|
Faithful husband, soccer dad,
basset owner, and former cowboy
Return to TboggHomePage
FELLOW TRAITORS
*The Nether-Count*
100 Monkeys Typing
Ain't No Bad Dude
Alicublog
Americablog
American Leftist
Attytood (Will Bunch)
Bad Attitudes
Balloon Juice
Better Inhale Deeply
Bitch Ph.D
Bloggy
Bob Harris
Brilliant At Breakfast
BusyBusyBusy
Byzantium's Shores
Creek Running North
Crooked Timber
Crooks and Liars
Cursor
Daily Kos
Dependable Renegade
David Ehrenstein
Democratic Veteran
Dohiyi Mir
Down With Tyranny
Echidne of the Snakes
Edicts of Nancy
Elayne Riggs
Eschaton (Atrios)
Ezra Klein
Failure Is Impossible
Feministe
Feministing
Firedoglake
First Draft
Freewayblogger
The Garance
The Group News Blog
Guano Island
Hairy Fish Nuts
Hammer of the Blogs
Hullabaloo(Digby)
I Am TRex
If I Ran the Zoo
I'm Not One To Blog
Interesting Times
James Wolcott
Jesus' General
Jon Swift
Juan Cole
King of Zembla
Kung Fu Monkey
Lance Mannion
Lawyers Guns and Money
Lean Left
Liberal Oasis
Main & Central
Majikthise
Making Light (Nielsen Hayden)
Mark Kleiman
Martini Revolution
MaxSpeak
MF Blog
MyDD
Needlenose
The Next Hurrah
Nitpicker
No More Mr. Nice Blog
Norbizness
Norwegianity
Oliver Willis
One Good Move
Orcinus
Pacific Views
Pam's House Blend
Pandagon
Pharyngula
Political Animal(K.Drum)
The Poorman
Progressive Gold
Right Hand Thief
Rising Hegemon
Roger Ailes
Rude Pundit
Rumproast
Sadly, No
Seeing The Forest
Shakesville
Sisyphus Shrugged
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Slacktivist
SteveAudio
Suburban Guerilla
TalkLeft
The American Street
The Left Coaster
The Road To Surfdom
The Sideshow
The Talking Dog
The Talent Show
Tom Tomorrow
Tom Watson
Whiskeyfire
UggaBugga
Wampum
Wonkette
World O'Crap
TOSS ME
A BONE
Amazon Wish List
SOURCES
MSNBC
CNN
The Washington Post
Media Matters
The New York Times
The Guardian
Yahoo News
Salon
The Raw Story
Common Dreams
Media Transparency
The Nation
Alternet
Joe Conason
Talking Points Memo
THE VAST WASTELAND
Captain Corndog & Friends
Cheerleaders Gone Spazzy
80% True
Corner of Mediocrity and Banality
Village Idiots Central
Darwin's Waiting Room
News for Mouthbreathers
Mailbox
Your e-mail may be reprinted sans name and e-mail address. Think about how stupid you want to appear.
Blogroll Me!
Site Feed
|
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The never ending soccer loop
Excellent article sent in from Matt on US Women's Soccer:US Soccer President Sunil Gulati reached a swift decision to dismiss Greg Ryan as US Women’s Team coach, but he wasn’t as fast as one of his predecessors. In 1998, Alan Rothenberg took just four days to secure coach Steve Sampson’s resignation after the final Men’s National Team game in that year’s disastrous World Cup campaign.
One of the players on the squad at the time, Eric Wynalda, saw essential parallels between the two situations.
“You have a coach in both cases who basically destroys a team’s chances to be successful through terrible choices and decisions,” said Wynalda.
Ryan himself rejected the association, pointing out that the Women’s Team finished third in the competition. Yet for a country that had previously won more World Cups than any other, it was an undeniably disappointing tournament.
“We do bring a different expectation and standard to our women’s program,” said Gulati Monday during the media call that announced Ryan’s departure.
It should be a mark of pride for the women’s program that one distinction from the men is the higher standard of expected achievement. What’s troubling is that it isn’t the only ways the squads are dissimilar -- and other comparisons aren’t so flattering.
Of all the decisions Ryan made during the competition, the most puzzling was his choice to bench starting goalkeeper Hope Solo and replace her with little-used Briana Scurry against Brazil, the decision being justified by Scurry’s historic success versus the South Americans.
“To me, that was like having a pitcher who, at the height of his game, just pitched three shutouts, and then the manager says, ‘I know you’ve had four days rest and this is your rotation, but I’m going to go with someone else on a hunch’,” said Wynalda. “Then their team gets lit up for eight runs in the first inning. That athlete has to sit there and watch it happen.”
In a statement after that semifinal match, Solo fumed in disagreement over Ryan’s call.
“The way she reacted was completely human,” Wynalda said. “To go through something like that is horrible.”
What followed escalated the drama. Solo was barred from team meals, banned from the third-place match versus Norway, and denied the chance to be present during the FIFA medal ceremony. She was not allowed on the team flight back to the United States, and was instead given a separate ticket to travel alone. Having more than a passing acquaintance with some of the players on the women's team (the L&T Casey was a ball girl for the now-defunct San Diego Spirit) I can say with some confidence that a lot of the problems with the team stem from an influential core group of players from the glory days who combine the worst of Heathers meets All About Eve. Commentator Julie Foudy being a good example.
Andrea Canales who wrote the article blogs here.Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 11:25 PM
|
Monday, October 22, 2007
..and now for something completely different.Before i get back to fireblogging something was mentioned in comments today (honestly, I should just let you guys do all the work and I'll just sit back and collect my SorosBucks) about the US Womens Soccer team that I would be remiss in not mentioning (see here and here if you feel like getting caught up). Ready? Okay. Greg Ryan had always seemed curiously bulletproof, generally dodging the larger munitions in terms of media scrutiny. His highly favored team looked plodding in the Women's World Cup, but Ryan seemed to get a pass as all heads swiveled toward the Hope Solo fiasco.
When the same thing happens to the U.S. men's team -- such as at the last two World Cups in Europe -- the coach typically has been vilified in newspapers, on TV and in the combustible blogs.
Well, while Ryan escaped the media nicks and cuts, he couldn't escape the surgical slice from U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, who has treated Ryan the same way he treated former U.S. men's coach Bruce Arena last year:
Gulati has declined to renew Ryan's contract as women's national team coach.
Ryan's deal ends on Dec. 31, 2007. His last match was Sunday, a disappointing 1-1 draw with a nation (Mexico) that has mostly been a punching bag for the powerful U.S. women's program.
In evaluating Ryan, Gulati said that U.S. Soccer weighed everything over the past two years, but gave additional weight to the preparation for and performance in the Women's World Cup. The move reflects U.S. Soccer's larger goal of keeping pace across the board, in men's and women's programs, youth and professional.
"It's clear that a number of [women's] teams around the world are playing at a much higher level than they had been previously," Gulati said. Say what you will about how Ryan handled the Hope Solo response, but it really comes down to two factors: He didn't bring a team to the World Cup ready and prepared to play their own game and they looked it. Besides the obvious FUBAR decision to change goalies, he did a poor job of substituting late in the game when the team was down 2-0. While some thought the Hope Solo benching and then expulsion from the team gave him cover, instead it just put a big spotlight on his poor decision making. And, as anyone who follows soccer will tell you, from coaching to playing, the difference between a win and a loss can come down to one bad decision in the course of ninety minutes. Greg Ryan made far too many. Here's hoping that the new coach will come in and shake things up from personnel to attitude. One last soccer note, the L&T Casey's team has yet to win a match this season, but we like to say that they have one less win than Notre Dame's football team. Kind of glass half full...glass totally empty. Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 7:47 PM
|
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Hey! More World Cup and soccer stuff! Having a rough season of her own... For, hopefully, the last word on Greg Ryan and Hope Solo, we turn the blog over to the Lovely & Talented Casey from comments below: As a soccer player of 15 years now, and a defender, I know what it is like to have a keeper change from one you have played with for a while to one that you haven't played with at all. IT SUCKS. You don't know what the keeper is going to do because you are not used to them. Ryan should have taken into account that the defense wouldn't be used to Scurry because it a realatively (sic) new defense who didn't play with her in the '99 World Cup. They would have no idea how she would play. And although the US team played flat, changing a keeper at the last moment can cause the defense to play flat which can cause the midfield to play flat and so on. It affects the entire team not just the ones playing back there with her.
Secondly, I completely agree with what Solo said. Although, she may have taken a shot at Scurry, she said what was on her mind and, I think, the only reason her team didn't back her up is because after seeing what happened to Solo, they were afraid that Ryan would do the same thing to them. Solo said what was on her mind and I completely admire her for that. She didn't sit back and take crap like that when she knew she could have done a better job. As a player, she is one of my heroes.
As for the team, Ryan is gone... Solo will be back next year.
--The L&T Casey More good World Cup stuff by someone very knowledgeable (as indicated by her correct claim that Michelle Akers is the greatest woman player ever) here, courtesy of gttim The L&T Casey has also given me permission to comment ("tactfully", her word) on her college soccer experience. It's been a rough start, but that was to be expected when she chose to go with a program that is only 14 months old and is already on its second coach. The result: 0-8 on the season. Recruited as a defender she was recently moved to center mid, a position she hasn't played since she was fourteen. (A move, by the way, I predicted would happen after watching her practice with the team before the season started. Casey has mad foot skillz.) Having had the opportunity to see the team play last weekend in Utah and Arizona, I would say that they have a ways to go, but you have to give them credit for not giving up. Playing against programs with 20-24 players, they have a bench with only five subs of which, on any night, only two or three are healthy. After games , they look like a MASH unit, sporting enough ice bags to replace the polar ice cap. Casey has played every minute of every game, the last two with a sprained vertebrae in her back which prevents her from taking a deep breath, and that's just fine with her. The time played...not the injury and that breathing part. Anticipating that she will be playing in the midfield for the next few years, she is going to change her training for next summer, and instead of playing soccer (she was supposed to go play in New Zealand for two weeks) she is going to work out at a local boxing club to improve her foot speed and for the cardio workout. Learning how to effectively punch people is just a bonus. More importantly she is playing a program where she is having fun, playing a lot, and isn't under so much pressure that it feels like a job. I think that is why they call it 'play'. That, and she gets to live in Hawaii. Poor kid. Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 9:05 PM
|
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Bravo, Melanie Jackson.I don't care if you like womens soccer or not. Go read this. Ryan said he made the decision to leave Solo off the team after meeting with the team's leaders. Kristine Lilly, who is playing in her fifth World Cup, said Solo "going public has affected the whole group, and having her with us would still be a distraction."
Uh, that's fine. But while we're talking about distractions, where were you, Lilly, Stephanie Lopez and Carli Lloyd when your coach made the biggest distraction of all in deciding to bench Solo to start Scurry less than 48 hours before the semifinals? It was that move that ultimately failed miserably and had you Americans looking tired and, yes, distracted when Thursday's game kicked off.
Maybe Lilly and Abby Wambach followed some other unspoken, unwritten rules. Like sticking up for a teammate. Maybe they went behind closed doors to ask Ryan what the heck he was thinking. If you're so worried about teammates attacking teammates, how about a coach shooting a whole team in its collective foot?
Ryan's right. His players should have a say in whether Solo is to be included in the consolation game. And guys, I'm glad you spoke up. But was your conscience -- not to mention your allegiance -- as loud when your coach made the wrong decision? For those getting caught up, see here. Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 9:41 PM
|
Greg Ryan finds his scapegoat Hope Solo must die for Greg Ryan's sins Lets face it: U.S. Women's National Team head coach Greg Ryan fucked up. Multiple times. He took Hope Solo, coming off of three consecutive shutouts, and replaced her with 36 year-old Brianna Scurry against a fast and agile Brazilian team and the end result was the US team getting their ass handed to them. And when Solo pointed out what everyone was thinking he canned her. U.S. Women's National Team head coach Greg Ryan, team captain Kristine Lilly and forward Abby Wambach confirmed Saturday in a press conference in Shanghai, China, that goalkeeper Hope Solo would not be a part of the team's preparation in advance of the USA's third-place match with Norway on Sunday.
