No Double for Atletico

For the second Saturday in a row, we were treated to intriguing, high quality soccer.  While many followers of BFS may be dismayed that Atletico did not bring home the double, hopefully even they will admit that it was thrilling to watch.

Diego Costa, suffering from a hamstring injury, tried to duplicate Willis Reed's performance in the 7th game of the 1970 NBA Finals but could not make it through 10 minutes.  This was a major blow to the Atletico offense and to all those who thought horse placentas had a future in sports medicine.  Still the Mattress Makers struck first, aided by a questionable decision by Casillas to come off his line; he watched helplessly as Godin's soft header floated over his head into the goal.  Real Madrid's fortunes seemed to improve dramatically upon the introduction of Marcelo into the line up in the 59th minutes but through 92 minutes, Atletico still had the lead.  Then Sergio Ramos converted Luka Modric's corner with a beautiful header into the side netting to square the match in the 93rd minute.

Frankly, at that point, Atletico looked exhausted and it seemed likely that Real, like Arsenal the week before, would dominate in extra time.  And that indeed was the case.  Di Maria, who had wreaked havoc all day, made a beautiful run from the left; Courtois (Belgian!) made a nice save but the rebound found its way to Gareth Bale, who hung in the air long enough to redirect it into the net in the 110th minute.  Things got a little out of hand from that point and the 4-1 final score does not do justice to the Atletico effort.  A noble effort from both sides.

Heard grumbling from some quarters on the five minutes of stoppage time in the second half.  But
1) the neutrals at 6911 had estimated 4 minutes and 5 didn't seem unreasonable
2) the goal was scored in the 3rd minute

And thus endeth the European season.


Whither Newcastle

Just 32 days until the start of what will be an important summer transfer window for Newcastle.  A few simple numbers should demonstrate why.  Yohan Cabaye was a member of the squad through the 22nd match of the year.  By then Newcastle had accumulated 36 points; extrapolating for a 38-game season, that projects to 62 points, which would have been good enough for 8th place.  In the final 16 matches, they managed to earn just 13 points, which translates to 31 points over a full season or good enough for 19th place.

But wait, it gets worse.  It wasn't just Cabaye.  Loic Remy played in 26 matches.  The Magpies took 45 points in those matches and just four points in the 12 matches in which Remy didn't play.  See where I'm going?  They need to replace both Cabaye and Remy. This is probably oversimplification but all the rest of the personnel decisions will be equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic if they don't address those positions - a playmaker and a scorer.  All the other positions were good enough that they were headed to a solid finish before Cabaye left and Remy missed time due to injury and suspension.  Looking around, that makes some sense to me.  Krul is excellent in goal.  Debuchy seems fine.  Coloccini is aging but not awful.  Anita, Gouffran, Tiote and Sissoko are good enough. I have no idea what's up between Ben Arfa and Pardew.

So will they do it?  I read an article that I can no longer find about Sports Direct, the sporting goods chain that Newcastle owner Mike Ashley heads.  If I remember right, the essence was that the merchandise was affordable but not high quality - i.e. good enough for what you paid but far from the best.  Newcastle seem to operate that way too; like, as long as we stay in the Premier League and get that TV money, place does not matter.  But now relegation looks highly likely unless they act decisively this summer.  They either have to find underpriced, lesser-known talent (and they have had some success at that) or put out some serious bucks.  Will be following the transfer news closely.


EPL Esoterica courtesy of Football Manager

Did you know that EPL teams must have at least 8 "Home Grown" players on their 25-man rosters?  I didn't until I was working on the roster for my newly promoted Chester Blues.  As I was going through the transfer lists I kept getting a message that I needed 8 Home Grown players.  What?  From the EPL website:

All 20 Clubs must include eight Home Grown players out of a squad of 25 for that Premier League season.

A Home Grown player will be defined as one who, irrespective of his nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21).

The intent was to keep the EPL rosters from becoming completely stocked with foreign talent.  Turns out I had plenty but didn't know that until the players were "registered."

