They didn’t play like green-eyed soldiers of beauty, but this wasn’t Chelsea taking tire irons to Barcelona, either. Especially in the first half, before the fatigue and stress started plinking their way up the keyboard, they had some attacking intent. I’d assumed the tactical thinking would be that the easiest way not to lose to the world’s best midfield would be to avoid the midfield entirely, but during the great 25-odd-minute spell leading up to Altidore’s goal, they somehow found space to exploit, kept possession, and actually dribbled at Spain rather than rainbowing rockets over them. In the second half, granted, the long-ball game turned up after all, but by that point the gods of the match had clearly decided that unbelievable pressure and mind-skewing last-ditch defending were going to carry the day. This wasn’t a fluke, in other words; every way the match turned, the US played their role and did what they had to do in it.
Tim Howard was a better goalkeeper than Iker Casillas tonight, not just because of deflections and chance. The near-post save on Fernando Torres’s heart-stopping point-blank shot just before halftime was probably as thrilling for Everton fans as for Americans. This might have been the best game I’ve ever seen Landon Donovan play, and he didn’t score a penalty, so that’s saying something. Jozy Altidore isn’t good enough to play for Xerez, but he just handed Spain their first loss since 2006. Unbelievable.
It probably means nothing; I hate to throw John Keats in at a moment like this (of course I don’t, really) but I was definitely doing a melancholy-in-the-temple-of-delight double-take when John Harkes couldn’t stop talking about fitness at the end, and then Alexi Lalas came on to attribute the win to “a good old-fashioned American game of soccer, just guys throwing their bodies around for each other” (or something to that effect). Really? We’ve just decisively beaten the best team in the world, and that’s as romantic as we get? It’s going to be back to obsessing over “guys who can play with their back to the goal and hold up the ball for the team” before dinner. But whatever; this happened, and sometimes a match that doesn’t decide a championship is as thrilling as a championship, and this game was an amazing thing to see.
Read More: Confederations Cup, Spain, USA
by Brian Phillips · June 24, 2009
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Quickly, forwarded from Stowe in the previous comment thread:
Even assuming the one tonight was bogus (it looked awfully weak to me), this is a troubling trend, right? What’s it all about?
Clearly we should stop sending out central midfielders to the Paul Scholes School of Midfield Tackling..
happy days are here again…..
The thing that stood out to me the most was that Onyewu was an absolute wrecking ball in the back.
That red card was hasty to say the least. They’ll miss Bradley’s physicality and energy in the final, but at this point whats the use of trying to predict what might happen?
Can they not appeal that?
Bradley got ball, for keeryest’s sake. No way would that stay a straight red on review.
I just watched the BBC highlight and they said that they cannot appeal. We’ll miss Bradley’s ability to boss the midfield–Clark just doesn’t do the job like Bradley does. The real question is who do you pick in place of Bradley? Feilhaber? Torres?
In defense of our squad, who can, indeed, be pretty clumsy in the challenge not a single one of the cards in this tournament has been clear cut. All three would, more often then not, have been yellows or, in Bradley’s case, just a foul.
Today’s ref ws the same guy who sent off two Americans against Italy in Kaiserslautern.
I’m just sayin…maybe when he’s done with the Muslim world Obama can turn his dulcet tones towards the world’s soccer refs.
I guess Portugal is no longer the biggest win of the USA Team…
I guess Landon Donovan really can play…
I guess Benfica could not trade Adu for him, could they?
I guess Spain are this tournament’s “Spain”…
Do you believe in miracles? YES!!!!
Though, about Donovan, who I admit did play with a lot of energy and focus: why didn’t he take a shot when he was in the penalty area with the ball on his foot and no one around him? He got *very* lucky with that cross, which was poorly directed — several yards ahead of where it should have been and into a crowd of defenders — and was turned into a goal by an inept clearance and some quick thinking by Dempsey. I’ve seen Donovan turn down a great many open shots in his career, and wonder whether he wouldn’t have been a better player if early on he had been put back further into midfield.
I know Del Bosque’s record is still 13-0-1, but despite his claims of not underestimating the USA has he not gone and done exactly that by not playing withany ball-winners? Alonso as a defensive midfielder is pretty ridiculous – playing him deeper won’t suddenly inspire him to tackle or otherwise get hold of the ball for the Xavi-Xabi-Cesc magic passes(TM) to actually have any influence on the game. If the USA sit back a little when they feel comfortable in their lead and you DO actually start to dominate the midfield, it’s not a great idea to promptly take off the most dangerous player in Fabregas… But given that the Spanish FA don’t pay me a lot of money to oversee their victories, I’m probably not qualified to make these criticisms.