Ryan made the decision in consultation with his team, sighting the disruption caused by Solo's comments to the press following a loss to Brazil in the tournament semifinals on Thursday evening in Hangzhou.
"We did not have Hope attend practice today," said Ryan to a press gathering in the team hotel. "She will not be attending the game tomorrow (Sunday). We have moved forward with 20 players who have stood by each other, who have battled for each other, and when the hard times came – and the Brazil game was a hard time – they stood strong. Now it is the 20 that have stuck together that will be ready to go out and compete against Norway. That’s our whole focus, and that’s what we’re going to do."
The team's leadership echoed those comments, making a point to highlight how this team has stuck together across their 22-year history. While I don't agree with Solo throwing Scurry under the bus, I think even less of the team, whose performance in the tournament can best be described as underwhelming (1-0 against Nigeria?...puh-leeze) doing the same to Solo. And they're just giving cover to Ryan who may very well be the Marty Schottenheimer of soccer. He puts Scurry in because of her reaction time..and she gets beaten on two shots that require good reactions. A communication breakdown between the defenders and the substitute keeper (who hadn't been playing in the tournament) in all likelihood results in an own goal. And, with his team down 2-0 in the second half he pulls forward Heather O'Reilly out of the game and subs in... a defender. WTF? So how did that work out for you Greg? So it was that, already down two goals in the second half, Ryan substituted defender Tina Ellertson for forward Heather O'Reilly.
"We brought Tina on to defend Marta, and I thought she did a very good job," Ryan said. "And we tried to push Christie Rampone up the field, because Christie is very good at not only defending but attacking going the other way."
Instead of adding an offensive threat like Natasha Kai or Aly Wagner to try to force Brazil to play in its own end, Ryan made a defensive move to bandage a wound already inflicted.
In some ways, it was a fitting gesture for a national program at an uncertain crossroads.
With the game long since decided, Marta broke in on goal in the 79th minute and, with her back to goal, flipped the ball up in the air with the back of her foot. As the crowd started its collective inhale, she spun around Ellertson, corralled the ball, deked Cat Whitehill out of the way and fired home her second goal to push the score to 4-0. On second thought, I was wrong about Ryan. he's not the Marty Schottenheimer of soccer. he's the Grady Little. Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 10:50 AM
|
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Gooooaaaalllll!!!
Gooooaaaalllll!!!
Gooooaaaalllll!!!
Gooooaaaalllll!!!
 I guess you're thinking that this post has something to do with soccer...and it does. And more. Congratulations to the lovely and talented Casey and her high school teammates on winning their third consecutive county title and their fourteenth in the last eighteen years last night. Final score 4-0.  There was an indescribable combination of joy and sadness watching the girls celebrate on the field at the final whistle knowing that for some it may be their last game after years of club soccer, hundreds of games, thousands of practices, and more bumps, bruises, scrapes, concussions, and even more traumatic injuries than we care to think about. For the equally lovely and talented mrs tbogg and I, it is bittersweet knowing that Casey will continue playing at the collegiate level, but unfortunately quite some distance away; we won't be the parents on the sidelines anymore. Between club soccer and Little League/Pony League we have given up weekends and family vacations for thirteen years while shuttling the L&T one from practice to practice, game to game, sport to sport. I remember a weekend, when she was twelve ,when she played in two Pony League games and three soccer games with us driving from field to field and her in the backseat changing uniforms.  We made a conscious decision when she was little to let her attempt any sport she was interested in to see where her talents lay. The only rule was that once she began a season, she had to play it out to the end. With the exception of her football career coming to an end because of a fractured collar bone at the beginning of the season , she upheld her part of the deal. I'm proud of the fact that she never missed one game in any sport because we were on vacation or had some other family business to take care of, because we wanted her to realize that being a part of a team meant being there for your team. I'm also proud of the fact that she didn't balk at playing in leagues or on teams where she was the only girl, and for being the first female permitted to play on a boys team for a Catholic school in San Diego. Now our garage is littered with balls of various sizes and colors, baseball gloves, bats, kicking tees, golf clubs, tennis rackets (the only sport she plays right-handed for some reason), and an appalling collection of not-so-fragrant cleats and running shoes.  So I guess this post is about more than a single soccer game. True story: when Casey was, I'm guessing, five she played her first season of soccer and she was awful. Really really awful. Standout awful in a field of kindergarteners; that kind of awful. I ran into her coach in the off-season and he asked me if she was going to play again the following season. When I said yes, he just looked at me and said, "Really?". And she did and she hasn't stopped since. Mission accomplished. Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 9:11 AM
|
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Very close to the last darn soccer post...
