the only soccer I watch is the World Cup games involving the U.S. I think the offside rule is stupid. They need to adopt a version of ice hockey and have a blue line. Penalty kicks are stupid. There's not enough scoring. I hate the flopping.

So obviously this was based on my deep knowledge and love of the "beautiful game."

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"Somewhere in Middle America"

If so I'd like to chat with you about some investment opportunities I'm considering.

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We were an injured Roldan away from fielding an all-understudy 11, and there are precious few national teams--France? Spain? Portugal sans Ronaldo?--who could get away with that.

I agree with your take on the good, bad, and ugly of what we saw last night, but I also think PMan is spot on: our chances hinge on a handful of key players, most of whom Poch rested. That puts us in line with every other dark horse contender still in the tournament.

I'm not completely excusing his performance, but I think he normally plays on the right side. Overall, Turner was the most disappointing to me. I told my buddy that if Myles Robinson has to play in an important WC game, we are screwed, so the CBs were really bad, but I thought Turner was also abysmal.

plays a different game as soon as Pulisic is on the field. They immediately started playing more downfield balls when he came on the pitch.

Pulisic has a better first touch than any other play on the field. He reads the defense better than any other play. At one point he looked at 2 options, and chose (correctly) the 3rd (to shoot the ball at the far corner post) bc the defense had immediately moved to cover the first 2. It was an elite play on his part.

Berhalter’s goal was just a peach of a shot. He got a great crack on the ball and it was good to see the immediacy he took on that play.

Much of the backups that were in used 2 touches when one could have gotten the job done. That one touch style of play was a lot more common in the 1rst 2 matches. And it creates a cleaner, more aggressive feel on the field. One of my old ND roommates at half time when asked what he would tell the team said “(They need) More fight without ball. More composure with it.” I couldnt agree more.

Overall, I thought it was good to see the younger players fight and be competitive at times, but disappointing to see a last second let down, even if the match was completely irrelevant.

Its also clear that Turkey’s #8, Arda Güler, is also a pretty damn good baller. (He plays for Real Madrid and it shows). He issued an apology to Turkey after the match. Pretty mature for 21 year old. … https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/arda-guler-issues-apology-turkey-143056453.html

I'm glad Poch treated it that way, rather than risking injury or suspension for the sake of vibes. It means nothing for 7/1.

That said, Weah was shockingly, depressingly bad tonight.

Woof