Month: April 2015

mma

The Ultimate Fighter 21, Episode 2: Psych!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Coincidentally, after the Jon Jones news, I found this fun recap from Jones’ stint on TUF.

Back to this year: Hey, we have a new theme song! It’s … short. It tells us nothing.

The Blackzilians won the first fight. sending top prospect Kamaru Usman against the underconfident Michael Graves. Back in the house, seven hours after the fight (guess they’re fighting in the early afternoon), Graves is beating himself up worse than Usman did. His American Top Team-mates try to build him back up but sound frustrated with the process.

Hayder Hassan, the one last seen yelling at Usman about being “next,” moves on from trying to pick up Graves to trying to psych out Usman by telling him how much he respects him. Usman seems either bemused or amused. Maybe both. But Usman chats about it with his teammates in the van, so maybe it’s working? No, probably not.

Speaking of people who are psyched out, the American Top Team brain trust is trying to figure out who to pick next. Hassan really wants to fight, but, oops, he actually has a hand injury. They call in Uros Jurisic of Slovenia, a student/postman, to tell him he’s getting the nod. His English is a little stilted, and the conversation with the ATT guys sounds like Slim Pickens telling Mongo he’s going to go into town to shake things up in Blazing Saddles. Mongo only pawn in game of life.

Speaking of pawns, Dana White shows up to remind us that the matchups are literally like a chess match. You might end up with a striker-grappler matchup. That sounds more like bridge to me. I bid two Muay Thais.

And it sounds like they’re just picking the best, healthiest fighters, anyway. That makes sense — whoever fights now has a good chance of fighting twice, and the winners earn more points as the season goes on. In that sense, it’s more like backgammon.

The Blackzilians pick Luiz “Buscape” Firmino, a strong grappler they call “the flea” because he’s impossible to escape. He has been around a while, fighting in PRIDE and other Japanese promotions before beating UFC vets Tyson Griffin and Jacob Volkmann in the World Series of Fighting.

Meanwhile, back in the house, some people are training in the small gym in the house. And someone gets mad, yelling “Do the drill right!” before storming through a door. The door looks more solid than the ones frequently destroyed in the old TUF training complex in Vegas, and it survives in tact. It seems the dispute is between Usman and Jason Jackson, but they bury it quickly. That’s either foreshadowing or a dull day at the house.

The weigh-ins will be fun this year because the fighters will learn what we already know — who’s fighting whom. Neither Uros nor Buscape seems especially perturbed by the matchup, a change from last week’s edition with Graves going into a shell when he saw Usman.

ATT boss Dan Lambert decides to bring the heat, ridiculing Blackzilian owner Glenn Robinson for standing there behind his fighter looking tough. “A makeup artist would kick your ass,” Lambert said. Dana White, broadcasting from his undisclosed location, seems happy. The fighters all have a look that screams “whatever.”

White has also told us Uros wants to keep the fight standing. These days, does that ever work?

Uros, incidentally, is 22. He’s 4-0 but hasn’t fought anyone. Maybe Lambert should quit worrying about Robinson being a tough guy and figure out how to get some matchups he can win. The good news — Uros has three wins by submission.

Uros and the coaches meet to do some game-planning, which is something TUF should do more often. Hardcores will love it, but it’s also accessible for casual fans. It ends with a nice new slogan: “Unleash the Uros!” If he changed his name to “Fury,” we’d have the Washington Capitals’ third-period rallying cry.

Fight day. Robinson tells Buscape this is nothing. This is the warmup fight. This is the guy you beat up on your way to a big fight. The Blackzilians chant like it’s a soccer game, which irritates Lambert. What doesn’t irritate Lambert?

Unnamed ref with heavy accent gives the “two five-minute rounds” speech. Robinson reminds Buscape to keep his hands up. Then he comes out throwing a kick straight up the pike. Then he gets stunned from a left hook, but it gives him the perfect position for a takedown less than 20 seconds into the fight. Uros has his head locked up for a possible guillotine, but no. Buscape works his way to guard and lands several punches from one inch away while Uros tries again to lock in a guillotine. Or an armbar. Or whatever. He’s surprisingly effective at nullifying Buscape’s offense by threatening so many submissions. You’d think a guy with Buscape’s experience would keep his head and arm out of danger.

Yeah, it’s a grinding fight. With 1:40 left in the round, Lambert is left yelling the rallying cry of the defeated coach: “GET UP!”

Round 2: Uros tentatively steps out, then tries a kick. Then a spinning kick. Then a takedown. They clinch at the cage, and then Buscape takes down Uros in side control. Maybe I should just hit fast-forward. Nothing else is going to … hey, Uros escaped! And he looks mad! He throws some punches. Including a wild right that may have left the gym entirely and scraped the castle at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando before returning to the gym and hitting nothing. Buscape takes him down again. Lambert yells “Get up!” again. Buscape isn’t doing anything. Uros looks like he’s checking his watch. I’ll be happy to never see either of these men fight ever again.

Buscape wins the unanimous decision.

Third ad for the Women’s World Cup!

“Uros is definitely not experienced enough to be in with a guy like Buscape,” Robinson says, almost sympathetically.

“Well, that fight sucked,” Dana White says. Again. He complains about Uros not doing anything his corner said, and he complains about the ref letting Buscape lay and pray for two rounds.

Next week, we see that an ATT fighter turns up ¾ of a pound overweight, and the Blackzilians make a stink about letting him use their sauna.

By this point, the only thing we can say about these teams is this: A plague on both your houses. (Oh, right … they’re all staying in the same one. Good. That’ll save time.)

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mma

UFC champions’ declining star power

Posted on by Beau Dure

On July 3, 2010, Brock Lesnar defeated Shane Carwin to unify the UFC heavyweight belt, completing Lesnar’s comeback from diverticulitis. As compiled by Dave Meltzer, the authority on such matters, the pay-per-view buyrate for that event was more than 1 million — the sixth time that had happened in UFC history, the third involving Lesnar.

That has happened only once since then.

The champions as of that date:

  • Heavyweight: Lesnar
  • Light heavyweight: Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
  • Middleweight: Anderson Silva
  • Welterweight: Georges St. Pierre
  • Lightweight: Frankie Edgar

Edgar had recently upset BJ Penn for the lightweight belt, then showed later in the year that it wasn’t such a shock, defending the belt in a rematch. Rua had beaten Lyoto Machida — ending the much-hyped “Machida era” after less than a year — but would soon give way to Jon Jones, who held the belt until … Tuesday, when the UFC stripped him in the wake of a hit-and-run investigation in Albuquerque.

Today’s champions:

  • Heavyweight: Nominally Cain Velasquez, who beat Lesnar and traded it back and forth with Junior dos Santos in an engaging trilogy. But he hasn’t fought since October 2013. The interim champion is Fabricio Werdum.
  • Light heavyweight: Vacant until Anthony Johnson fights Daniel Cormier next month.
  • Middleweight: Chris Weidman, who pulled a Frankie Edgar by shocking a longtime champion (Anderson Silva) and doing it again.
  • Welterweight: Robbie Lawler
  • Lightweight: Rafael dos Anjos
  • Featherweight: Jose Aldo
  • Bantamweight: TJ Dillashaw
  • