Official WORLD CUP Thread

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

the offsides call is either made or not made at the time of the pass. you are free to break away and go get balls played downfield for a breakaway, provided you were onssides when the pass was made.

the strategy is to get a full sprint on, and have the ball passed just as you are passing the defender. that way you get way downfield alone with the ball vs the goaltender.

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

Thanks to all for the explanations. I think I have it. Which may be scary. :lol:

I'm also trying to come up with an explanation as to how soccer can be so universally popular around the world except for the US. Is it because of our fixation with MLB, NHL, NBA, and of course LSU football?

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

Given this explanation (which sounds correct), were the officials calling England for offsides yesterday at times they weren't offsides? It seems that several times the English attackers were not passed the defenders when the ball was passed.

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

The reason why we could not put up any coherent sustained offense yesterday was because we did not have a working midfield. We were having to drop our midfielders back deep into the defensive thrid of the field. So once we won the ball, they were too deep to move the ball up with control The only way they could move it up was to try and force it to the forwards and hope they could maintain possession until the midfielders caught up with the flow. Also, the center midfielders that we had in the game were more defensive mids. We were not playing with any holding midfielders.


Another way to think of it is, we were playing without a point guard. This was done because tactically we were playing a defensive formation.

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

Offsides == to prevent players from cherrypicking the goalmouth the rule says that a player from team A is offside if, at the moment the ball is passed, the only team B player standing between him and the goal is the goalkeeper himself.


there are exceptions. backpasses are exempt, corner kicks are exempt, and throw-ins are exempt, you can not be offsides in your own half of the field.

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRPra3sHdPM&NR=1&feature=fvwp[/media]

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

I do not remember any blown offsides calls in the game but i will watch it again to check. The call is made by the linesman, who is supposed to stay in a straight line with the last defender. Unfortunately, linesman have always called with this in their head -- tie goes to the defense. I really wish FIFA would tell them to think the opposite. It would open the game up a bit.

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

You must be a SERIOUS soccer fan. :lol:

 

Re: United States Vs England-World Cup 1:30pm CST

Basically right. Soccer is the most popular amateur and youth sport in the US. It just does not translate into the pro game yet. The problem is that there was not a pro league. After college you were stuck, or you have to be amazingly lucky to get scouted by a foreign league. It will be a while, but now that there is a pro league in the MLS it will give a sport for all those youth players when they get older.


The other main reason why soccer is not big in the US now is, the NASL -- North American Soccer League. In the 70's and early 80s this was the pro league in the US. It attracted the greatest players in the world - Pele, Beckenbauer, Georgie Best, Georgio Chinaglia just to name a few. The best of NASL was The New York Cosmos. Which had the same mentality as the New York Yankees. They outspeny everybody by leaps and bounds. The bought tons of foreign players and had some really amazing teams, but they did not try to cultivate local talent. Eventually the Cosmos basically bankrupted the league as the other teams tried to compete.