Also, if every single freakin’ header is being lost up front, maybe the very lightweight and short Villa should be replaced by the shambling troll of Llorente who might at least get on the end of one of Spain’s 20 DAMN CORNERS! Oh wait, you know – if they hadn’t taken every single one short and promptly lost possesion….
Seriously though – at number 19 do you not stop ramming your skull into the rock and ponder the situation?
Maybe this is because I’ve just finished looking at TT&F, but come on – remember the clichéd definition of insanity?
This is just another anomaly for the US team. On one day they are world beaters and the next they cant decipher Costa Rica. Peaks and valleys, strikes and gutters; some real consistency is what I would value.
How Spain didnt equalize in the first half was at best a coin flip. And if they had the US were sure to crumble.
Onyewu is still a massive liability in the back. That ridiculous run up the left side that should have produced the counter-attacking equalizer for Spain was a joke.
Donovan is a complete paradox.
Altidore strength is impressive, but where is the real quality?
More questions then answers. . .
Lando played wonderfully today, it’s too bad his team doesn’t have the vision to connect the great runs he was making on the wing… could have had even more chances on goal.
The biggest standout for me was how terribly Xavi played. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him have a “bad” game, but he certainly looked awful in the first half. Torres didn’t have his usual golden touch either.
It was the perfect storm. Fun to watch.
Xavi: yes, exactly. He looked really awkward on the ball in the first half, especially when he was required to run with it rather than stand stone still coolly surveying his options. I honestly don’t know whether he just had a bad game or the US players were closing him down in a way he’s not used to, but for a player who usually looks like he never breaks a sweat or wastes a movement, the dishevelment was shocking.
did someone REALLY just call gooch a liability? what kind of american are you, you can’t even wait until tomorrow to denigrate?
I am watching the replay right now, and I have an incredibly convoluted comparison to make. After seeing Donovan chasing the ball all over the field, yelling at and directing his teammates, and showing absolute class on the ball, I can think of only one player who is his equivalent. Cruyff. There, I said it. Donovan is America’s Johan Cruyff. That is, if Cruyff wasted every free kick and corner… but no matter.
To me, it was all about the burning eyes of Clint Dempsey…
This Spain team had been playing the best soccer I’ve ever seen in my life and the US beat them and it wasn’t a fluke. That’s a giant leap for US soccer.
Thanks for the recap. The US made so many last second blocks on defense that they became commonplace. Watching the game I forgot just how much effort and awareness plays into those deflections and saves by the defense but it’s nice to be reminded.
Wonderful game for American soccer.
I have a hard time focussing enough to type this, but I must register my shock and outrage at the mealy, half-rendered criticism of Mr. Profundity.
I just don’t remember an important challenge that Onyewu didn’t win. Yeah, he went on a ramble late in the game. Ooookay.
I understand wanting to swim upstream, feeling like you’re the smartest fish there ever, ever was. I understand looking for that glancing angle, that revealing cutback. This, though, is just The Church of Nuh-Uh.
I forced my wife to rewatch the first goal something like 6 times before she plead mercy. I’m geeked.
Tomorrow we can worry about the direction of the team – where the depth is at centerback, who can reliably score goals up front, what Feilhaber’s deal is, etc., etc., etc. Tonight is just for that slow, solid satisfaction of improbable but irrevocable success.
I have a collection of friends from one of our neighboring countries who always attribute US success to fortune and US losses to a lack of talent – I would just like a clarification, because this discourse is kinda trite and a bit too simple.
Luck and talent are both factors in both a loss and a win – Spain, for some reason, attacked Demerit, Bocanegra, and Gooch with crosses. Our backline read the split passes very well and held a very tight offsides trap. Was that all happenstance?
youve got to believe oneywu or however u spell it is going to get some looks from some bigger clubs after tonight. He was absolutely incredible. A guy that tall and strong with that much athletic ability is not a dime a dozen.
My favorite upsets pit desire against talent, and this one had plenty of both. I don’t watch many US internationals (little coverage here) so can’t compare individual performances, but the individual didn’t seem to matter this time. At least not for the Americans. It was a team win.
