- 11:24 AM
- 04/23/24
| Name: | Alok Desai |
|---|---|
| Member since: | July 06, 2011 |
| Last visit: | February 14, 2012 |
Errant has posted 0 links and 17 comments to SportsFilter and 0 links and 0 comments to the Locker Room.
Reminded me of the Chinese Olympic football team and QPR going crazy a few years back. Video.
posted by Errant at 01:39 PM on August 19, 2011
"Cook fails to outscore every Indian who has ever played the game put together: England in decline?"
posted by Errant at 08:05 PM on August 12, 2011
Cook should have gotten his triple-century, that was simply an unbelievable performance. India have been absolutely dire this whole series.
posted by Errant at 02:16 PM on August 12, 2011
Maybe once we sell off our whole first team to Barcelona and Man City, we can finally field Wenger's XI XI-Year-Olds.
posted by Errant at 02:15 PM on August 12, 2011
Wigan 13th? He's quite mad, but that was entertaining anyway. Wigan barely survived before they sold off N'Zogbia. It's Blackburn, Wigan, Norwich down for me.
Spurs' season will depend on how disaffected Modric is after not getting his transfer, but they still haven't bought the striker they need and their defense is still suspect (not Arsenal suspect, just suspect). Friedel will at least be a calm presence in the back. I don't see them finishing above Arsenal, but they certainly could; it's going to come down to whether Arsenal is more hopeless than Spurs are hapless. I wouldn't be surprised to see both squads missing out on the Champions League regardless.
Here's my out-on-a-limb prediction: Liverpool will finish higher than Man City.
posted by Errant at 04:09 PM on August 09, 2011
Sure, I could see 5.5 from Asia and 3.5 from CONCACAF, although I think that does a disservice to emerging nations like Honduras, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, and overstates the strength of B-list Asian teams. Maybe 5 and 4 is a better way to go. If the metric is "likely to qualify for the second round", though, we might as well go back down to a 24-team tournament, because there's no way there are 5, or even 3, likely 2nd round qualifiers in Africa, and there's no way there are 8 from Europe, never mind 13.
posted by Errant at 04:48 PM on August 03, 2011
Places in the tournament are ostensibly awarded not based on number of entrants within a confederation but instead on relative strength of the teams in that confederation, as defined by world rankings and recent success in the tournament.
I was however slightly mistaken: I'd forgotten that Brazil have an automatic berth and aren't counted towards qualifiers, so in fact South America have 5.5, which is better. Africa in 2010 had 6 spots including the host, which is absurd when compared to performance; 4 or 4.5 seems more justified than their current 5, comparable to Asia. Europe should probably lose 1 spot. My preferred placement would look something like this:
Africa: 4.5 Asia: 4.5 Oceania: 0.5 Europe: 12 N./C.America: 4.5 S.America: 5
Total: 31 (+ hosts make 32)
posted by Errant at 03:59 PM on August 02, 2011
Yeah, I think Michael Bradley will be fine. I was one of the people shouting "nepotism" when he first showed up in the squad, but he's proven to be a solid midfield candidate. He could really use a good season at Aston Villa this year to elevate his profile, I think he's generally underrated.
posted by Errant at 01:11 PM on August 01, 2011
It continues to be an absolute travesty to me that Africa has 5 spots compared to South America's 4.5. And Europe has too many places also, at 13. It makes total sense when you look at where the FIFA governing board hail from, but that doesn't mean it's not silly.
posted by Errant at 01:09 PM on August 01, 2011
5 years; he was appointed after WC 2006. I agree with you on the staleness, though, and while I think Bradley made decent tactical changes during matches to systems that weren't working, he too frequently got his teams into those bad spots in the first place. Plus he was just a little too conservative in his thinking for me.
I would have liked him to go after WC 2010, actually. One win from 4 games is poor, silly refereeing decisions aside, and we had an unexpectedly clear path to the semifinals after winning the group that the team really squandered, thanks in part to Bradley's poor initial setups.
posted by Errant at 02:50 PM on July 29, 2011
In a competitive match, there is no way Mancini would have wasted a sub at 30 minutes for this, and in a competitive match, Balotelli would have just scored. So it is sound and fury with no real purpose.
Having said that: Mario, Mario, Mario. That was one of the worst backheels I've ever seen. Seriously. I think a lot of the outrage is from the unspoken notion that showboating awfully is worse than not showboating at all. He should have gotten pulled and made to stand on the sideline practicing tricks until he got it right, while de Jong tackled him in the chest for each poor execution. That would have been entertaining.
posted by Errant at 02:37 PM on July 25, 2011
It seems pretty likely that new turf will be laid down for 2012 at Qwest (CenturyLink) Field, especially since UW will start sharing the ground in that year also.
New Playing Surface Likely Coming To Qwest Field In 2012
I don't think anyone really likes turf, but the disadvantages of laid grass on turf were pretty obvious in the weekend's Sounders-Rapids game. The pitch came up in huge chunks and the ball did not move all that well at all. Unless the Seahawks suddenly decide that grass is a sufficient playing surface and they're willing to shell out for a long and expensive pitch reconstruction, it's probably not going to happen.
posted by Errant at 03:49 PM on July 20, 2011
Yo! My comment that you were responding to had nothing to do with the referee.
Sorry I was unclear. I wasn't responding to your comment so much as using your comment to say "this is what happened" and then "here is why this happened". Based on precedent, it seems exceedingly likely that if the Brazil goalkeeper had saved another one, she would have been busted again. I agree that under the circumstances it was pretty stupid of her to keep doing it.
posted by Errant at 04:50 PM on July 18, 2011
I can't remember if they had her strapped down or not.
They did. Once they were along the endline, Erika sat up, unstrapped herself, and leapt off the stretcher. Pretty amusing.
posted by Errant at 03:42 PM on July 13, 2011
An Offensive Survey!
I knew I'd seen something like this before. The Army Hurt Feelings Report Form.