Month: July 2011

soccer

A brainstorm on mixing pro and elite amateurs

Posted on by Beau Dure

A unique problem for U.S. soccer, on both the women’s and men’s sides, is that the vast majority of good players between the ages of 18 and 22 are busy with college soccer from August to December. Then they’re in school (and playing unmarketed tournaments) until May.

That leaves a narrow window for those players to participate in any league on the American soccer pyramid — the PDL, the NPSL, the WPSL and the W-League. They have to wrap up early to get their players back to school. (On a related note, congratulations to the league champions determined this weekend — Orange County Waves in the WPSL, the winner of this evening’s Atlanta Silverbacks-Ottawa Fury game in the W-League, and Jacksonville United in the NPSL. The PDL has one more weekend.)

And college players can’t play on pro teams. So if you want to pay your players a few bucks, you can’t have college players alongside them. College players can play against pros, but not with them.

In men’s soccer, the pro/am split isn’t that big a deal. Clubs that want to go pro can do so, either by spending megamillions to join MLS, or a good bit less to play in the NASL or USL Pro.

But in women’s soccer, we’re seeing some rumblings of lower-tier leagues that have already had a couple of pro teams exploring full-fledged pro divisions. The challenge will be getting enough teams willing to make the leap.

If they don’t, here’s a wild idea:

– Spend the summer playing in mixed pro and amateur leagues as we have now.

– In the fall, once the kids have gone back to school, play a Pro Cup. Take all the pro teams in the country, including WPS teams reunited with international stars who spent much of the summer at the Olympics, and play a short season leading to a couple of playoff games.

The advantages:

– The pro teams get enough games to make the season worthwhile.

– College players get to face pros in competition.

– The pro teams will have all their national team players together in a short season that should be perfect for capitalizing on any momentum from the Olympics, World Cup or any other tournament. (While I’m revamping things, I’d also like to lobby for a Copa Americas for Western Hemisphere teams, perhaps in odd non-World Cup years like the Euro championship.)

– Teams that want to just dip their toes into the pro waters can do so, playing amateur teams through much of the summer.

– Between the pro teams and amateur teams, we should have enough teams to split up into regions through most of the regular season, keeping travel costs down.

The necessary disclaimer: I have absolutely no reason to think this is under discussion anywhere. Just throwing it out for people to kick around. So go ahead …

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medal projections, olympic sports

2012 weightlifting: Only the strong survive

Posted on by Beau Dure

We simply can’t write about weightlifting without calling in this classic Saturday Night Live bit:

A sport that measures sheer strength at its core does indeed provide temptation to cheat. But the 30 reported doping incidents in 2009 (see PDF) are still less than the number reported in, say, cycling. These folks know the rules.

Asia is the hotbed for this sport these days. China won nine medals at home in 2008, Russia took seven, and South Korea, Kazakhstan and Belarus combined for 10.

World Championships are held in every non-Olympic year, so we have 2010 results to check out now while we await the 2011 edition in November.

But rankings in weightlifting are the most objective in any Olympic sport. They’re not based on points from various competitions. They’re based on how much weight someone lifted. Whether the athlete lifted that much weight in a World Championship or smaller competition doesn’t really matter. It’s still the same weight. Even track and field has a few variables, such as wind and temperature, that affect an athlete’s times and distances.

So we’ll make these projections really simple. The sole basis will be the 2010 rankings. And we’ll come back and re-check after the World Championships in 2011.

It’s just that simp … wait … it’s not? Each country can only nominate 10 athletes, two per event? Six men, four women.

Grrrrrr. OK, we’ll try to bear that in mind. And naturally, it’ll be relevant — China won 11 medals at Worlds.

Continue reading →

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soccer, sports culture

MLS All-Stars, overreaction and reaction

Posted on by Beau Dure

Hysterical overreaction is as much a part of the Internet as inappropriate photos and conspiracy theories.

Given that, I’m a little surprised I haven’t heard today from the dude who kept Tweeting at me last week about MLS “fixing” games by playing reserves in the second half … of friendlies. Oh no, it couldn’t be a prudent decision to rest starters and give reserves some experience in a game that won’t count in the standings. It’s a crime.

The Internet is noisy. After any event that draws hype, many people will sound off. And just as the UFC survives to fight another day when a main event is disappointing, so too will MLS survive a round of friendlies in which European elites have basically wiped the field with indifferent, inexperienced or inferior teams.

All that said, MLS fans and the blogopundits are well within their rights to look at last night’s game and ask whether the league has any players capable of hitting the broad side of a barn from the penalty spot.

The league has already set a record for scoreless ties, and it’s not even August, as Steve Davis laments in a sound analysis. Then last night, the MLS All-Stars laid a goose egg.

Yes, Manchester United is one of the world’s best teams, and yes, they’re clearly taking this U.S. tour more seriously than many teams have taken it in the past. Their attacking flair was brilliant last night, and it’s hard to begrudge an All-Star team that never practices together the four goals it conceded to Rooney, Berbatov et al.

