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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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They're dropping like flies! Luis Suarez jogged for the first time yesterday after his surgery.
Memo to Uruguay: jogging don't cut it in the WC.
Montolivo is gone for Italy although they generally don't lack for defenders. Apparently
Barzagli is also questionable.
Ribery is done and France will sorely miss him, eh?
I strongly doubt that Diego Costa will get his hamstring back in time.
Watched Bosnia humiliate Mexico Tuesday with my Bosnian, English, and Colombian homies.
Now that was a good time! Bosnia is 'ranked' 40 by FIFA and Mexico is 20? I don't think so.
Every Bosnian plays in the Serie A, Bundesliga, or the Prem and they looked every inch the
professional side.
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this just in
climber
north fork
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 7, 2014 - 10:01am PT
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I didn't realize Ribery was out for sure too, but that sucks. Another of my favorites. Suarez will play it looks like, but will he be in a red jersey or a hot pink one in August? Real is goin for him and I can't fathom him and Ronaldo and Bale and di Maria and...I hope he stays with the Reds.
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pc
climber
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Great Article Sparky. Thanks for posting.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Wow that 2nd goal by Altidore VS Nigeria was bad ass. Bradley had an
excellent game in the midfield. He's emerging as a very effective playmaker. Got a bit sloppy after Altidore & Dempsey came out. I really liked the speed on the counter attack. I think
they're ready for Ghana.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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That was a funny game. Nigeria looked to be in control for the first 20 minutes.
Then the US seemed to get their act together and the Nigerians seemed to lose
interest. I'm going to be generous in that the US really seemed to figure
things out and more or less caused the Nigerians to lose interest. I did
not like the finishing but they did create chances, admitedly against a highly
questionable defense. Bradley was impressive but I was really impressed by
Jones and Johnson. I liked Beasley's game but I thought Besler stunk the
joint up even without the obvious penalty. I still like Diskerud although
I don't know how he starts. I'm still not a Cameron fan although Zusi rose
a bit in my view. All in all it was hard to believe this was the same team
that I saw stink the joint up against Turkey. The Golden Eagles need a new
nickname, probably from the pigeon family.
England 0 - Honduras 0 Really? Very sad.
Saw a bit of Spain/El Salvador They don't seem to have lost much although
El Salvador wasn't much of a test.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Reilly: what did you like about Jones & Johnson? Their ability to cause turnovers in midfield?
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Costa looked pretty good today against El Salvador. . .
Though the score was only 2-0, it should have been much higher. . .
lots of missed opportunities.
And David Villa going to the new New York team. . .
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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TT, to me it seemed Jones was everywhere and looked very solid. I really
liked Johnson picking his times to go forward and playing some creative balls.
To me they both showed their German pedigree - intelligent and consistent play.
I was also impressed with Kyle Beckerman. I can only think he would be a
touch quicker if he wasn't lugging two pounds of hemp around on his head.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Johnson got the assist on Altidore's 1st Goal. My German
wife is accusing Klinsmann of stealing German
players for the US team.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Any South American country winning the cup would be fine with me.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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I'd say there's a good chance that could happen
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jun 10, 2014 - 09:31am PT
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Will this finally be the year that the Argentines manage to play as a team
and win the Cup honestly? I suspect Brasil will get some very favorable calls
but I really think the pressure might turn out to be too much for them in
that they will press too hard and suffer from counter-attacks. I haven't
seen their current goalkeeper but I've never been impressed with S American
keepers, excepting El Loco, claro que si. S American keepers always seem
susceptible to aerial game as played by the Europeans - they just seem to
misjudge trajectories and they make bad decisions. That said I think Argentina
might have more talent that Brasil and a Germany/Argentina final could materialize.
The News:
J Lo won't sing at the opener!!!!!!!!
A subway strike in Sao Paulo. LOL
Pele joins chorus of criticism of Brazil's World Cup spending! Good on you, mate!
Mexico's coach tells players: No sex, alcohol at World Cup. BwaHaHaHaHa!
A lot of good that will do.
Stephen Hawking has a theory on how England can win World Cup.
And who will be able to understand it?
In Brazil, group scores victory in land protest before World Cup.
Nice story about Bosnia's Edin Dzeko:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/la-sp-world-cup-bosnia-herzegovina-20140609-story.html#
During the war... "he was outside kicking a ball around with some friends
when his mother called him in. Seconds later a bomb landed on the ground
where he had been playing.
“My gut feeling saved my son's life,” his mother, Belma, said."
Bonus coverage: Why the US will never win the World Cup...
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
In streets of Brazil, the soul of soccer is a long way from World Cup
By Kevin Baxter and Vincent Bevins Los Angeles Times
June 9, 2014, 6:45 PM|Reporting from Sao Paulo, Brazil
Yuri Peterson has the speed and elusiveness of a top striker and the vision and touch of a playmaking midfielder..
But what really marks the tiny 11-year-old as a soccer player are his feet. The skin on the sides of his big toes has been rubbed away by playing barefoot on the concrete court of the overcrowded housing project where he lives in Sao Paulo’s South Zone, a common malady for young players here.
“It does happen,” he says with a shrug as he looks down at this feet. “I play all the time without shoes.”
So do many boys in Brazil, where soccer games are plentiful but shoes and open fields are not.
Neymar, Fred and Hulk, the top players on Brazil’s World Cup team, all learned the game playing barefoot in the street. So did Romario, Ronaldo and Rivaldo, who won four World Cups among them.
Pele, widely recognized as the greatest player of all time, was too poor to afford soccer boots and he didn’t own a real ball either.
