After national teams Nigeria and Algeria both placed second in their respective World Cup groups to advance to the round of 16, both were knocked out in quick succession at the hands of European powerhouses France and Germany, effectively ending Africa’s presence at the 2014 World Cup.
However, the tournament was not without success for Africa.
For the first time in its history, two of the continent’s five qualifying teams — Nigeria and Algeria, as mentioned above — advanced beyond the group stage. Furthermore, Ghana’s captain and star striker Asamoah Gyan scored his sixth World Cup goal in their final group stage match against Portugal, passing legend Roger Milla for the most career goals scored by an African in World Cup history.
But Gyan’s record and Nigeria’s and Algeria’s breakthrough were truthfully the only positive notes Africa can take from this World Cup. As the tournament progressed, a spell of controversies formed dark clouds over the CAF’s (Confederation of African Football) national teams. Rumors started to spread of Ghanaian and Nigerian players boycotting training sessions, among other acts, due to a delay in appearance fees, which even resulted in match-fixing allegations and an apparent scuffle in one of Ghana’s hotel rooms. Cameroon’s dispirited collapse against Croatia could be considered one of the continent’s ugliest performances in its history, and they too were accused of match-fixing. Finally, three African teams’ managers stepped down shortly after they were knocked out of the World Cup.
Africa is known in the soccer world for conceiving top tier players. Many of Africa’s stars, Gyan the only exemption, make their careers at popular clubs throughout Europe and the rest of the world, from the Ivory Coast’s Yaya Touré at the Premier League’s Manchester City and Nigeria’s Ahmed Musa at Russia’s CSKA Moscow to Ghana’s Kevin Prince Boateng at the German Bundesliga’s Schalke and Algeria’s Islam Slimani at Portugal’s famous Sporting Clube de Portugal.
Why, then, does Africa continue to struggle on the sport’s biggest stage? A rather uncomplicated resolution to this issue is discipline. As these players become superstars to the rest of the world, their national teams’ staffs back home don’t know how to control, let alone manage, rosters made up of players of that caliber. Manager Sabri Lamouchi, for example, had never been the boss of any soccer club before taking up the position in 2012 for an Ivory Coast squad loaded with icons the likes of Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou, and Gervinho. Often these managers have shaky-at-best relationships with the countries’ governing soccer bodies.
The goal at the World Cup is simple; to prove your country’s supremacy in the world’s beautiful game. But one continent is often amalgamated in the media and public mind as an interwoven brotherhood of nations: Africa. I feel a majority of that public, myself included, want to see that unified fraternity succeed, and the media pushes that at times as well (the scene of Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o hugging a young, defeated Cameroon fan, prompting both to shed tears, was a touching moment).
Nevertheless, the continent’s 2014 World Cup campaign will in the end be seen as a failed yet valiant attempt sheathed by blurred shadows of the CAF’s flaws. The severe lack of continuity in managerial staff, an excess of corruption, and a shortage of discipline all contribute to this consistent disappointment.
While African soccer is growing, it is maturing slower than anticipated.
And fans of African teams can only hope their nations’ (soccer) leaders are watching and taking note when Argentina and Germany square off today.
Will Sinsky is an aspiring sports analyst/writer whose specialties are professional football and soccer. Follow him on Twitter @wsinsky
Not that we could ever condone cheating, but wouldn’t it be nice to think that if we’re going to bend the rules to get a celebrity into the Olympics, we did it for a violinist? Culture still exists!
Slovenia Ski Association director Yuri Zurej describes some of the problems:
When we checked the competition and all the data, we discovered that, on the results list on the second day of the competition, in fourth place there was a girl not even physically present at the course. Another example was of a girl who told us she fell in the race and then slowly continued to the finish line, but was recorded as finishing in second place.
The good news: There’s no evidence that the violinist in question, Vanessa-Mae, had any idea.
It’s not the central point of Bob Cook’s latest post, but it’s a good point that I have planned to raise in the book: Look, some kids are going to quit, and it’s not the end of the world.
And he gets credit for a terrific analogy:
But the more I read of this discussion — and all the fun-determinants that are a part of it — perhaps some re-thinking is in order. First, that 30 percent of a large cadre of children is sticking with anything is probably a victory, giving my research into the Christmas Gifts that Sat Unused A Few Weeks Later.
