Back on Top

Clearly buoyed by my attendance at consecutive matches, the Union got two wins.  The Club World Cup ended in disarray.

Playing With a  Full Deck

The Mighty Quinn: Back from international break with two assists

With injuries and international duty easing, the Union starting XI on Saturday and Wednesday were close to what Manager Bradley Carnell might have projected back in February.  Not surprisingly, they got two wins, 2-0 over Red Bulls and 2-1 over Montreal.  Alas, the glass is half empty.

The half full part includes mostly stuff from the Red Bulls match;

- a dominant first half against Red Bulls in which the Union controlled the pitch and built a 2-0 lead in 24 minutes

- creative passing patterns in the Red Bull match, including a sequence that led to the second goal, seen here as this week's YouTubeableMoment

- pretty much a lockdown defense against Red Bulls that allowed no shots in the first half and only one shot on target, which came in second half stoppage time

- a gritty win against Montreal despite an overall poor performance

The half empty stuff?

- frequently intercepted passes in both matches

- inability to win a 50/50 challenge in midfield in both matches

- some shocking breakdowns in marking in the Montreal match

- these wins were against two of the weaker sides in the East

For sure the Montreal match was a "trap game," a home contest against the last place side in the middle of three games in eight days.  The numbers are not pretty.  Possession was 60/40 and shots were 14/12 favor the Union.  But shots on target were 4/4 and most notably, xG was 1.7/1.4 favor Montreal.  That last number suggests maybe some key saves from Andre Blake and indeed he did come up big late.  

Last week we argued that four was minimum and six expected from these two matches so the U met that target.  They finished the week back in first place by a point over Cincinnati and two ahead of Nashville.  Inter Miami are eight back but have three matches in hand.  No time to rest and they will need to be better against top teams.

Woke Up It Was A Chelsea Afternoon (apologies to Joni Mitchell)

Straight red? But his hair is curly

I can't say I saw this coming - total domination by Chelsea in a 3-0 pasting of PSG.  Cole Palmer had two identical goals at 22 and 30 minutes.  He then set up Joao Pedro with a perfectly weighted through ball that made it 3-0 just before the half time whistle.  You can see replays of the goals here; the video is worth it for the screaming commentator in the background alone.  PSG showed better in the second half but never broke through and frustration took over, as witnessed by Joao Neves grabbing Marc Cucarella's hair for a straight (curly?) red card.

A disappointing contest was followed by ugly post match afters on the pitch, including Luis Enrique shoving Joao Pedro to the ground plus Donald Trump trying to take over the award ceremony and possibly pocketing a gold medal.  Somehow, it all seems to capture FIFA at its best.

Make That 60% Less Shithousery

Caught a few of final group stage matches for the women's Euro Championship and was mildly disappointed at how some of the men's antics are creeping into the women's game.  Exaggerating the impact of minimal contact and grabbing body parts in pain that were never touched were the most common examples.  Just stop it.  

The two quarterfinals so far were tight.  Italy got a 90th minute goal from Girelli to beat Norway while Sweden - England went to seven rounds of PKs.  The Lionesses advanced 3-2 when Sweden missed their seventh PK.  England had fallen behind by two goals early after some shaky play out of the back but got two goals in quick succession at 79 and 81 minutes to level things.  

The Italy - Norway match provided a teaching moment about the offside rule.  A Norwegian attacker was wrestled to the ground in the box and the refereee promptly signaled for a PK.  The announcers noted the attacker was in an offside position when the ball was kicked and were puzzled when the VAR upheld the PK.  Mark Clattenburg provided a succinct explanation: the foul occurred before an offside infraction could occur. That particular scenario is specifically addressed by IFAB in Law 11.  In a situation where:

• a player in an offside position is moving towards the ball with the intention of playing the ball and is fouled before playing or attempting to play the ball, or challenging an opponent for the ball, the foul is penalised as it has occurred before the offside offence

We can debate whether this logical but the language is clear.  It's kind of like the keeper is supposed to know to ignore the guy standing in an offside position.  

The quarter finals continue over the weekend with the semis and final next week.

A Sort of Palace Coup

As explained here, Crystal Palace have been demoted from the Europa Cup to the less lucrative Europa Conference League.  The issue is that UEFA rules for club competition prohibit two clubs that share more than 30% ownership to participate in the same UEFA club competition.  Something about ensuring the integrity of the competition.  UEFA believes that the ownership structures of Crystal Palace and Lyon violate the rule so they moved Palace to the Conference League; they bumped Palace because of Lyon's higher finish in their league.  Nottingham Forest get to move up from Conference League to Europa Cup.  Palace have appealed so this isn't really over yet.  

You Can't Teach Speed

Newcastle have never been accused of great team speed.  The signing of Anthony Elanga changes that.  As shown here, Elanga has sub-11 second 100 meter speed.  Dennis is not impressed, telling me that a guy on his summer team has a PR of 10.8 and that's not even his primary event.  

Rumors continue to fly about Isak's possible departure to Liverpool but it's hard to know what the real story is.  The money Newcastle would get for him might make some of the financial regulations easier to meet but for me it would be a major disruption of the team they've been building over the last few years.

Who's Your Gaffer?

With the EPL just a few weeks away, we'll start to ease into the season.  Can you match the manager with his team?

 Working from scratch I could only get 12 but with all the names I did manage 16.

On the Light Side

We have the Union at Houston at 8:30.  This will be a chance to see Jack McGlynn with his new team.  Houston aren't exactly tearing it up but it is an away match and the U's third in eight days.  Houston have had a similar schedule so maybe that will even out.  

At the Euros, Spain and Switzerland face off today at 3 pm and France versus Germany is Saturday at 3 pm.  The semis are Tuesday (Italy vs England) and Wednesday (winners of Friday and Saturday quarterfinals), also at 3 pm.