Yet United gave the All-Stars plenty of space, appropriately enough for a friendly. No one’s getting “stuck in” on a challenge in a game like this. (Jamison Olave left with an injury, but it wasn’t caused by contact.) The All-Stars, though unfamiliar with each other, completed 86% of their passes and managed 13 shots, two more than a well-oiled Man U machine. Goals? Zero. And it’s not as if Man U’s two keepers had to dig deep to keep the All-Stars at bay.

Can we prove anything from one game? No. Is it one more sad piece of evidence to the well-supported theory that MLS players can knock the ball around all day, just as they do in those ubiquitous possession drills, but can’t put the ball in the net? Certainly looks that way.

And fans have every right to say, while supporting the league in near-record numbers, that GMs should be looking for goal-scorers and coaches should be devoting a bit more time to finishing drills rather than possession exercises.

That’s not an overreaction to one game. The All-Star Game isn’t even the last straw. It’s just a well-publicized example of a legitimate problem. The result — Manchester United winning — doesn’t matter. Overreacting to the game is silly. Reacting is not.

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medal projections, olympic sports

2012 taekwondo: Slightly more violent than Riverdance

Posted on by Beau Dure

Hop, hop, hop, hop, KICK, hop, hop, hop, KICK, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop …

It’s a curiously constrained combat sport, and it has gone through some changes recently. The new scoring system (see the rules PDF) gives 1 point for a punch or kick to the chest, 2 points for a “turning” kick to the chest, 3 for a kick to the head and 4 for a “turning” kick to the head.

They’re also wearing sensors on their feet and chest, making the sport resemble fencing with feet.

All of this is on display in this clip of a dramatic and controversial comeback in the 2011 World Championships, in which a Spanish fighter controls the bout until a Chinese fighter lands a 3-point head kick (or so they say) with three seconds left.

Ready for some more complications? Check out the qualification system, in which the sport offers four weight classes per gender but forces countries to pick two in which to enter. And that’s whittled down from the eight weight classes per gender offered in World Championship and world rankings. South Korea, the Chinese women and the Iranian men will have tough choices.

To keep things simpler here, I’m just linking to the World Championship results page and the June 2011 rankings, and I’m not going to show as much of my “work” as usual.

That’ll reduce the confidence level in these projections, though we know that South Korea (4 for 4 in 2008) is a solid favorite in whichever classes the country chooses. The USA, thanks in large part to the Lopez family, also has solid medal chances throughout.

Note that we have two bronze medals per weight class:

Continue reading →

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medal projections, olympic sports

2012 tennis/table tennis: Who’s your Venus?

Posted on by Beau Dure

The big news for 2012 tennis: Mixed doubles is in! But only in tennis, not table tennis. Seems a little unfair, really.

TENNIS

They’ll play on grass at Wimbledon, so we’ll let this summer’s results from that hallowed venue weigh heavily in the projections. That said, we have little idea which players will view the Olympics worthy of their participation.

The tournament will be included in the ATP and WTA points races, so that may sway some people.

Continue reading →

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olympic sports

Euro envy continues

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’ve been exploring a few Net radio options these days, and I settled upon UK station talkSPORT yesterday to catch this exchange in a free-wheeling discussion of international sports:

CALLER: My daughter’s a swimmer, though she’s at the bottom right now.

HOST: Well she’ll have to get to the surface to be any good.

This was after the two hosts concluded that Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde were the first two people we should guess when asked who said something particularly witty.

It’s a little disappointing that talkSPORT’s site says it’s aimed toward “men who love to talk sport.” A few women were included in the discussion yesterday, both as athletes and as callers, so I don’t see the need to exclude them.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s refreshing that they think men have the intelligence to follow such discussions.

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medal projections, olympic sports

2012 shooting: Bang, bang, bang on the door, baby

Posted on by Beau Dure

Would you believe one of the most dramatic events I ever covered was an Olympic shooting final? Believe it.

This is another one of those sports in which the Olympic program has changed a bit over the years, but not in this Olympic cycle. That’s good for those of us who like a bit of consistency.

The ISSF (shooting’s federation) has a handy updated guide to help us all navigate through the confusing quota system they use for qualification.

We had full World Championships in 2010, with shotgun-only World Championships to come in September.

Continue reading →

1
soccer, sports culture

Choke! Why there’s no double standard for women’s soccer

Posted on by Beau Dure

Let’s rewrite history, shall we?

1. 1988 World Series: The Oakland A’s choked in Game 1, when Dennis Eckerley got out to an 0-2 count with two out in the ninth and a 4-3 lead but hung a slider that Kirk Gibson, so hobbled he might have been thrown out from left field, hit for a home run. (Sure, Nate Silver lists this as a choke in passing, but we remember Gibson in that situation much more clearly than we remember Eckersley. Silver also points out the ugly aftermath of living with a “choke” — Donnie Moore’s 1989 suicide.)

