Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
I hate it for Tata, but not sorry to see Mexico go home.
According to the Liverpool Echo, Juventus (whose entire board of directors resigned yesterday) has decided it wants the young Belgian midfielder Amadou Onana, and is prepared to offer Weston McKennie in exchange.
As an Everton supporter, as much as I like Wes, there is no way on God’s green earth I make that deal unless I also get at least EUR 10 million. Onana is far from a finished product, but his ceiling is so high you can barely imagine it.
Semi-related, my club team of choice (Milan) is potentially going to lose Rafa Leao to a Premier League club (or maybe Real/Barca). If they do, I'd be thrilled to see Pulisic join Dest in the Rossoneri and take over the left wing role. The new owner is a US-based businessman with global interest, and I'm sure he would love to draw more of the burgeoning US fanship. Landing 2 of the 3 or 4 most marketable US players would be a great start.
That said, as much as I love McKennie (his work rate is phenomenal and his productivity is impressive, especially given his somewhat low technical quality), I agree on Onana vs McKennie. There is a ton of upside in Onana. He's got a lot of the same attributes as McKennie at that age, but in a bigger body. But McKennie has not made the technical leap (essentially he remains the same guy he was at 21), whereas there is still plenty of hope for Onana to make the leap.
For those that want to watch the trickler towards the US goal in the final stoppage minute, wowza!
https://twitter.com/FOXSoccer/status...97671715774465
On another note, I found this chart from FiveThirtyEight interesting:
The U.S. Played To Win Against Iran — And It Worked _ FiveThirtyEight.jpg
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...and-it-worked/
It definitely demonstrates that a team can outplay another one by the standard "stats" (basically, shots on goal and how well they target is the variable, I believe), and still lose. The variability in winning/losing a football match are huge because a single goal is such an enormous difference but the difference between scoring and not can be mere inches. Interesting that the U.S. BEST performance by these stats was against Ghana in 2010, where they'd be expected to win by 1.25 goals and they LOST 2-1.
This chart also shows that the U.S. apparently doesn't outplay its opponents all that much and in the 10 times they are expected to score more, they actually only did so in actuality TWICE (20% of the time)! Five losses and three ties. That's not a great percentage although three of the games were so close to not really mean much (goal differential 0.06 or less). So, if you remove those, U.S. victory % on games where they are expected to have more goals moves up to (still a paltry) 29%.
As of halftime this morning, Belgium is going home. They've still got 45 minutes to change that, of course.
Belgium is one of those teams that appears to be much less than the sum of its parts. And just as I type that, Lukaku has an open shot from 10 yards that hits the post and caroms off.
Lukaku with a third point-blank shot, and nothing to show for it. I feel sorry for de Bruyne, one of my favorite players, but he looks like the only one invested in this match. I'm guessing Belgium as a whole is gassed.
OK, gotta ask now ... Who had Morocco winning Group F and Belgium going home? Can't say I did.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
Also, this is what I wrote about Belgium a few weeks ago:
De Bruyne couldn't do it alone. And he's the main reason for the epic infighting over the last few weeks.Why They'll Lose: Because their defense is slow. Vertonghen and Alderweireld are talented players. Both played at Tottenham for a long period of time. Both are tall and physical. They are also both older (mid-30s). And they are slow. They cannot stop fast moving and creative attacks. They let in a lot of goals. Belgium can manufacture goals; they can also let a lot in.
The Impact Player Who You May Not Know: Thomas Meunier. It's tough to choose a player here, because everyone is either old and underperforming and too young and irrelevant. Enter Thomas Meunier, who plays for Dortmund and seems to be on everyone's wish list yet no one wants to pay for him. He's a right back but versatile enough to play in midfield. He can defend, he can pass, and he can score if in the right place at the right time. He's the kind of player you need to advance because he doesn't mind doing the dirty work.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club