Messy

Not much normal about Tuesday night's Leagues Cup semi at Subaru Park.

 - Despite getting there a half hour earlier than usual, we were lucky to get the last parking spot in our favored church lot

- Messi jerseys of all types were almost as prevalent as Union attire

- The Union lost at home

- The Union gave up four goals at home

The only thing not out of whack was the sausage sandwich.  Wait, come to think of it, the roll crumbled as I ate it, leaving peppers and onions all over the place.  Bad omen.

But the weirdest part is how I'm going to try to explain that the final score of 1-4 was deceptive.  Start with expected goals.  According to The Athletic, the margin was 2.56 - .60 favor the Union.  Corners were 8-0, shots 16-5 and shots on target 4-4.  Yep, Miami scored on every shot on target.  We've known for a long time how much the U depend on Andre Blake and it was incredibly clear Tuesday night.  The Martinez goal at 3 minutes (I had barely finished cleaning up the peppers and onions) was simply a fabulous shot but also worth about .04 xG.  The Messi goal?  Still trying to figure out how Blake didn't stop that one, a change up from 30 yards (36.3 to be exact) with a .01 xG; seen here, I'll grant it was perfect placement but it was also clocked with a sundial.  The other two were breakaways resulting from defensive failures but Blake looked to have a decent chance to stop both.  On the other side of the pitch, the Union were generating much higher percent opportunities but they were either stopped by Drake Callender or flat out missed by the Union.  And that is a text book example of how xG will vary from the actual score.

Martinez negotiates with Messi to be in his next Lay's ad

Note I said deceptive, not unfair.  The U made a living eking wins out of their Leagues Cup matches and finally got caught.  Just too many things not working.  Some bright spots were Jose Martinez (did his normal defensive work, helped on the attacking side, didn't get a yellow card, wasn't taking crap from Messi), Damian Lowe (actually dispossessed Messi on a few occasions) and Bedoya (team played a bit better after he entered the match and he got the U's only goal).

They get to play in the third place match, which is not exactly a Miss Congeniality Award.  A win in that contest would get them a spot in next year's CONCACAF League of Champions, something their regular season performance seems unlikely to yield.  So, we hope they don't play like it's a consolation match.

Do You Want That In A Cup Or Are You Gonna Drink It Out Of The Can?

Figuring out the beer dispensing policies at Subaru Park has been difficult this year.  For MLS matches, they just give you the can and say enjoy.  For at least one of the CONCACAF Champions League matches, I know they poured it into a plastic cup.  But it might have only been for the game against the Mexican side Atlas.  For the Leagues Cup, they were just giving us the cans, even if the opponent was from Liga MX.  But for Tuesday night, they were pouring it again.

Our vendor said it was because of Messi.  Jeff H said he doubted that Messi fans would be throwing cans at their idol.  The vendor shrugged, suggesting maybe they were worried about disgruntled French fans, upset that Messi had abandoned PSG for Miami.

Spain vs England for the WWC

Decent semi-final matches on Tuesday and Wednesday with Spain edging Sweden 2-1 and England handling Australia 3-1.  Both matches were pretty close but the final results looked about right to me.

Although the Spain - Sweden match featured good back-and-forth action and plenty of tension, you could have also fast forwarded to the 80th minute to get to the important stuff.  Spain scored in the 81st minute but with time running out, Sweden levelled things at 88 minutes, making extra time seem inevitable.  Not so fast as seconds later, Olga Carmona received a corner and fired this shot past Swedish keeper Musovic.  That would be the game winner, sparing us extra time or PKs.

Australia gave Hemp too much rope and she scored the 
game winner (Reuters)

In the other match, I would have said England had the run of play but things were still level at 1-1 going into the 71st minute.  Part of the reason it was even was Sam Kerr, in her first start, firing a rocket in the 63rd minute.  People didn't get to see much of her in this tournament because of her injury and she didn't have a great game against England, missing some chances.  Still, I am making it this week's YouTubeableMoment just to remind us how good she is.  Alas, it was not the game winner as England scored in 71st and then again at 86 minutes to salt away the match. 

We Rant, You Decide

Oy, plenty of right wing trashing of the USWNT in the wake of their loss to Sweden.  And Alexi Lalas' fingerprints are all over it.  From The Washington Post:

Also following the loss, Alexi Lalas, a former men’s national team player, a current Fox analyst and a well-known provocateur, called the team “polarizing” and “unlikeable to a portion of America.” Though Lalas’s comments ring with truth — because, yes, extreme right-wingers despise these women — they seem strange coming from a person who is being paid to elevate soccer knowledge for Americans, not to Hannity-ize the game.