“We used to [make] a ball with socks,” he remembers. “Get my father’s socks, my mother’s. Then we’d fill them with paper and play in the streets.”
It wasn’t as if he had a choice. In few places is a sport more integral to the national identity than soccer is in Brazil. Just check out the flag. Looks like a soccer ball, doesn’t it?
“It’s everything,” says Sergio Roberto Da Silva, a former minor league soccer player who now runs a sports club in San Paulo. “It’s happiness. It’s enjoyment. Brazilians without soccer, they don’t live.”
The World Cup, which opens its monthlong run on Thursday in Sao Paulo, hasn’t sparked the same fervor. The government spent more than $11 billion during the seven-year run-up to this tournament, yet many projects remain unfinished while others were never started. Many people here refer to it simply as “the robbery,” a misuse of money they say could have been better spent for schools, hospitals or public transportation.
On the narrow street that leads to the soulless concrete tower where Peterson lives, three men were stringing yellow, blue and green paper banners late Sunday, the only indication the country’s national team was about to play. On the same block four years ago, when the World Cup was held in South Africa, Brazilian flags hung from houses and flapped from car windows and the logo of the Brazilian soccer federation was painted on walls.
“People are tired of the World Cup,” says Rafael Ambrosio, a resident of South Zone. “Maybe it will change when the games start.”
The games are already underway inside the housing project, where Peterson and about a dozen friends chase a pink rubber ball around a fenced-in concrete court marked like a soccer field. If there are teams, those allegiances change quickly with the player nearest the ball often deciding which end to shoot at.
This is what passes for street soccer today in places like Sao Paulo (pop. 11.8 million), the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere and one in which cars and buses clog the warren of tangled streets, driving kids to the enclosed soccer courts that dot many neighborhoods.
The court where Peterson plays, painted a light blue, is 20 yards wide and about 45 yards long with green posts at each end to mark the goals. Graffiti covering the walls around the court claims the territory for the city’s dominant gang, which carefully monitors everything that happens in its neighborhoods but rarely interferes in the soccer games.
That’s not the case 45 minutes away in Itaquera, near the Arena Corinthians stadium where the World Cup will kick off. There, Joel Vitor Oliveira Gonsclaves says, the concrete court in the slum where he lives has become an open-air drug market. And when there are pickup games, the number of kids who show up to play often means long waits before the skinny 14-year-old is picked for a side.
“We wish our neighborhoods could be safer,” says Oliveira, who rides his bike to Da Silva’s sports club, one of the few places that boasts two full-sized grass fields. Da Silva says his club has taken 800 children like Oliveira off the streets, giving them food while also feeding their appetite for soccer.
“I’m very proud of that,” says Da Silva, who has to beg for funds to keep the club operating. “Doing something like this is priceless. And it also doesn’t pay.”
But it’s these poor neighborhoods that are the richest in soccer players.
“Brazil is unequivocally the most successful and celebrated football nation,” says David Goldblatt, author of “Futebol Nation: The Story of Brazil Through Soccer.”
“That has got to be your starting point. And as with everything you need to start at the bottom, not the top.”
Galaxy midfielder Marcelo Sarvas, who learned the game in Sao Paulo, said he rarely saw a grass field when he was growing up. Instead he played games of five on five, shirts versus skins, with a sandal or a rock marking the boundaries of the goal.
Teammate Juninho had a similar childhood.
“We all grew up playing in the street. That’s the custom,” he says. “With small goals in the street. And from there we got better.”
Getting good enough to someday play on a grass field was something Sarvas and Juninho aspired to.
“That makes you better,” Sarvas says. “When you see all the nice stuff, the nice fields, it makes you hungry. All kids dream of becoming a professional soccer player.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Sarvas is one of four players from Sao Paulo on the Galaxy roster, part of a larger group of players Brazil has shared with top-flight leagues all over the world.
The country’s leading export may be iron ore but it’s best known as the top producer of exceptional soccer players.
This season there are 18 Brazilians, including national team goalkeeper Julio Cesar of Toronto FC, playing in Major League Soccer, the top U.S. league. And just two of the 23 players on Brazil’s World Cup team play club soccer at home, while six Brazilians play in the English Premier League.
In his book Goldblatt writes that nearly 1,200 Brazilians played professional soccer outside their country in 2008, the high-water mark for exports. Collectively they were worth nearly a quarter-billion dollars.
“Is it because they are Brazilian? Or do they become Brazilian by playing barefoot in the street?” Goldblatt asks.
It sounds like a trick question, like trying to separate the chicken from the egg. In reality, they are one in the same since all streets leading into Brazil also lead out again.
Tiny Yuri Peterson, who would one day like to play for Barcelona, hopes soccer provides a way out for him too. “I like it,” he says shyly. “Everyone likes soccer.”
kevin.baxter@latimes.com
Twitter: @kbaxter11
Bevins is a special correspondent for The Times.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
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pc
climber
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Jun 10, 2014 - 11:10am PT
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Ghana 4 : S Korea 0
Ruh, oh...
Ghana have looked weak heading into the cup but this may be a sign of them finding some confidence.
Can't wait for Thursday!!!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jun 10, 2014 - 09:45pm PT
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TT, that was funny, informative, and sad. Good find! FIFA the non-profit. That's like saying
the Cosa Nostra is a non-profit. I really like all the taxes avoided.
I'm so bummed, I got a 911 call and it looks like I'm gonna miss Brasil/Croatia!!!! :-(
Brasil 2. Croatia 1
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Jun 10, 2014 - 09:51pm PT
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! Viva Argentina !!1111111
!! Viva Messi !!
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jun 11, 2014 - 07:29pm PT
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Tomorrow!!!!
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