Friday, July 07, 2006
postmortem
as for the US’s world cup performance this time around, there’s no doubt that I was supremely disappointed at the results. However, with some time to reflect I’ve come to feel that most of the pundits are overreacting. This World Cup came down to two things: the US team didn’t play well and it was in the tournament’s toughest group. Just consider the French team for a moment. They won the WC for the first time in 1998, and then in 2002, the defending champs failed to score a single goal and crashed out after the first round. Now they are in the finals again. So it’s a very fine line between success and failure even for the best teams and this time around, the US was on the wrong side of that line is all. There's plenty of blame to share about why the team didn't play well, but the fact remains that there's not a huge difference in the quality of play by the US between this World Cup and the last one. What was definitely different were the intangibles like confidence and luck, which both seemed to be in short supply this time around.
Watching Zinédine Zidane play these past few games for France has been a joy. He is truly the best player of his generation. My personal hope is that France wins the final, but I don't think that's likely unless it gets to penalties. The only player I enjoy watching from the Italian team is Cannavaro. This guy is 5’ 9”, 165 lbs, and has been the best defender in the World Cup.
as for the US’s world cup performance this time around, there’s no doubt that I was supremely disappointed at the results. However, with some time to reflect I’ve come to feel that most of the pundits are overreacting. This World Cup came down to two things: the US team didn’t play well and it was in the tournament’s toughest group. Just consider the French team for a moment. They won the WC for the first time in 1998, and then in 2002, the defending champs failed to score a single goal and crashed out after the first round. Now they are in the finals again. So it’s a very fine line between success and failure even for the best teams and this time around, the US was on the wrong side of that line is all. There's plenty of blame to share about why the team didn't play well, but the fact remains that there's not a huge difference in the quality of play by the US between this World Cup and the last one. What was definitely different were the intangibles like confidence and luck, which both seemed to be in short supply this time around.
Watching Zinédine Zidane play these past few games for France has been a joy. He is truly the best player of his generation. My personal hope is that France wins the final, but I don't think that's likely unless it gets to penalties. The only player I enjoy watching from the Italian team is Cannavaro. This guy is 5’ 9”, 165 lbs, and has been the best defender in the World Cup.