Some of the Spainiards are more liable than others, though. Torres and Villa weren’t bad, but Torres wilted a little too quickly for me. He looked fed up from the moment the second marginal offside call went against him. The midfield behind him was limp. Xavi was unusually poor (at one point I counted four missed passes in a row). Fabregas didn’t factor much, though I was surprised he got the hook instead of Xabi Alonso who barely showed up. Riera played well for me. I’ve never been a big fan, but he was about as good as he gets, minus those net-ripping set piece goals. The back four were even weaker. Ramos decided he was a winger and, for my money, was directly responsible for the first goal because of it. He was 40 yards out of position for the counterattack. And instead of getting up and sprinting back after failing to get a foul called, he casually stood up and watched as Alonso tried to cover for him. Casual also describes his clearance (or lack of) that would have prevented the embarrassing second goal. To be fair, he probably threatened Tim Howard as often as the strikers did, and more than his midfielders. But without a ball-breaker like Senna to cover for him, he should have stayed at home more. He’s the best tackler on the team by a mile and didn’t do any tackling. Capdevila was just as poor, though without offering any offensive threat until the last gasp. Altidore shucked him off like Shaq in the paint, and it’s not like Altidore is a hulk like Carew or Heskey. I watched it five times and still can’t believe it. Pique, and especially Puyol, looked worn out. I guess it’s hard to get up for a “minor” cup after winning the triple with your club a month earlier. Maybe that was Xavi’s problem, too. They had a busy season without much relief and it showed.
Will-
I completely agree with you about Donovan wasting free kicks and corners, but that’s the amazing thing about this game. Everything that this team is famously criticized for wasn’t in play tonight. Lest we forget, Donovan took a filthy free kick in the first half that Dempsey should have put in the back of the net. Everyone in the joint knows the ball is going sailing over the crossbar and all of a sudden its screaming for the far post. Exhilarating effort, really.
Spain really missed Iniesta. ManU played Barca similarly in the CL final, but Iniesta’s ability to run by the pressing defensive mids led to the Eto’o goal that opened everything up. Cesc and Riera just don’t have that in them. I thought Silva might have been a better choice.
Great job of executing by the US, though. They have the players and coach to make next summer interesting, which is about all we can hope for.
Spain had 29 shots on goal and 17 corner kicks.
Spain’s midfield definitely missed Iniesta’s dribbling and Senna’s bite.
Still, the hardman from Villareal is getting quite gold – perhaps it’s time to nationalize a few other Brazilians, just to be safe?
Performances of this quality must become more frequent if we are to make a good showing next year. The win will do wonders for our confidence, but fans should remember that previous victories over international icons haven’t necessarily led to continued success. In 1998, we upset Brazil 1-0 in a CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal match. Four years later, we defeated Portugal 3-2 at the World Cup. In the long run, those results proved to be more isolated achievements than true breakthroughs.
Despite the 2-0 scoreline, I still have doubts about our attacking abilities. The goals were as much about the U.S. creating opportunities as they were about favorable deflections and poor defending. It’s been noted on other threads here that thinking about soccer as a game of errors is inexcusably naïve, but I’m not sure how else to characterize our second goal. Clearly we should be able to say that offensive skill and defensive failure are both involved whenever a goal is scored (own goals aside). From there it becomes an aesthetician’s matter of degree.
Altidore’s strike reminded me of a play that Drogba would make, except that the more experienced man might have chosen to go in on Casillas rather than shoot from distance. A positive effort from the youngster, even if he’s not cut out for La Liga just yet.
Each goal was well-earned, but until Dempsey scored the game seemed to be a question about whether or not we could defend a lead against a dangerous opponent, rather than a chance for us to measure our build-up play against a quality defense.
Bob Bradley may breathe a bit easier now, but fans shouldn’t accept Egypt and Spain as consolation prizes for his generally subpar coaching. If constructive criticism from supporters and the press helps to bring out the best from the team, then long may it continue. Now is no time to sit back and be satisfied.
I do not believe the US has become world beaters over night, but subpar coaching is a tough label given the 3-0 clutch victory over Egypt and a 2-0 victory over the top team in the World.
I know that a large contingent of USMNT fans belongs to the cult of “underdog-cursed-Cubs-old Red Sox”, but I for one am going to suckle at this sweet teet of victory until Sunday precisely because this may never occur again in my lifetime.
Is it just me, or does Julio Cesar look like he’s dressed for a quidditch match?
Sadly, this tournament has convinced of a belief I’ve held for a while but subconsciously repressed: the main factors in winning a soccer game are luck and momentum, not skill and tactics. How else can one explain the (oft-repeated) US trouncing of No. 1 Spain, after beating Egypt, who beat Italy, who beat the US?
I’ll take a crack at that, AlexZ:
– Line ups change. Both the formations and which players are on the field.