Lacrosse is nowhere near the global participation rates the IOC wants to see (compare their list of affiliated national federations with baseball’s, let alone karate’s), and if the Olympics expand any more, they’ll simply explode into oblivion.
But we can dream, right?
(And maybe one day the IOC will take up the idea of splitting up the Summer Olympics so more sports can get in.)
Meb Keflezighi started at the back of the Peachtree Road Race. He couldn’t pass everyone — the top runners were had been done for more than an hour by the time he started — but he reached his goal of passing 25,000 runners.
WORST COMPETITION
We were used to the idea of Ronda Rousey being a better grappler than every woman in MMA. Once she got you in her grasp, you were likely to fall prey to the armbar she honed as an Olympic judo medalist.
In her last two fights, Rousey has faced two accomplished grapplers — Olympic wrestling medalist Sara McMann and jiu-jitsu black belt Alexis Davis. She knocked both of them out in a combined time of 1 minute, 22 seconds. McMann, at least, is a relatively inexperienced MMA fighter. But Davis should have the kickboxing experience to avoid being knocked out in 16 seconds. And really, it was over in about 12.
Unless everyone can quit making excuses and let Rousey face Cris Cyborg, the woman who demolished the game but overwhelmed Gina Carano in the biggest pre-Rousey women’s MMA bout, who’s left to face her?
MOST EXPERIENCED YOUTH OLYMPIAN
The USA is sending 94 people to the Youth Olympic Games. One, table tennis player Lily Zhang, is the first U.S. athlete to have been in the regular old Olympics before she was in the Youth Olympics.
WORST OLYMPIC BIDDING PROCESS
The three finalists for the 2022 Winter Olympics are the only cities still bidding — Beijing, Almaty and Oslo. And you can almost hear the IOC saying, “Please be Oslo, please be Oslo.”
Jenny Simpson got out in front and nearly stayed there in the 1,500 meters in Paris. The quick tempo wound up dragging five runners under the four-minute mark. The Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan posted the top time of the year, Simpson just missed the American record (Mary Slaney, 3:57.12), and fellow American Shannon Rowbury (DUKIE!) set a personal best.
BEST RIVALRY
Kirani James vs LaShawn Merritt, once again. This time in Lausanne. No spoilers. Just watch.
BIGGEST TIE
World League volleyball, Pool A: Brazil, Italy, Iran, Poland. Each team played 12 matches. Brazil’s record: 6-6. Italy’s record: 6-6. Iran’s record: 6-6. Poland’s record: Basic match tells you what it has to be. A four-way tie.
By tiebreakers, it’s Italy, Iran, Brazil, Poland. And that leaves Poland out of the next round. But their fans were still great.
The Daily Relay’s Monday Morning Run rounds up the record chases in track and field this year, along with a Tim Howard save. Also in that roundup is the shocking revelation of a massive mistake — when Emma Coburn ran away from an elite field to win the steeplechase in Shanghai, a couple of runners assumed she was just a pacemaker. They didn’t even realize she finished the race, crossing the line and thinking they had finished first and second.
They’re not making that mistake again.
And as always, Ollie Williams’ Frontier Sports roundup is a must-read. The Monday wrap features a lot of cycling (including a third sport for Dutch short-track/long-track speedskater Jorien Ter Mors) and the odd story of a judo athlete who won her appeal against a positive test for cocaine, spurring a new investigation to find out who might have slipped her the powder.
The word “Tour” appears only six times (not counting the tour of his art collection) in this lengthy piece on Lance Armstrong: Lance in Purgatory: The After-Life – Esquire. The word “France” appears only once. It’s as if we no longer associate the man with his rise. Only his fall.
The Tour is back on TV this week, and though it’s starting in England, it’s the same old Tour. It’s live shots of the peloton clawing back to catch the little-known riders in the day’s heroic but ultimately doomed breakaway. It’s Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen chatting about castle architecture and William the Conquerer as the helicopter cameras show us some impossibly beautiful scene from the countryside.