2. 1982 NCAA Championship: Georgetown gave away the national men’s basketball championship when Fred Brown passed the ball straight to North Carolina’s James Worthy. Oh yeah — some guy named Michael Jordan hit a big shot before that, a shot that some report today as a “buzzer-beater” even though it hit the net with 15 seconds left.

3. 2010 World Cup: Oh boy, did Slovenia and Algeria choke!

Get the picture?

Frankly, “choke” is a term that doesn’t interest me, mostly because I associate it with insecure guys trying to exert some sort of power over the sports they watch. It’s a word for the keyboard warrior and frustrated fan, and it’s not applied with any sort of consistency to either gender or any sport. If you think it doesn’t apply to women, talk to Daniela Hantuchova.

“Choke” is sometimes used as a way of distancing ourselves emotionally from a loss that would otherwise be painful. Our college hoops team lost? Oh, they choked. Our baseball team blew a 5-game lead in September? Choke! Scott Norwood missed a difficult 47-yard field goal — or a “chip shot” in the words of revisionists — that would’ve spared the Buffalo Bills the indignity of being perennial runners-up? Choke!

So in a weird way, yelling “choke!” is just a way of saying you care. Thanks?

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soccer

Women’s World Cup: Small step for Japan, giant leap for women’s soccer

Posted on by Beau Dure

The penalty shootout wasn’t great, particularly for U.S. fans. But this Women’s World Cup was a wonderful event that demanded attention from around the world and got it.

Certainly Japan, which has suffered so much this year, won’t soon forget it. Neither will the USA, even the cynics who would like to forget it ever happened.

This tournament was full of great teams, great players and great moments:

– Germany got a sellout crowd in Berlin’s giant Olympic Stadium, and Canada gave them a game.

– Mexico, which upset the USA in qualifying, got a draw with eventual group winner England.

– Equatorial Guinea, particularly energetic attacker Anonman, was fun to watch.

– New Zealand was level with eventual winner Japan through much of its opener and got its first World Cup point with two goals in the dying minutes.

– Beautiful cities from Dresden to Augsburg got dressed up for the Cup.

– Controversial at times, Marta is still a player to behold. (Yes, Jacqueline, we’d love her if she were American. Maybe not unconditionally. I haven’t read through all 698 comments to see if anyone made that point.)

– England, a wreck at times, put it all together for a win over the eventual champions and was unlucky to lose in the quarterfinals.

– A smart, skillful Swedish team beat the USA and shook off semifinal disappointment for a well-deserved place on the podium.

– Led by the ageless WUSA/WPS veteran Homare Sawa, Japan showed its skill in a 4-0 rout of Mexico in the group stage, showed its pluck in ousting host Germany and showed its heart in winning the title.

Then there’s the U.S. team. On paper, this was not the best team you’d want to send to a World Cup. Right back Ali Krieger still seems like a newcomer. Left back Amy LePeilbet is out of position. Central midfielder Shannon Boxx doesn’t have the spring in her step she use to have, and she and Carli Lloyd often struggled to maintain the possession essential to the game Pia Sundhage would like to play. U.S. fans knew Lori Chalupny would be dearly missed while the mysterious concussion saga goes on, and Lindsay Tarpley’s injury in a friendly against Japan was especially cruel.

And yet, as they did in 2008 without the injured Wambach, the U.S. players proved to be more than the sum of their parts. Question their skill. Nit-pick their tactics. Never doubt their heart. Americans didn’t realize it, but they were cheering for the overachievers we so often claim to be and love to admire.

For those who need analogies to other sports — imagine if Butler’s Gordon Hayward had hit that shot from a neighboring county to beat a flawed but favored Duke in the 2010 hoops tournament. That’s what happened here, with Sawa as Hayward.

So what does this mean going ahead?

In the USA, repeating one more time, WPS has its own issues. League owners might be able to work things out and harness the goodwill of this great tournament to build a sustainable league. Or we might see the W-League or WPSL step forward as the most viable model. We’ll see.

Globally, this tournament should invigorate the game in Europe, where the Champions League is taking hold and teams are getting more professional. We can only hope Germany will better appreciate its Frauen-Bundesliga, which had players on many of these rosters and is already signing players who made an impact in this tournament. The game’s profile certainly won’t be hurt in Japan, either. And maybe China will be motivated to get back into it.

So don’t look solely at WPS attendance numbers and use that to gauge the health of women’s soccer. Again, WPS has its own issues. Repeat, WPS has its own issues. Repeat …

And one thing this tournament proved is that these games can be thrilling, full of skill and heart, and a lot of fun to watch. It’s not mired in the cynicism that plagued last year’s dreary World Cup final and too many MLS games this year.

Some people, naturally, confuse cynicism with intelligence. (Yes, I read your Tweets.) No one says we as soccer fans and sports fans have to accept that.

If this tournament showed nothing else, it showed this: Women’s soccer is a game worth watching.

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