– Different teams match up differently; Brazil and Italy are very tough match-ups for the US, because the US has been designed to beat Mexico and their possession-oriented game. I think I’d draw a distinction here between teams who designed to impose order on the game and teams designed to take advantage of moments of chaos. Mexico and Spain are the former, and so Spain plays into the American’s hands by playing a style we know how to frustrate and beat. Similarities between the win over Spain and the ’02 win over Mexico are striking. Italy and Brazil, on the other hand, are the latter; and we aren’t a team usually capable of imposing order, so we match up extremely poorly against teams in the latter category with more skill than us.
– Red cards matter. The US looked quite capable of taking the game to Italy in both ’06 and ’09, but was tremendously disadvantaged by going down a man.
– I insist you watch this video over and over until you recant.
None of that is to say that luck and momentum have no role; of course they do, in soccer as in life. But the dichotomy doesn’t stand.
Yes, that was an amazing goal; not sure what it proves – I never said soccer required NO talent. It actually requires quite a bit. That being said, the talent difference at this level is negligible – one can only kick a ball so well, run so fast, or jump so high. So while being great requires a substantial amount of talent, by and large talent is not what separates the victor from the loser.
I hate to rehash this old “anti-soccer” argument, but a sport like basketball minimizes the influence of luck and randomness by featuring many successful iterations (baskets, touchdowns, etc) per game. More cases, less chance for random error, right? On the other hand, when a soccer game ends 1-0 (or maybe even 2-0…), whose to say that one goal wasn’t a lucky bounce, and all of the other teams misses merely lucky saves? How many times have you seen a goal scored “against the run of play”? (I get bonus points for using the blog title.) After all, look at Dempsey’s second goal: it defied all tactics and logic! Donovan had an open shot which he decided to lovetap instead of killing; the ball hit every Spanish player on the field twice, somehow got to Clint Dempsey, who tripped in an opportune way and scored. The entire situation rewarded the US (and Donovan) for what was essentially a massive error.
I’m not necessarily saying any of this is bad; by all means, it probably indicates that soccer will be the last sport to be “Moneyball-ized” into a gigantic statistical equation. It makes soccer romantic, and rewards more than just how well one judges the path of a small round projectile at high speeds. It encourages tenacity, belief, and teamwork. I’ve heard it said that the World Series is “won in spring training,” in part because baseball is predictable and empirical; if you have enough skill and follow the plan, you’ll be alright. Soccer is one of the few sports where the match’s result is truly an unknown until the final whistle blows, something which I think is very beautiful.
I really give Dempsey more credit and Ramos more blame on that goal. It looked to me like Ramos read the low cross, took a touch, lifted his head to find a teammate, and Dempsey pounced to score.
Maybe I am just biased because as a defender the same thing has happened to me frequently, as expert witness Santiago Ramos can attest
just a sidenote, if baseball were really predictable the Devil Rays wouldn’t have made the World Series last year, and the Rockies the year before, and the Tigers the year before that; plus how about two different Marlins titles in a six year span? i don’t even like the game, but the NBA is easily the most preordained, and what about the Big 4 in England and Barca/Real in Spain?
AlexZ:
The part about Bergkamp was flippant. I don’t think you really addressed the substantive portion of my comment, but on I go to yours:
I don’t buy:
(a) that the talent difference at this level is negligible. (really? So how, exactly, do institutions like Man U and Real Madrid dominate their leagues for decades? They get lucky every year? I would have thought that its by buying up all the best talent…)
(b) that Dempsey’s goal doesn’t result from a series of good plays by the US (winning the ball in midfield, smart attacking play that frees up Donovan on the right side of the box, Donovan driving a low and hard ball across the goalmouth between the goalkeeper and defenders, Dempsey putting himself in a position to take advantage of a mistake by Ramos)
(c) that soccer is vastly more low-scoring than American football (in terms of number of scores, football games often end 14-0 or 13-0, which would be 2-0 or 3-0 in soccer terms, and 35-21 would be 5-3, which is a high-scoring soccer game, but not exactly unheard of)
(d) that being low-scoring is a good predictor of the relative importance of luck over skill (see basketball, the quintessentially high-scoring sport, where playoff series are often controversially decided by a handful of key refereeing decisions)
I do buy:
(a) that much of the beauty of soccer comes from the instability of the 0-0 score, where either team is a few moments of play away from taking the lead, regardless of the pattern of the game so far.
(b) that the talent/luck dichotomy has nothing to do with good/bad or ugly/beautiful.
(c) that both talent and luck play a role in the outcome of a soccer game.
But your original question was:
the main factors in winning a soccer game are luck and momentum, not skill and tactics. How else can one explain the (oft-repeated) US trouncing of No. 1 Spain, after beating Egypt, who beat Italy, who beat the US?
I offered alternate explanations, which I don’t think you can ignore and still give a fair account of the history of those games.
