Who Would've Been Great At Soccer?

As long as we're doing this thing we do every 4 years, I might as well throw my one big idea into the ring: the American athlete who could've been a great soccer player -- Barry Sanders.

The Far Left

Is a major, major problem.  

Probably Right

Were the 80s so great for kids? 

My biggest fear in the 80s was getting my ass kicked by some psycho kid using a weapon (and there seemed to be psycho kids around). 

And I recall being bored quite a bit.

Bet

Show me a male DSA socialist (communist), and 80% odds they've got daddy issues. If I could bet on this, I'd be a rich man. 

Iran P2

Agree with Tyler Cowen - many commentators thought Iran "won" the MOU, which begs the question: if they won, why restart fighting? Possibilities:

1) They are batshit crazy and can't help but go to war

2) They didn't win anything they wanted

3) All moderating elements are all gone

Who knows?

DSA

Takes away members' right to vote. Why am I not surprised?

I'd be more inclined to support working-class movements if somehow Israel and DEI-type topics didn't always come up as tangents.

A Thing About China

That's admirable...at least they invest in their own people. They commit to learning, training, and building, but don't grant folks much freedom. In contrast, America gives people freedom but doesn't strongly invest in building, training, or investing in our people. In fact, the other day I read something (can't find it) about becoming a post-literate society. And someone's comment was training his kid to be a reader so it will give him a superpower advantage over others. Embedded in this reaction is the idea that I think motivates elites in America - that what they really care about is providing advantage to their own children. While natural, I think overbalanced in the wrong direction. We should also care about the country and communities we live in. If we choose to build a society that doesn't care about itself, it should not surprise us when radical political ideas begin to get traction.

Hear Me Out

Merge the WNBA and WWE. Every basketball game breaks out into some sort of crazy fight. I think people would watch. 

A Pretty Weird Fact

I read the entire interview with the head of the anthropology field. She keeps insisting we "know" there are more than two sexes as an undebatable fact. But she fails to mention that 99-99.8% of all humans fall into the two-sex category, whereas a very minuscule minority fall outside that binary. So is her point a relevant one? Also, she keeps switching between sex and gender and sexuality as if all these are the same category. Hopelessly weird and quite odd. She also doesn't say HOW many sexes there are. She makes it sound like there are dozens evenly distributed. You expect academics to maybe be pedantic or impractical, but this is something else entirely. Misleading, is what I would say.

Tarantino As The Modern Mark Twain

Can't believe I never put this together before, but thinking about the title "The Adventures of Cliff Booth" is obviously a shoutout to "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." 

Another Feather in Newsom's Hat...

Paramount is considering leaving California because of antitrust measures.

It would destroy Hollywood, but maybe it's already dead.

But in good news, the rents and cost of living will be drastically reduced since there will be no jobs.

Soccer Impressions

Tier 1: France, Spain

Tier 1.5: Argentina, England

Tier 2 Teams: Belgium, Brazil, Morocco, Norway, Croatia, Portugal, Netherlands

Tier 2.5 Teams: Mexico, Germany, Egypt, Colombia, Japan, Switzerland, Senegal

Tier 3: US, Uruguay, Cape Verde, Ecuador, Turkey, Canada, DR Congo, Sweeden

Tier 3.5: Australia, Paraguay, Bosnia, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Ghana, Iran

Not sure if I've seen others play.

US Soccer

Now everyone is trying to solve the problem with US Soccer, but everyone sees the issue the wrong way. Our big problem is that other countries are absurdly good. It'd be like saying the US needs to solve the issue of why French and Chinese cuisine is so damn good. This isn't a problem we need to solve, people! We get to watch Messi and Haaland on TV and in soccer stadiums. Count these as blessings.

Also - we're not that bad. We're about on par with Mexico, a country that probably does everything that all these pundits are suggesting. Relax. It's good that America isn't the "best" at everything. 

More on the US Game

Watched most of the rest of the game. 

-Reyna added something in the first 10 minutes or so of the 2nd half and looked like a good sub. When he came in, it was the best stretch of US play.

-During this stretch, there was a tackle Pulisic lost that he absolutely needed to win right in the middle of the field in the final third. If he had, it was going to be a major chance on goal at 2-1. 

-On the Pulisic injury play, I had to watch it about 5 times to understand what occurred. At first, it looked like a foul, but on replay, Tielemans gets to the ball just before, and it's a legit tackle. Pulisic was too slow on the play. He takes a microsecond too long, looks up to shoot, but maybe doesn't quite understand the guy was right on him, although he should've. Again, the speed of play gives him problems. Why he gets injured on the play is unclear to me. I suppose this is what people mean by his fragility.  

-US team dummies the ball 3x during the game in the final third, and it doesn't get to a teammate ever. Dummy plays are sometimes brilliant but oftentimes used when the player doesn't want to attempt a play. I think this was the case in all 3 of the attempts, except maybe the first. 

