Official NNN 2010 World Cup thread

Pro Sports All Other Pro Sports
41

I don’t believe in the argument that great athletes in one sport could transition well into another simply because they are athletic. I think there are certain sports were this is true position wise (WR/CB’s in football), but I don’t think its true across the board. I’ve seen a few great athletes look like retards trying to do something as basic as kicking a ball.[/quote]

Yes, but that is also because they were conditioned to play one sport over another. Different sports use different muscles and require different coordination. When you have developed a skill to its highest level but neglected one that is required for another sport, you’re probably not going to be able to jump in and excel. But if they had focused on it from youth, they would more than likely be elite at that sport.

42

Well this assumes that you can just train any athletic person in any given sport and they will excel simply because they are athletic. Again, I don’t believe this is the case.

It just seems presumptuous to say that just because Tiger Woods has an the ability to drive a golf ball far and sink crazy shots on the golf course he could have been trained at a young age to become an elite soccer/baseball/football player if he just focused on that. Some athletes are just predisposed to certain skills sets.

43

yeah, i gotta agree with Cass here. There’s a skillset and a natural aptitude - its not just athleticism.

Case in point - Michael Jordan was a bad baseball player. He was a mendoza line hitter and very mediocre fielder.

44

[quote=“NinerAdvocate, post:43, topic:23329”]yeah, i gotta agree with Cass here. There’s a skillset and a natural aptitude - its not just athleticism.

Case in point - Michael Jordan was a bad baseball player. He was a mendoza line hitter and very mediocre fielder.[/quote]

There are those athletes that can do anything they want (Deion Sanders, Bo Jackson, Charlie Ward) and others who really can focus on only one thing. Either way the fact is very few of our athletes even try soccer. I am sure that a good portion, but certainly not all, of our all stars in different sports would have excelled in soccer had they tried it at a young age and then dedicated to it the same time they did to their eventual profession.

45

Bo jackson would have been amazing if he had any touch with his feet. I can’t even imagine how tough it would have been to deal with him.

But that said, kicking and handling a soccer is a skill that I guess anyone can learn with enough practice, but at that level, it’s a helluva lot harder that it looks. It’s like hitting a golf ball though not quite as hard. You definitely go through the same ups and downs. That’s why it’s so damn hard to score. Just because you make contact doesn’t mean you play the ball with enough finesse to set something up - and some people just have the natural touch and match fitness to pull it off.

46

Well this assumes that you can just train any athletic person in any given sport and they will excel simply because they are athletic. Again, I don’t believe this is the case.

It just seems presumptuous to say that just because Tiger Woods has an the ability to drive a golf ball far and sink crazy shots on the golf course he could have been trained at a young age to become an elite soccer/baseball/football player if he just focused on that. Some athletes are just predisposed to certain skills sets.[/quote]

For the record, I don’t think every single football or basketball athlete could excel in soccer. But, you have to figure that maybe 1% of our elite athletes are playing soccer right now. Even if only 25% of the elite athletes could translate their athleticism to soccer, that would still be a huge leap in talent over what we field now and they would be an elite soccer team.

Baseball has slowly slid into a similar problem. Our best athletes don’t play baseball anymore, they just don’t care about it. Think about how much better American pitching could be if these elite QBs had instead focused on baseball?

47

I think it’s hard to pick out one athlete and say he or she would be a great soccer player, even if focused on at a young age. For e.g., I’m not sure Dwight Howard would have quick enough reflexes and footwork to be a soccer goalie. Maybe. But I bet a number of high school and college small forward/power forward types could have developed into elite goalkeepers. It’s more about a wider pool of potential athletes that may also be able to develop the relevant skill set than about any one athlete playing another sport. The top player in the world right now, Lionel Messi, might be an ok point guard (he’s pretty short) and I’m not sure what he plays in football, but he is amazingly quick in short bursts and skilled with his feet (and impressive body control in the air). There might be guys like him who grew up playing basketball and/or football that didn’t quite make it in those sports, but had they been training for soccer would be equally good at it. But we’ll never find out because they tried the football/basketball route instead of the soccer route. A lot of those shorter guys should be trying soccer at an early age.

Note that we also impose academic requirements on most of our top athletes that international soccer players don’t usually have to cross since they turn pro very early, which likely weeds out some of our better athletes even for basketball and football.

48

Considering 80% of our starting lineup were watching from a press box the entire game just about explains it. BTW, Country size means nothing.

49

Tongue dropped to floor.[/quote]

Yea that s*** just ain’t fair.[/quote]
I know right. wtf[/quote]

Her name is Ines Sainz, and she’s Mexico’s Erin Andrews sideline reporter… for FUTBOL!