We've made some important signings, including major upgrades at keeper, left back and midfield.  Getting $48 million in TV money allowed for a $17 m transfer budget (before this year the most I had was $150k) and a weekly payroll of $210k (compared to $72k last year).  But it's also much more expensive up here.  Two key transfers took about $12 m.  Loans now typically have a $500k or more fee and the lending team usually requires the borrowing team to pay the player's full salary.  Free transfers continue to be a major source of talent.  Still a few holes to plug and we have some friendlies coming up so we are not completely set at this point - it's mid-July in game time. 


MLS

Let's take a quick look at how the Union are doing. Oh, that's not good.  A good result vs KC followed by pastings at the hands of New England and LA.  Sitting in 9th in the East, nothing seems to be working.  They play Western Conference cellar dwellar Chivas on Saturday.  Would think they need a win for Hackworth to keep his job.

Not much better farther north.  Red Bulls have just one point from their last four matches.


USMNT

Seemingly millions of words have already been spilled about Landon Donovan's omission from the World Cup roster.  Somewhat reluctantly, I will spill a few more.  Some say it's about youth but Donovan was really competing against guys like Brad Davis or Wondolowski, neither of whom are spring chickens in soccer.  I completely discount the idea that this decision was made with an eye towards the 2018 World Cup.  No national team coach can afford to look past a World Cup cycle.  Some says it's personal between coach and player but any national team coach knows he lives and dies by World Cup performance; can Klinsmann afford to let personal differences affect his choice of the best players to take to Brazil?  And though I personally have great memories of Donovan's time on the USMNT (WC goals in 2002 vs Mexico and 2010 vs Algeria stand out), the question is whether the experience is outweighed by the deterioration in skills.

On the face of it, if I had to choose between Donovan and Wondo, I would take Landon.  The one hesitation is whether he can be effective coming off the bench. 

A side note, Donovan's was hardly the only notable omission from the squad.  Parkhurst and Edu aren't huge surprises given that they were invited late in the process.  But Brad Evans, Clarence Goodson and Eddie Johnson were key players in last year's Gold Cup win and the World Cup qualifiers; Johnson didn't even make the 30 man roster.  I don't plan to judge Klinsmann on whether the US gets out of group play as that is a tall order given the group.  But I do plan to judge him on how the US plays.  If they are uninspired, uncreative, easily rattled, I think you can lay those at the feet of the Klinsmann and his roster decisions.

The newly named squad played a friendly on Tuesday night versus Azerbaijan.  The cold, gray and windy Candlestick Park in San Francisco seemed unchanged from when it was the home of the baseball Giants; probably made any EPL players feel right at home.  Recalling that friendlies aren't really about the result but rather how you played and also recognizing that Azerbaijan, ranked 85th the in world, was hardly the most challenging opponent, can't say this was a smashing success.  Wondo had two great opportunities early but couldn't put them away; that might be harsh as the keeper may have had something to do with it but you don't get all that many chances and you have to bury the ones you get.  Nobody was really in top form, though Johannssonsonnnnsonnn's heading finish for the second goal was pretty clinical.

And the fun starts in less than 2 weeks.

Arsene Wenger Smiles

There's a popular book on golf written by Harvey Penick called "And If You Play Golf, You're My Friend."  After taking in the FA Cup Final at Wallace's Sports Bar in Lyon Saturday night, I could write a book entitled "And If You Follow English Football, You're My Friend."  A crowd of maybe 30 or so gathered on the second floor; the first floor was taken over by an international rugby match - talk about rabid fans, hoo boy!  Upstairs we were a curious mix of ex-patriot English, French fans, and American tourists but we all spoke the same language - football.