-Adams makes a brilliant pass to Freeman at one point that a world-class player brings down and gets a an attempt on goal. We have problems in this game. We have a few players not up for the level and no players who can reach a higher level to compensate. Freeman and Tillman play fine in the game, but cannot access that top tier level and this play was an example of it. Adams and Richards seem like perhaps the two players on the field who truly look on par with the Belgium players in that they don't need to expend too much effort to play as their equals.

-Belgium should've scored another goal before halftime on a cross

-14, 8, 10 on Belgium control the midfield most of the first half and made the difference.

-After Pulisic goes down, the game feels essentially over.

-I've heard people say Berhalter played well. Sure. It helps when the other team knows it has the game in the bag and lets you possess the ball because they don't think you are dangerous.

-Belgium played Pulisic, Balogun, Dest, and Reyna (when he came in) tight. Maybe McKinnie...I would need to rewatch. They let others have more space, so I guess they had scouted and knew who to pressure and figured our backs weren't gonna do much on offense.  

-McKinnie moves positions at halftime when they took out Dest. After Pulisic goes down it seems like he disappears.

-Third goal was so bad it defies belief.

-Fourth goal, everyone had stopped playing because they knew the game was over. Don't know what that says about our team -- on some level, who cares, they were exhausted. On another level, a lack of pride to complete a game like this feels odd. 

First 30 Rewatch

-Belgium came out to play a physical game, were aggressive and winning tackles at all levels early

-Seemed like both Pulisic and Balogun were man-marked at the beginning and Pulisic in particular didn't respond to it well

-US attackers relatively quickly had to come back further than normal to get touches on the ball

-The first Belgium goal was simply a missed clearance but a very sloppy, rec soccer type of play where 3 guys stand around waiting for others to clear

-A moment around 27 minutes Pulisic had a chance to take on the Belgium defense and for some reason doesn't and passes back. In the Paraguay game, he attacks there. Perhaps because he has lost the ball several times and Belgium are physical

-I think Belgium playing like EPL style and our guys are used to having more time on the ball and they are having real trouble adjusting. With Belgium playing so aggressively, US needs to skip the first level and make longer passes, but we weren't successful the few times we tried. Missed McKennie on one in particular. Maybe Belgium assessed all our "skill" players are not EPL style - Italian, Dutch, and French leagues and realized we wouldn't be used to the speed of the game. 

-Right after our free kick goal, Pulisic takes on Belgium defense, actually gets fouled but the ref no calls it. He was fouled on the first play when he takes it around Tielemans, then nutmegs a second guy, who bodies him and Pulisic flops. Ref no calls because of the second foul, but actually the first play was the foul.

-Reem looks out of sorts, has no wheels so gives Belgium too much space. Sure, on their 2nd goal, the guy climbs on his back...technically a foul, but basically Reem gets out-muscled there and can't count on ref to make that call.

Bottom line - Belgium clearly came out with an aggressive game plan and it threw us off. We were not ready for such a fast and aggressive game. First goal was a tiny bit flukey but we did not recover well. We got fortunate on the free kick goal - we weren't really making much of an attack, the shot glanced off the head of someone. To me on second watch, it looks like we were physically outmatched - Pulisic and Dest too small for the bigger, fast Belgium match ups. Reem too slow. Our goalie too klutzy.  

Young Progressives

I get this vibe from young progressives that they feel things like being mentally healthy, finding a job, building a stable relationship, buying a house, or even just making the rent each month are so impossible and difficult, and yet, they also think they have a really intelligent way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Please make it make sense.

Logging

TV: Cape Fear thru E7

Perhaps I repeat myself: bonkers in a good way 

Funny Indeed

Trump is a poor person's notion of a rich man, and Platner a rich man's notion of a poor man.

Retards All Around

I watch the US-Belgium game. I listen to the commentary afterwards. I could not hear announcers during the game, though. I watch the post-game press conference with Pochettino. Nobody asks why De Bruyne and Doku didn't start? Nobody asks what Belgium did to completely nullify our midfield and attack, which had been our strength all tournament? I mean, this level of non-understanding of soccer is beyond me. They want to talk about Trump, about whether this is a disappointment for the US whether Pochettino will be back. What happened to Pulisic in the game? Why did he come off? Was he injured? What adjustments - if any - did any of the teams make? Here's what I can piece together...Belgium had looked rough all tournament and went down 2-0 against Senegal. Got desperate and subbed their two biggest stars - Doku and De Bruyne - and then somehow managed to come back to win 3-2. They decided to go with the hot hand, which I think involved handing the keys to Troussard and Tielemans and played a younger, more energetic 11. Maybe they always play with one striker, but I think they had 5 in midfield and completely dominated and our guys could not string any connection together with each other. Also, I read they decided to man mark Balogun. Did anyone in the entire United States notice this during the game? This negated our main target up front and I think disrupted our ability to possess in any dangerous spots during the game. I don't understand how we expect to get better and be better at soccer if we can't even understand the game being played.