Lordy![/quote]

Something tells me there wouldn’t be this whole Arizona Immigration Act controversy if Mexico imported something like this every once and awhile.[/quote]

This chick arse should forgo it’s senior year and go pro.

50

She must have had a hell of a push up bra in that first pic… ass is legendary though.

51

one item to address before actually getting back on topic of thread

her knees are obviously too sharp for any man’s taste

re: us-turkey game yesterday.

2nd half lineup seem to gel a bit better than 1st half lineup. I really didn’t like the inclusion of Findley on the roster, but he did well. tracking back on D a couple of times and it was his chip pass to landy cakes that led to the goal. spector looked out of form (again?) but then again on the turkey goal, no one from mid covered for him leaving a gaping hole on the counter (either bradley or clark responsibility?). torres looked good, as of right now, i like him starting over clark. can bornstein just fake some massive injury so he can be replaced by somebody…anybody. as much as i thought findley making the cut was a bad idea (and seemingly wrong, so take that for what’s it worth), bornstein making the cut seems evermore obvious. i guess the problem is, who would’ve made the team in place of bornstein. depth at D is a problem and marshall didn’t even play against the czechs, so there was no other real option besides maybe bedoya and have edu or beasely as stopgaps. not even mentioning heath pearce as an option.

next up, aussies.

52

people actually watch soccer??

53

That was a really solid win against a very talented Turkish team. I’m starting to think Torres deserves to start. He’s good at distributing the ball from midfield. Bradley must be worried about his defensive prowess which is why he continues to start Clark.

I was very encouraged by the spark Findley gave us when he came on the pitch. He looked like Davies 2.0 and I’m starting to think that is exactly why he was kept on the roster and Ching was not. Donovan and Altidore looked pretty solid. Dempsey was pretty poor other than the goal he scored in my opinion. All three of those guys will have to be at their best for us to have a chance against England.

54

Torres did look good, although the announcer was going a bit overboard with his play. Definitely an upgrade in this game over Clark. The only worry is when we come up against taller/bigger teams (England has some tall forwards and Rooney is pretty good in the air, Algeria has some tall forwards, Slovenia?). Turkey is fairly talented, but not all that great in the air.

Findley was good in stretches, definitely the faster option at forward. But he also ran the ball out of bounds twice without really needing to. Needs to get the ball in quicker. That said, his play was surprisingly good, especially that perfect chip into Donovan. I’ll be interested to see if Gomez gets any time.

I guess Bradley is decent defensively, but his passing is still atrocious. Feilhaber had about as bad of a game as you can have, I still can’t believe he put that perfect cross over the front of our own box. What was he thinking?

Altidore and Dempsey pretty much played like they always do to me. Altidore gets lazy at times, has a bad touch on the ball, but shows that occasional flash of brilliance that makes you wonder what he could do if he was consistent. Dempsey looks for stupid fouls, makes really bad passes, and doesn’t play any D, then has a great finish. Very frustrating players.

Specter didn’t have a good game, but that goal was not his fault (the guy writing on ESPN blamed him for it, isn’t he supposed to know how the game is played?). When the wing backs make runs forward, which is often a good idea, someone else needs to rotate over into his position. Someone really made a boneheaded play there not getting back at all. This was a problem all game, as whenever the US pushed forward, the central forward areas were glutted with players while the Turkish counterattack was wide open. Hope they fix this, I think England will expose that better than the Turks did. Demerit looked pretty slow this game. Cherundolo certainly played better than I’ve seen from him before, I bet he gets the start now. Bornstein just isn’t ready for this level yet, maybe next world cup.

The opening minutes of the 2nd half were about the best I’ve seen with ball control and distribution. I’d guess Torres and Findley helped with that, and the players just stepping up their game in general (welcome to the game Donovan). Will need to play like that the entire game to get any points against England.

55

The disrespect for soccer from some Americans confounds me.

Like the game or not, our country is about to compete in the single largest international single-sport competition in the world. Take some pride in your nation.

56

[quote=“geeosphere, post:51, topic:23329”]re: us-turkey game yesterday.

2nd half lineup seem to gel a bit better than 1st half lineup. I really didn’t like the inclusion of Findley on the roster, but he did well. tracking back on D a couple of times and it was his chip pass to landy cakes that led to the goal. spector looked out of form (again?) but then again on the turkey goal, no one from mid covered for him leaving a gaping hole on the counter (either bradley or clark responsibility?). torres looked good, as of right now, i like him starting over clark. can bornstein just fake some massive injury so he can be replaced by somebody…anybody. as much as i thought findley making the cut was a bad idea (and seemingly wrong, so take that for what’s it worth), bornstein making the cut seems evermore obvious. i guess the problem is, who would’ve made the team in place of bornstein. depth at D is a problem and marshall didn’t even play against the czechs, so there was no other real option besides maybe bedoya and have edu or beasely as stopgaps. not even mentioning heath pearce as an option.

next up, aussies.[/quote]

I agree with all of this

57

[quote=“geeosphere, post:51, topic:23329”]one item to address before actually getting back on topic of thread

her knees are obviously too sharp for any man’s taste

re: us-turkey game yesterday.