Perhaps the Tour is the ultimate Buzzfeed personality test. Do you see the Tour as an utter fraud, a spectacle that masks the generations of cheating in the sport? Or do you see it as an exercise in persistence?
The Esquire story attempts to balance Armstrong’s good and bad. He still records video messages for cancer patients, and it emerges in the course of the reporting that Livestrong may want him back despite the blistering email he sent upon his resignation. He lives comfortably — for now. He has more days in court ahead. But he tries to live in the present with his golf buddies and his kids.
We know quite well that Armstrong wasn’t the only doper in the peloton all those years. More than half the winners of the past 50 years and the overwhelming majority of top 10 finishers in the Armstrong years have been caught. Do the others share Armstrong’s pariah status? How do they live today?
France has, of course, seen history far worse than a bunch of EPO-ravaged cyclists climbing its mountains. We’re now marking the 100th anniversary of the war that should have shocked the world into never taking up arms again. The Tour passes gentle fields that were once bloody. Villages that have somehow managed to patch themselves up.
So when we look at the Tour and the beautiful towns, castles and streams, do we think of the history? Does that history make the bustling and tranquil settings seem fraudulent? Or do we see peace and perseverance? Maybe even forgiveness?
Brilliant read from the Telegraph celebrates Tim Howard, U.S. fandom, Clint Dempsey’s goals, Michael Bradley’s distance covered, and the USA’s knack for making World Cup games interesting …
Setting aside the 1-0 defeat to Germany, they were all belters. Edging out Ghana late on, succumbing to a Portugal equaliser even later on, and a deranged attempt to upset Belgium with only the power of hard work and Gatorade.
And it’s true. Miserable flop or wild ride, the USA does not do boring.
2002: Stunning first-half rout of Portugal, surviving the South Korean tempest, referee robbery against Poland (but advancing anyway), dos a cero, denied by KAHHHHNNN against Germany.
2006: The Italy game alone: McBride’s bloody face, 10v9, a game-winner unluckily (though correctly) waved off. Then the Reyna injury curse striking at the worst possible time against Ghana.
2010: 1-1 vs. England, Coulibalied against Slovenia, ALGERIA!!, extra time against Ghana.
Not a world champion, not always in the knockout stages. Never dull.
What really happened at the Maryland SoccerPlex last night?
We know the Washington Spirit got a 3-3 draw with the Boston Breakers in familiar fashion — a Diana Matheson penalty kick in the final minutes.
But even after going through the video and photos like JFK conspiracy theorists (hmmm — the Plex does have a grassy knoll, though it’s tough to hide in the beer garden), we’ve got no shortage of contrasting opinions on these topics:
The first PK (2:20 into the game). Did Boston deserve a penalty kick when Niki Cross fell next to Jazmine Reeves in the box, just 2:20 into the game? The video is unclear, and commentators Michael Minnich and Danielle Malagari (who are not the homers we hear on so many other NWSL broadcasts) were stunned when the teams lined up for the PK.
One photo from the end line catches the key moment. Is Reeves’ foot trapped under Cross? Or is that just scant, incidental contact that shouldn’t make Reeves fall so easily?
One note Boston coach Tom Durkin raised after the game: Isn’t this a red card for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity? To me, the fact that Cross wasn’t carded suggests the ref wasn’t fully sold on the call.
The second PK (5:58).This time, Ali Krieger definitely made contact with Nkem Ezurike. Maybe a little harsh, but the contact makes it a reasonable call. (Remember that. We’ll return to this principle in a minute.)
The red card to Maddy Evans (69:16). This call also shocked Minnich and Malagari. Ashlyn Harris, in her postgame comments, wondered if it was some belated attempt by the ref to take control of the game. I have no problem with it. Yes, Evans missed Lori Lindsey’s leg, and we can all be thankful for that. But she came sliding in hard, nowhere near the ball. You don’t have to make contact to get a foul. If I try to punch you on the field, it doesn’t matter if I hit you in the face or miss and break my hand on the goal post. I’m off. Evans deserved the red and needs a stern lecture from her team or the league.