Ot take this post from vox.  Money paragraph for me:

The same kind of “woke = failure” rhetoric was implied in Fox commentator Alexi Lalas’s tweet about the game. (Fox happened to be the network broadcasting the Women’s World Cup.) Lalas wrote, “This USWNT is polarizing. Politics, causes, stances, & behavior have made this team unlikeable to a portion of America. This team has built its brand and has derived its power from being the best/winning. If that goes away they risk becoming irrelevant.” Despite playing on the US men’s national soccer team, Lalas never came close to winning a World Cup. As his critics point out, in his own terms, this would make Lalas irrelevant.

While, I don't necessarily steer clear of politics here it's not a regular feature of the blog.  Sometimes it can't be ignored.  This team already had some element of the country actively rooting against it because of the audacity to support equal rights or even worse, engage in collective bargaining to increase their pay.  The trend was accelerated when some of the team did not sing the national anthem or put their hand over their heart.  That's a pretty lame litmus test.  

Wanna know why the US dominated the international soccer scene for so long?  It was the f**king "woke" policy that the US had of insisting that schools set athletic budgets equally for men and women.  While the rest of the world didn't give a crap about their women's teams, we were developing excellent athletes.  The rest of world is starting to put the resources into the women's programs and has caught up; I doubt you'll see anybody dominate women's soccer the way the US did for 20 years.

Aside from the competition being better, there are plenty of other reasons they lost.  Many players had sub-par performances,  They had injuries.  The coach made questionable decisions on strategy, tactics and personnel.  The US player development system looks to be in chaos.  These are all fair game.  The other stuff?  That's just haters hating.

Still Crowded

And me with family travel obligations Friday and Saturday.

The WWC Final is at the awkward hour of 6 am Sunday morning.  Just early enough to tempt one into early rising.  Especially with two EPL matches to follow.  Probably not for me.  This has been the World Cup of DVRing so might as well continue right through the final.  The betting odds suggest a virtual toss up with a very slight edge to Spain.  

Nashville will host Inter Miami at 9 pm for the Leagues Cup final.  The Union will play Monterrey earlier at 6 pm.  Both matches are on Apple though I can't tell if they are behind the MLS Season Pass. 

The EPL fixtures are nicely spread out over four days so you can catch a lot of the action.  We'll be using projections from Opta, replacing 538, to assess the quality of the match-ups; their projections for this week can be found here.   If we trust those numbers, we have a bunch of interesting fixtures this weekend.

One of those is not Man City - Newcastle in a special time at 3 pm on Saturday on Peacock.  Are the Magpies ready to challenge for the top?  I don't think so but am interested to see if they are any closer.  The folks at Opta have it 69/11/20, suggesting it best to keep my hopes in check.  The fact that they've never won in 18 tries at the Etihad also dampens the enthusiasm.

One that is intriguing fixture is Spurs - Man United, the feature match at 12:30 Saturday on NBC.  Opta has that very close at 39/28/32 for Spurs.  This is an early test for both sides.

A test of a different nature is on view Friday at 2:45 when Nottingham Forest host Sheffield United (USA).  Yes, it's only Week 2 but both of these sides must be eyeing this fixture as an early assessment of their relegation threat.  Forest are favored but not by a lot.

No early Saturday game, then three at 10 am.  We would skip Liverpool - Bournemouth (the one on USA) in favor of either Fulham-Brentford or Wolves-Brighton.  The former is a derby and looks close on paper so that would probably be our choice.  

Two more on Sunday.  Aston Villa host Everton at 9 on USA; this will be an important bounce-back game for the Villans.  The second is another derby featuring West Ham and Chelsea (11:30 USA).  Interestingly, Opta has this very close - 34/29/37 - giving the slightest of edges to Chelsea.  Part of that no doubt is that West Ham are at home but it also reflects Chelsea's uncertain status as a top six club.  The match week concludes with yet another derby - Crystal Palace vs Arsenal - at 3 pm on USA.  The Gunners are comfortable favorites here.

Full slate of MLS games on Sunday if the evening rolls around and you still haven't gotten enough soccer.  Most are on MLS Season Pass but there's are few on "free" Apple.