Moving On

After seeing the quarters go about as well as I could have wanted, the semis were on the disappointing side.  France bottled Belgium up in a 1-0 win and England went down in extra time to Croatia 1-2.  The final?  I think I was pulling for France but mostly wanted an interesting match, which it was.  Certainly happy for many of the French players like Pogba, Giroud, Griezmann.  Also happy to see Luka Modric get recognition as the tournament's best player.  Rounding out the awards, Kane was the top scorer, Courtois got the Golden Glove as best keeper and Kylian Mbappe was cited as the best young player.  All seem like reasonable choices to me.  The biggest problem now is reconciling with the fact that an awesome tournament is over.

 
What's A Girl Gotta Do?

Wow, win the WC with a 4-2 victory in the final and get dissed by at least two of the commentators and other pundits as well.  I swear we heard more about how France won despite mediocre play throughout the tournament than how good they were.  Huh?  Les Bleus won six and drew once. Along the way they beat squads like Argentina, Belgium and Uruguay.  They won high scoring contests and defensive battles.  I thought they were the most complete and the most balanced team of the tournament.

In the final, there were indeed long spells when Croatia had the run of play.  Both Belgium and Croatia outpossessed France in the final two matches.  But, of course, the object of the game is not to have more possession but more goals (looking at you Spain).  I like this analysis from Rory Smith of the NYT; I think it goes a long way towards explaining why maybe France didn't seem as awesome as they really were.


Sympathy for the Red Devils (h/t Michael B - musical accompaniment courtesy Rolling Stones)

France ended Belgium's deep run into the tournament with a 1-0 win in the semis.  How do you stop a team with a deadly counterattack?  Let them have possession and keep your defensive shape.  The NY Times called it the "Stifle Tower."  Nick a goal on a set piece and take the win.

Eden Hazard leads the cheers in Brussels 

So this marvelous Belgium team goes home once again without any hardware.  But, this was definitely better stuff from them than we saw at the last World Cup or European Championships.  They did achieve some level of satisfaction with a 2-0 win over England to nail down third place in the tournament.  The 2-1 win over Brazil will likely rank as one of the better matches in World Cup history.  Was it enough to be a sort of redemption?   The country celebrated like it was (see right).  Their only loss was a close one to the eventually winner.  For some stretches, they were the most exciting team at the World Cup.  On balance, I think they deserve to celebrate.

And what of England's performance - success or no?  I thought Gareth Southgate's assessment was quite realistic:

“We finished in the top four, deservedly in this tournament, helped by the draw,” Southgate said. “But we're not a top four team yet. And we know that.”

No rose-colored glasses there.  Progress but more to do.


Heavy Cloud No Rain (musical accompaniment courtesy Sting [Newcastle fan!])

Every day the Newcastle newspapers are filled with new transfer rumors for the Magpies and every day, well, no rain.  We got Dubravka and Kenedy which is excellent in that we didn't lose two critical cogs from last year's squad.  We also added midfielder Ki Sung-yueng on a free transfer.  A decent player I guess.  But the list of names that we a) pursued and didn't get b) are pursuing but can't nail down or c) are rumored to be pursuing is frustratingly long.  Not even going to bother going through some of the names.  The scary part is that we've been through this before and I'm left wondering if there really is a decent transfer budget.

Jeff H sent along this post which suggests the Magpies might benefit from many of their early opponents dealing with World Cup hangovers.  As I noted to him, this is pretty thin gruel on which to be hanging your early season prospects.

Other sides have not been as quiet.  Liverpool have added Fabinho and Shaqiri and maybe Brazilian keeper Allison.  Man City, ever in need of more scoring punch, got Riyad Mahrez from Leicester City.  Man United have Fred and are rumored to be ready to plunk down big money to get Gareth Bale back in the EPL.  News today is that Petr Cech may be returning to Chelsea.  And speaking of Chelsea, in case you missed it, Antonio Conte was indeed sacked and replaced by Maurizio "Love Means Never Having to Say You're" Sarri.


Accam Before the Storm?

After watching Chicago rally from a goal deficit three times - the last one coming in the 94th minute - I was already doing the negotiating in my head.  A draw for the Union on the road isn't awful, blah, blah, blah.  And then we get this YouTubeableMoment from David Accam.  An outstanding individual play at a critical moment in the season from a player who was expected to have a big impact but until this play, hadn't really registered much of anything.  Does this mark a turnaround for him?  And a rallying point for the team?

Also, with Cory Burke getting a brace and generally creating havoc in the attacking end, C.J. Sapong will probably see some time on the bench.  Feel a little bad for him but the Union need scoring punch.  The win leaves the Union 7th, three points behind Montreal but we have two games in hand.  At least my worst fear - that we would wake up after the World Cup and find the Union hopelessly out of it - has not materialized.

The Union also continued their history of deep runs in the US Open Cup with a 1-0 win over Orlando.  Didn't see the match.  Jeff H reports that it was generally a good night at Talen Energy except for too many shots that weren't on frame.  They will play Chicago in the semis.


Best Use of Soccer Move in a Non-soccer Setting

Another reason this was such a great World Cup is the near-universal mockery of Neymar's injury antics now engender.  Check out this (h/t Dennis) moment from Wimbledon.  The setting was a Seniors Doubles match and Jonas Bjorkman is the player.  Really, he should be ashamed at this point. Neymar not Bjorkman.  Hopefully, the mocking will make it stop but I guess we'll see.


Light Viewing Ahead

Nothing like the last 5-6 weeks with the World Cup done.  We have the Union on Saturday night home against the LA Galaxy.  For those who need a more international fix, there is the International Champions Cup (details here), a kind of glorified pre-season tournament for European clubs that brings many of them here to the United States.  Sorry folks, but that's going to have to be enough to carry you to August 10th, when Man United will host Leicester in the EPL opener.  Ah, we can all probably use the break.