The Harris “shove” (86:42). I’ve watched it scores of times, and I basically see a “get your hands off me” gesture with no force behind it. I can see how others might see it in a more belligerent light. As tightly as this ref was calling this game, it seems fair to say he would have acted if he had felt accosted. The other incidents happened quickly, and it’s tough to gauge how much contact took place. For this one, the ref felt whatever contact Harris made and what force she used. But then it’s the league taking a closer look:
#NWSL spokesman says league submitted for review to PRO 88th minute incident Wed. between Wash. GK Ashlyn Harris & ref Dimitar N. Chavdarov.
The final PK (89:15). You can say Jodie Taylor fell a little easily, and some people have. But that doesn’t mean no foul happened. Former Spirit defender Bianca Sierra had her hands around Taylor. They kept moving, she fell, the ref blew the whistle. If you want to say it’s a soft make-up call, fine. But it’s hardly beyond the pale, and you’d have to say it’s consistent with the standard set earlier in the game.
The rest of the game. Let’s say for sake of argument that referee Dimitar Chavdarov got all five of the major flashpoints correct, or at the very least that he was consistent in his PK calls. The players still wouldn’t have been happy.
Consider these quotes (and read Sarah Gehrke’s piece at The Soccer Desk for more complete transcriptions):
Spirit coach Mark Parsons, cleverly choosing vague words: “There were a couple of moments where our players almost lost their cool because I think the players were put in situations they shouldn’t have been put in.”
Spirit goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris: “It was just one of those games where everyone was kind of just losing control. I think the ref kind of let things get out of hand.” She said the refs let down the Spirit and Boston.
And Durkin, while also questioning whether his team can ever get a fair shot, agreed that both teams struggled to comprehend the officiating.
A few other areas of general agreement:
Traffic surely killed some of the walkup crowd. Took me two and a half hours to get to the SoccerPlex from Northern Virginia, most of that time on the Beltway and I-270. An accident on 270 was cleared just as rush hour started, and traffic didn’t quite catch up. Another accident blocked the GW Parkway, leaving people stranded if they were trying to come up from the district.
The Spirit defense made three horrific blunders. PKs or not, Cross and Krieger had ill-timed slips when dealing with attacks they should’ve been able to handle with ease. These aren’t rookie center backs any more. These are veteran pros. (Better defending up the field would’ve prevented such 1-on-1s, too.) Then Crystal Dunn, already on the wrong side of Reeves, slipped and left Reeves alone with the ball for goal No. 3.
The Spirit missed a few chances. “We can’t miss three sitters,” Harris said.
Harris is an exciting keeper-sweeper: “High risk, high reward. There are some sketchy times. But if I’m not there, it’s just a foot race, and who knows what could happen.”
Also, if no one’s in the box, you can’t give up a PK, right? “As long as I was outside the 18 and everyone else was, we were OK.”
Jazmine Reeves is the real deal. She’s fast, she works hard, and she can shoot. Steal of the draft.
“Our rookie strikers, Nkem and Jazmine Reeves, are getting better and better with every game this season,” Heather O’Reilly said. “Nkem is very strong and holds the ball up well. Jazmine obviously is very quick and made the defense work today.”
The last two are the big takeaways. The Spirit will need to tune up this rebuilt defense. NWSL teams will need to figure out how to contend with Reeves.
A few other takeaways:
Breakers love the long ball, and they should: “Direct” is a dirty word these days. Everyone wants to play like Barcelona. But if you have defenders like Cat Whitehill and speedsters with ball control like Reeves, why would you not go long a few times a game? That’s like telling a boxer not to punch with her right hand because the left hand is so much prettier.
And it’s getting the Breakers what they want. Durkin (and others) disputed the notion that the Breakers gave up more chances than they created, with the Breakers coach going so far as to cast aspersions on home teams’ stat-keeping. You could put 100 stat-keepers in isolated rooms in front of that same game, and they’re all going to tell you the Spirit created more good opportunities than the Breakers. But the Breakers may feel it was even because they created just enough. Get Reeves and company a few chances, and then in Naeher we trust.
Harris: “They have threatening speed up top, and they just look to whack it. A lot of their ball are bending, quality balls behind the back line.”