2nd half lineup seem to gel a bit better than 1st half lineup. I really didn’t like the inclusion of Findley on the roster, but he did well. tracking back on D a couple of times and it was his chip pass to landy cakes that led to the goal. spector looked out of form (again?) but then again on the turkey goal, no one from mid covered for him leaving a gaping hole on the counter (either bradley or clark responsibility?). torres looked good, as of right now, i like him starting over clark. can bornstein just fake some massive injury so he can be replaced by somebody…anybody. as much as i thought findley making the cut was a bad idea (and seemingly wrong, so take that for what’s it worth), bornstein making the cut seems evermore obvious. i guess the problem is, who would’ve made the team in place of bornstein. depth at D is a problem and marshall didn’t even play against the czechs, so there was no other real option besides maybe bedoya and have edu or beasely as stopgaps. not even mentioning heath pearce as an option.

next up, aussies.[/quote]

Yea, really sucks that Hejduk has been plagued by injuries over the past year (as well as Cherundolo). Really hurt our depth at RB, a position we actually did have depth at a year or two back.

Bornstein sucks, but lack of depth on the defensive end is a problem and he’s better than Pearce.

I also agree about Torres, but I wouldn’t be so eager to start him over Clark just yet. He only has 10 caps total in international competition to Clark’s 27. While Torres is getting much better defensively (something he credits to watching Michael Bradley), he’s still has room for improvement.

58

[quote=“Ninerballin, post:57, topic:23329”][quote=“geeosphere, post:51, topic:23329”]one item to address before actually getting back on topic of thread

her knees are obviously too sharp for any man’s taste

re: us-turkey game yesterday.

2nd half lineup seem to gel a bit better than 1st half lineup. I really didn’t like the inclusion of Findley on the roster, but he did well. tracking back on D a couple of times and it was his chip pass to landy cakes that led to the goal. spector looked out of form (again?) but then again on the turkey goal, no one from mid covered for him leaving a gaping hole on the counter (either bradley or clark responsibility?). torres looked good, as of right now, i like him starting over clark. can bornstein just fake some massive injury so he can be replaced by somebody…anybody. as much as i thought findley making the cut was a bad idea (and seemingly wrong, so take that for what’s it worth), bornstein making the cut seems evermore obvious. i guess the problem is, who would’ve made the team in place of bornstein. depth at D is a problem and marshall didn’t even play against the czechs, so there was no other real option besides maybe bedoya and have edu or beasely as stopgaps. not even mentioning heath pearce as an option.

next up, aussies.[/quote]

Yea, really sucks that Hejduk has been plagued by injuries over the past year (as well as Cherundolo). Really hurt our depth at RB, a position we actually did have depth at a year or two back.

Bornstein sucks, but lack of depth on the defensive end is a problem and he’s better than Pearce.

I also agree about Torres, but I wouldn’t be so eager to start him over Clark just yet. He only has 10 caps total in international competition to Clark’s 27. While Torres is getting much better defensively (something he credits to watching Michael Bradley), he’s still has room for improvement.[/quote]

Edgar Castillo. He can’t be worse defensively than Bornstein and he’s very gifted offensively.

59

ah, forgot about castillo. too bad he only got in one cap.

60

Any predictions for the WC?

Here’s how I see it:

Groups
A - Uruguay, Mexico
B - Argentina, Nigeria
C - England, Slovenia
D - Germany, Ghana
E - Netherlands, Cameroon
F - Italy, Slovakia
G - Brazil, Ivory Coast
H - Spain, Chile

Not exactly going out on a limb, except I see the African teams doing a little better than expected on their home continent and that France and Portugal will continue to underachieve (though Portugal is looking better lately).

I tried to pick the US, but I just don’t think it will happen. Definitely could though, this team seems to be pretty good at getting results out of ugly play.

I’ll guess the final eight will be Argentina, Uruguay, England (though I’d pick Ghana if Essien was playing), Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Ivory Coast (!), and Brazil.
Final four of England, Brazil, Germany, Italy (though I’m tempted to put Ivory Coast in here),
with Brazil beating Italy for the title. Kind of like the NCAA tournament, earlier round upsets usually give way to the traditional power teams in the end.