 Sorry. We just got in. Just to bring everyone (who cares) up to date since I've been neglecting my soccer updates, the lovely and talented Casey and her team moved on to the county finals to be played this coming Saturday night. After receiving a bye in the first round, they won the quarterfinal game last Saturday 2-1, and won again tonight 5-0. Very nicely played; four goals coming off headers in the box. They have now gone 16 games in a row without a loss having outscored their opponents 51-11 during the streak. Saturday nights game will be the schools 18th consecutive appearance in the finals, having won it thirteen times. As for the L&T one, this will be her final high school game, then she's slated for a college showcase tournament in late March, and after that she still may go and play in Amsterdam and London in July. Then it's off to college (although she has yet to make her final college commitment...that is a whole other story that I have no interest in getting into at this time). Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 10:38 PM
|
Monday, December 04, 2006
Get it out of the way***Another obligatory soccer post***Just to get this out of the way, because there are bigger fish to fry, the lovely and talented Casey's team lost tonight 2-1, after 1-0 going into halftime. A complete meltdown in the second half and they're lucky they didn't lose 5-1. The L&TC had little impact in the game. Honestly the worst half of soccer I've seen from them in two years. That and they lost, arguably, their best player to a severe concussion for the next few weeks. Casey's had three concussions, but nothing like the one I saw tonight. Pretty ugly. The only good thing I have to say is that the opposing teams second goal was a thing of beauty; a perfect cross to a striker coming in at full speed who nailed it. No keeper I've ever seen, from the National team on down, could have done a thing. Labels: soccer
posted by tbogg at 9:29 PM
|
Friday, December 01, 2006
First match Before the knee surgery*** Obligatory Soccer Post Warning*** Tonight was the first match of tha season, a tournament game with a Division I (enrollment 3000+) team. The lovely and talented Casey's team plays at Division III (1200-1500 students), and the game ended in a 0-0 tie. Another reason why soccer hasn't reached mass acceptance here in the colonies. Actually it was an excellent game with breakaways, spectacular saves (one by the opposing keeper on a penalty kick); exceedingly fast-paced and very physical. The L&TC got to experience the joys of playing forward (striker for you soccer snobs) for the first time in her career and, as you can tell by the score, came away with no assists or goals. It looks like her coach is stil experimenting with the team, trying to find a set that she likes. As usual there is a tremendous pool of talent as there is every year and she's trying to find the right combination. Additionally two of their best players are currently in North Carolina playing with their club teams this week although I'm not sure they would have made a difference against a team like the one tonight. One thing I want to point out is how big and competitive women's soccer is in Southern California. Combine the club systems with year-round good weather and girls can (and do) play 52 weeks out of the year. When Casey was twelve she used to spend part of July playing in camps in Washington state against local girls as well as girls from Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. I'll be the first to admit that Casey is a good player, but not a great player (she has her moments) but she was routinely moved up to play against players three to four years older than her. The difference was that she was on a field about 275 days a year. Practice five days a week, two to three games per weekend. Girls from here are not recruited by colleges from their high school teams, they are recruited while playing with their club teams in tournaments all around the country or at camps. Of the seven graduating players who left her school last year, four are playing D-I soccer in college, one is playing D-II, and one who didn't want to play is a walk-on on her college crew team. This is serious stuff around here. And a big part of me will be glad when it is all over. More on that and other things later. Next game: Monday night against one of the best D-I programs in the county. Labels: soccer
|
|