Emotion got the better of people who should know better: Why were Durkin and Harris arguing after the game? Why did Harris and Krieger, “shove” accusation notwithstanding, react so badly to Reeves just trying to pressure the ball?
Krieger is the Spirit’s captain this season. But while others were staying calm, she was fussing at Reeves after picking up a yellow card. Then after the game, in violation of NWSL rules, she declined interviews. That’s questionable leadership.
We know Durkin has a challenge with the Breakers. A quick peek at the standings will tell you that.
But Parsons has a tall task with the Spirit as well. The midfield and forwards are clicking — Lindsey creates chances, Christine Nairn is a long-range shooting threat, Tori Huster is thriving in her new central midfield role, and Lisa de Vanna and Diana Matheson are a dangerous attacking punch behind proven scorer Jodie Taylor. But the defense is still in transition, with no shortage of talent but questionable poise and a few tactical questions to sort out.
“Portland (a 6-1 loss in the Spirit’s last home game) was crazy,” Parsons said. “I think that’s self-inflicted. Tonight, some very extreme events happened. If it happens for a third time … (pause) … we’ve got a lot of training.”
And while the referee may not have been up to the task last night, everyone else needs to step up and dial back the shenanigans. We used to be able to say women’s soccer players didn’t flop and dive. No more. (At least they don’t writhe around as if shot.) I’m starting to see more reckless or even intentional brutality in this league than I see in most men’s leagues. Team officials don’t need to be leading the heckling from the stands.
Time to respect the game. Then maybe I won’t get 1,300 words into a game report without mentioning de Vanna’s sublime cross to Taylor for the first Spirit goal and other great highlights.
Speaking of which — here’s the game in full. Joanna Lohman has a great block on a Matheson shot at 13:20. The Taylor goal is at 27:30. Reeves’ well-taken goal is around the 44-minute mark. Taylor’s second (a scramble off a close-range free kick) is at 55:45. Taylor bids for the hat trick with an audacious chip at 58:10. The lightning delay is at 64:54. Krieger just misses the equalizer at 82:25.
Harris: “You could (after the two PKs) put your head down and just say it’s not our day. But we continued to fight, we continued to battle. We had chances to win that game.”
After a full USA World Cup campaign that exceeded my expectations, I’m still on the fence about Jurgen Klinsmann.
Strange thing to say, I know, especially while the country is still exhaling from a game that could hardly have been more dramatic unless it had actually gone to PKs. The USA bent but didn’t break for 92 minutes. They broke, only to come back with a fire that belied the fact that they had been through the World Cup’s most brutal schedule in terms of miles traveled and teams played.
And someone wanted to question their fitness? Sure, we need to talk the hamstring injuries, but was fitness the question?
I’d argue the other way. Watch the replays and see DaMarcus Beasley still sprinting in vain to catch up on Belgium’s first goal. See how often Michael Bradley raced back to recover.
The issue isn’t the ground they covered. The issue is that they had to cover so much ground. They ran their way into America’s hearts.
So the reason I’m still on the fence is simple: Nearly three years into The Klinsmann Experiment, what we saw in this World Cup was a quintessentially American team.
We’re singing the praises today of the Americans’ heart, resilience and determination. It’s as true of the German contingent as it is of the old guard. Bradley and Jermaine Jones alike left everything on the field.
We didn’t see tactical and technical brilliance, except perhaps in the middle 80 minutes of the Portugal game. We saw a team that was overrun on the wings and in the center of the field.
I don’t think for a minute that the Klinsmann game plan consisted of allowing Belgium nearly 40 shots. I don’t think the U.S. players were technically good enough to stop that from happening, at least not in the formation and lineup they were playing.
They did, at least, limit the damage — among those 39 shots were a lot of hopeful and hopeless blasts from long range, shots right at Tim Howard from impossible angles, or shots that were rushed by persistent defenders. Then when the big shots came, Howard was there.
But when you’re charting the progress of the USA over the 24 years of its modern history (that is, the era of qualifying for World Cups), you have to wonder — would a lineup of Tab Ramos, Thomas Dooley, Mike Sorber and John Harkes have allowed 39 shots against Belgium? Probably not.
