten in their Group E clash on Saturday.

[Condor51]

I'm no 'soccerphile', but as I recall from watching yesterday the USA had two players get a Red Card to Italy's one. (So much for your "10 men each")

In addition, the 1st USA Red Card was bull crap, it should have been a Yellow. That call was a makeup call, pure and simple. Again, I'm no "soccerphile", just some dumb American with a limited knowledge of soccer who watched the game.

BTW, Germany's going to win the Cup. You can take that to the bank.

(oops... I don't know anything about soccer, forget I said that)

[Paloma_55]

I could not believe the 2nd red card...

I used to play soccer and actually got a red card one time, but I had to punch someone in the nose to get it.

Simply slide tackling a guy (after making contact with the ball) is a yellow card offense at best.

[RKV]

So Italy played with a one man advantage for much longer than the US and they didn't score then either - I guess that wasn't heroic.

[Canard]

"FIFA rankings are done by a machine that doesn't represent reality."

"Anyone who ranks the US ahead of Italy (or England or Portugal) needs to reexamine their rating method."

This is true to a certain extent. However, the rankings actually do seem more accurate than people usually credit. If you follow a simple method of betting on the higher ranked team in each match in a World Cup, this method will usually show a profit - conclusion, the rankings are more accurate than people's perceptions of which are the best teams generally are. A lot of the time, the traditional footballing powers tend to be overrated in the popular perception.

FWIW, I personally rank the USA superior to Portugal at this present moment and don't think that it's at all a given that Italy or England are better either.

[91B]

We're still yet to win a world cup match in Europe. Unless we beat Ghana and Italy beats the Czechs, we are done. According to all the hype, this is supposed to be the "best American team ever". Two games and not one goal of our own-doesn't look too impressive to me.

[Brit1]

The 'own goal' was a forced error in the Goal Area by Italy after pressure from the USA. It was entertaning to watch and the result was about fair. Congratulations USA for holding Italy one of Europes premier soccer nations to a draw.

[Canard]

"For realistic rankings check out World Football Elo Ratings. (Scroll to the middle of the page for the rankings.)"

The Vatican play one friendly match against a club side 4 years ago and get ranked above Niue, Bhutan, Tibet, Kiribati, Eastern Samoa, Guam and Palau?!

[wtc911]

There are no 'heroics' in sports.

[RKV]

Looks more like a barfight than soccer to me.

[freedom moose]

SOCCER IS FOR GAYS. SOCCER IS A SOCIALIST PLOT. SOCCER IS BORING. ooops sorry i got caught up in the usual mood of these threads. (no i'm not attacking you JTG).
I think you are right, the US needs to score goals if it wants to win (now i sound like one of those NFL guys who says...If so and so wants to win today they need to put more points on the board the the other guys)
Anyway, I was quite surprised at how the USA played yesterday. I thought the came out hitting hard and it's a shame they just can't score some more points. What do you think will happen against Ghana?

[Chgogal]

Mench, sei nett zu Freeper_Berlin.

No, need to act like the boorish European Fussball fan. So, be nice. BTW, the ref sucked so do hush. I won't point out that the US played with one man down the last half. Oops, I just now did. ;)

Berlin_Freeper do you know anything about this?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1650589/posts

[RKV]

I am a fan and I happen to know that many teams do not score, man advantage or not. Plenty of 0-0 games to be found in many leagues. It's hard for many Americans to enjoy soccer because it is very much a defensive game. As one of my coach friends puts it - "first don't let them score." As he is a division 1 NCAA coach with a winning record, I take his advice seriously.

[Non-Sequitur]

Ghana beating the czechs. now THAT was heroic.

Is Ghana that good? Or did the Czechs have a let down after beating the US?

[RKV]

And here's why this game was heroic. McBride played on after this. IIRC it took stiches to close the wound.

[austinTparty]

Ghana was African champion... they are that good.