The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Arsenal.  The two exceptions were a true Hull City fan with a well-worn Hull scarf and a Tottenham fan who was rooting against Arsenal as a matter of principle.  As the match proceeded, our comfort level grew and soon we were interacting with those around us - mostly about the EPL but also the epic clash between Atletico and Barca that we could sort of see on one of the other TVs and soccer more generally. The Tottenham fan (coincidentally named Mike - a bloke with a Cockney accent) asked how I came to be a Newcastle fan, suggesting that it was rare to find a Magpie supporter who wasn't from Newcastle; he also questioned the depth of my support when I could not pinpoint the exact year the team was formed.

Could we have asked for a more compelling match?  As a neutral I was not sure of my loyalties for this game but I definitely liked the fast start by Hull, thinking it would force Arsenal to step up their game.  Both of the goals required a bit of luck but they were not exactly unearned given the pressure that the Tigers were applying.  I felt a little bad for the Hull supporter, who arrived about 10 minutes into the match, thrilled that his side was up 2-0 but crestfallen that he had missed the two tallies.  Carzola's free kick was well-taken but if you watch the replay, MacGregor took a few steps to his right before realizing the ball was heading to his left; he recovered but only enough to slightly deflect the shot, which skidded under the bar.  Three goals in 17 minutes and the crowd was engaged.  Can't forget to mention that Oxlade-Chamberlain Kieran Gibbs headed another certain Hull goal off the line to keep the score at 2-1.

A brief aside here.  I did see many of Arsenal's matches this year and a common thread that I noticed was that, especially against weaker sides, they could be very slow off the mark.  Most of the time this played out as scoreless match well into the second half before the Gunners would tally a few goals to safely put away the three points.  The key to this was that they would never panic, seemingly assured that they had the quality to win.  This characteristic served them well yesterday.

And sure enough, Arsenal owned the second half.  Finishing was a bit off though.  Koscielny finally got the equalizer in the 72nd minute.  I saw one report that called it a tap-in; I guess, but that understates how much pressure he was under from the keeper as he put it away.  The Frenchman sitting next to me was more worried about whether Koscielny was hurt on the play - clearly an FA Cup goal is not worth missing the World Cup.  Did anybody notice that the corner that set up the goal should have been a goalkick?  Tough play to see so I'm not faulting referee Lee Probert and there was no way the AR could help.

Kieran Gibbs could have sealed the win in regular time but badly missed a wide open shot from the six; probably why he is a defender not a striker.  The Gunners pressed diligently through five minutes of stoppage time but could not find a winner.  The consensus at Wallace's was Hull were tiring and Arsenal would dominate the added extra time and save us all from the dreaded PKs.  Plenty of pressure but Ramsey taking multiple shots from 20-30 yards was not the formula for a goal.  Then Giroud drops a nifty backheel pass right in Ramsey's path and the Welshman does not miss from 14 yards out.  A quality goal worthy of an FA Cup winner.

Except wait, it's not over.  Fabianski inexplicably tries to beat Aluko to a loose ball 20 yards out but does not get there; Aluko's shot is barely wide.  A few minutes later Aluko tests Fabianski again; he sees it late but makes a diving stop.  Arsenal fans are looking for the AEDs (Automatic External Defibrillators) but they're going to be okay.

Ramsey got the Man of the Match but it feels a bit like me missing 10 straight three-pointers at Monday night basketball, then sinking a game winning three; is that really MOTM worthy?  But it's hard to come up with alternatives - Gibbs' defensive header was key but he also missed the potential game winner.  What about Koscielny?

And over on the other screen we can see that Atletico and Barca have drawn, which means the title goes to the Mattress Makers.  Those around us seem pleased by this, something about "breaking the monopoly."

We'll never see these people again but it was a special moment, sharing our passion for the game with fans of all different makes.


Next week we'll look in on the Union's mixed fortunes and talk about the Newcastle season.  Here's a sneak peek.  Loic Remy played in 26 of Newcastle's 38 EPL matches.  In those 26 matches the Magpies scored 41 goals; in the other 12 they managed just two goals and one of those was an own goal.  I know correlation and casualty aren't the same thing but damn that seems revealing.