And yet I refuse to believe the talent pool has gone backwards. It’s certainly deeper than it was — we’ve gone from “I can’t believe so-and-so is going to the World Cup” to “I can’t believe so-and-so is not going to the World Cup.” The players we doubted — DeAndre Yedlin, Julian Green, John Anthony Brooks — all contributed.
Howard, Omar Gonzalez, Matt Besler and DaMarcus Beasley had legendary defensive performances. Yedlin was more of a Roberto Carlos model defender — fantastic moments going forward, a couple of nice defensive plays in midfield, but then he was caught upfield in extra time.
The midfield was curious. The FourFourTwo/Opta stats engine and WhoScored.com tell me that from a statistical point of view, Geoff Cameron and Alejandro Bedoya had good games. Most observers would argue that Kyle Beckerman and someone other than Bedoya would have been improvements. (The engines offer no such defense of Graham Zusi, who simply wasn’t at his best today, or Jermaine Jones, who had better games in this Cup.)
The USA’s most accomplished field players of the past two years are Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey. You’d have to say Dempsey had a good tournament, but he was starved for service today — one of Matthew Doyle’s excellent insights is that Dempsey was so busy coming back to help out in midfield that he could hardly pose an offensive threat. Bradley was such a fulcrum that his errors were magnified — he surely had the most giveaways, but he touched the ball more than the rest of the team.
Busy guy
So we have a couple of questions for Klinsmann:
1. Why leave Dempsey out there alone for so much of the game? And when he went to the bench, why Wondolowski rather than someone with more of a playmaking mentality? (Mix Diskerud?)
2. After seeing Bedoya and others demonstrate no capacity for turning around a game, now do you regret leaving Landon Donovan back in L.A.? (Yes, I’ll ask it — it is and should be a question we ask about this tournament.)
But Klinsmann got results — probably the best results anyone would have reasonably expected with the team that he had and the draw that he had. Think back a month ago — if someone had told you this team would beat Ghana 2-1, draw Portugal 2-2, lose 1-0 to Germany and take Belgium to extra time, you probably would have written them off a delusional fanboys. They also took it to Portugal in every sense.
And I’ll disagree, slightly, with those who saw the attack at the end of the Belgium game and wondered where that was all game. No one attacks like that all game — not even Belgium in this game.
The longer-term questions of the Klinsmann era will take longer to assess. He’s supposed to change the culture, and that won’t happen in three years.
That’s actually the part that puzzles me most. Claudio Reyna unveiled a new youth soccer curriculum a couple of months before Klinsmann came on board. The curriculum and Klinsmann both point the USA toward a more sophisticated style of play. You know — Barcelona. Yet the U.S.-bred youngster who had the most impact in this tournament, DeAndre Yedlin, is about as classically English-by-way-of-college as you can get. He’s fast, he gets down the wing, and he whips in crosses. It’s hard to judge the U.S. youth teams because they’ve developed a strange habit of not qualifying for major tournaments. Barcelona still seems as far away as it ever was.
But Klinsmann is and has long been more “American” than most people realize. He certainly cussed out the fourth official like an American when he held up the sign for only one f’ing minute of stoppage time.
And Klinsmann has always appreciated the American spirit. Perhaps after this tournament, he understands it more than ever.
Like European soccer competitions, track and field isn’t necessarily in bad shape, but it’s fun to talk about tinkering.
Daily Relay’s Jesse Squire is a big fan of team competitions, so he asks the logical question for the one year each quadrennium in which soccer has its world championship at stake while track and field has none: What if Track & Field Had a World Cup?.
The big stars may sit out. Their only competition, really, is the record book. Everyone else has trouble getting attention. If you know the 100 meters at a Diamond League meet has no Bolt, no Gatlin, no Powell and no Gay, you’re probably not interested. But suppose you have national teams represented?
Track and field needs context. You can get it from a record chase. Or Olympic or World Championship competition — which usually includes national team interest even without team scoring. You don’t get it when you tune into a Diamond League steeplechase and see 12 Kenyans at the starting line, and no one’s giving you many cues to differentiate them.
So is this worth exploring, particularly in the wake of the successful World Relays? Sure!
We’ll get back to tinkering with the Europa League. USA-Belgium is on.
Duresport.com 