Wow.
Well, my earlier criticism of the Dutch is that they’ve tended to play up or down to the level of whatever team they’ve faced each day—a tactic that got them through the group round, but risked being trickier to replicate in the knock-out stage against the cream of the world’s footballing crop. The Netherlands not only …
Keeping ScoreWorld Cup
Last week the TIME.com video crew headed out to Red Bull Arena outside New York City, to glean some soccer insight that might be useful for casual fans. Chris Albright, a defender for the New York Red Bulls and member of the 2006 U.S. World Cup team, was a great sport. Here is the clip.
It may be hard for U.S. fans to adopt the team that knocked your country out of the World Cup, but, still, you should. Ghana boasts the youngest squad in the tournament; they’re quick, slick and, for all their …
Keeping ScoreBasketball
At 12:01 a.m this morning, the biggest free-agent season in sports history began, guaranteeing that the NBA landscape will be torn apart and rearranged. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Amare Stoudemire, Chris Bosh and a collection of …
The World Cup final is supposed to offer the thrilling climax to a month long tournament that has enthralled billions of people across the planet, but more often than not, it’s a pretty dull game — Italy’s 2006 penalties win came after a bore draw in which Zidane’s red-card earning head butt of Materazzi was the high point; Brazil’s …
Keeping ScoreTennis
After Roger Federer lost at the quarterfinals of the French Open a few weeks ago, Newsfeed cautioned against ruing the end of a tennis dynasty. “An era will truly end when Federer fails to reach the semis at Wimbledon,” we wrote, …
Keeping ScoreWorld Cup
What, no soccer today? Or tomorrow? Boo. American fans have gotten used to their daily, crack-like football fix. We want to waste away those work hours watching Uruguay and Paraguay and whatever other South American team is going to win today. It’s 10 AM Eastern? There should be a game on. It’s 2:30 P.M? Where’s my game? Sorry, Wimbledon …
So with Japan’s and South Korea’s losses to the Guays (Japan to Para-, South Korea to Uru-), the Asians are out of the World Cup. Frankly, few expected the South Koreans and Japanese to get to the round of 16 in the first place. As continents go, Asia is a football bummer. (Compare it to South America, which has four teams heading …
Day and night at the World Cup. In the afternoon, Japan and Paraguay, two teams terrified to lose at this stage in the tournament, mud-wrestled for 120 minutes before Japan dissolved in a penalty kick shootout, 5-3. To be honest, I didn’t see the end of the game. Fortunately, I had to leave for the Spain vs. Portugal match—two teams …
So how do you neutralize Cristiano Ronaldo, the superstar of epic Nike ads who so rarely does much more than preen and posture in his national team colors? Quite simple, really: You simply don’t let his team have the ball. (And you don’t seriously think glamour-boy Ronaldo goes back and fights for possession, do you? Nope. He …
So you are a defender for Chile and you are playing the game of your life and you are realizing that, in a soccer sense, your life isn’t worth much. Because Brazil is squeezing the oxygen out of you, its unrelenting, high-pressure offense giving lie to the notion that this is somehow a more conservative Brazil. You want conservative? …
Jeezo peezo. If that farce was a World Cup 1/8th final match, I wonder how we managed to avoid death by narcolepsy during the group rounds. Certainly the Netherlands deserved its 2-1 victory over Slovakia, but only because it lost what for the most part looked like a sleepwalk competition: the Dutch couldn’t quite manage to be as …