I think one of the paradoxes of soccer is that it often feels more random than other sports, even though, at a high level, it’s arguably less so (at least based on the extent to which results are predictable). Because the play is continuous (unlike in American football) and scoring is rare (unlike in basketball) the game-transforming moments often seem to come out of nothing and, compared to other sports, in such a way that it’s relatively easy to imagine that they might have gone differently.
In other words, the form of soccer emphasizes randomness where the form of other sports tends to conceal it, even though the historical record suggests that soccer is actually one of the most orderly sports in terms of translating superior ability into outcomes. So I get what Alex is saying, though the fact that the USA beat a team that beat a team that beat the USA doesn’t seem any weirder or more random than the way an NBA playoff series will often see a team win by 20 one night and then lose by 20 to the same opponent in the next game. (See: Chicago-Seattle, 1996 NBA Finals.)
Crazy things happen in sports.
The refereeing is also more predictable in soccer.
For example, if the USA is playing, I wager at least one player will get a Red Card at good odds.
If Jorge Larrionda is the referee and the USA is playing, then the odds are very favorable.
j: I am not saying that baseball is currently predictable. What I mean is that baseball is by far the easiest to break down. Just because some pundit on ESPN did not predict the Rays winning does not mean that, using proper, empirical methods, their win was surprising. Our knowledge of the “scientific” nature of baseball is still very limited, but it is growing exponentially, and I feel that it won’t be too long until baseball is reduced to a mere game of numbers.
I am not discussing which leagues are preordained – the reason that Barca and Man U always win has more to do with the economics of European football than it does with the nature of soccer itself. As for the NBA, I think it is easier to assemble a winning team because the teams are much smaller – you only have to get a few pieces right to win the championship.
Rob:
a) I meant the international play specifically. Obviously, there is a substantial gulf of talent between the US and Spain, but it is nowhere near as big as that between a top-tier Premiership team and mid-level one. National teams get to draw on the best 25 guys from their home soil; championship clubs are built by buying the best 25 players from anywhere. I would say that the best 11 players on Barca are significantly better than the best 11 players on Manchester United – but the difference between Spain and Brazil? Not so much.
b) Doesn’t address my original point – even if the play getting Donovan the ball was inspired and perfect, Donovan himself still made a massive error by passing up a wide open shot. Then, he happened to get lucky when Dempsey was around to clean up the mess. So, the goal was a result of at least equal parts skill and dumb luck.
c) Never mentioned anything regarding American football.
d) The amount of scoring isn’t the point. Its the percentage of successful attacking iterations that matters to my mind. In basketball, 40%+ of the possessions result in points scored. In soccer, maybe 1 out of every 15 situations in which a team controls the ball for more than 30 seconds count as a goal. That means that a team (much like Spain against the US) could play great soccer, then fail to finish each time, while their opponent could play horrendously on all but one or two possessions and still win. On the other hand, in basketball, if you play well, the score is much more likely to reflect that fact.
I respect your alternate explanations, and I agree they certainly played a role in the results in question. Of course, this theory of mine is not a recent development; I have held this belief for some time, and only used the most absurdity of the American run in the Confed Cup as evidence. That being said, your competing theories are all very plausible – again, that’s the beauty of soccer, that neither one of us can be definitely proven correct.
I can’t believe I took the form of baseball apologist here, but nonetheless. It may be the easiest to break down statistically but that’s because the play is infinitely more static than any other sport, and it certainly can’t be used as a barometer for success, other wise moneyballin’ Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s would have won a World Series or two; alas they didn’t. And it holds economically in baseball, too, with the Yankees spending and spending and spending yet those miniscule-market Devil Rays are the reigning AL champions.
To quote Brian from not long ago: “Crazy things happen in sports.” (See: the NBA Draft from last night)
AZ, the contradiction I’m seeing in your interpretation here is that you’re making a general argument that luck is relatively more important than talent in international soccer overall, but then using a spectacular, world-shocking upset as your evidence for that, as though it were a normal game that we ought to extrapolate from rather than a game that was noteworthy precisely because it was such a freakish outlier.
Even granting that luck played a big role in the American win on Wednesday, what do you then do with Spain’s three-year-unbeaten streak before that, or with the fact that Italy and Brazil have won 50% of all World Cups, or with the fact that in general international soccer is comprehensively dominated by precisely the countries with the best players and coaches—that is, the countries that put the most into identifying and developing talent? That’s not a sign that luck is the primary factor here, right? It plays a role, absolutely, but I can’t see any way of looking at the history of the sport that would suggest that talent differences are negligible and the lucky bounce is determinative.
HOLY SHIT WE’RE UP 2-0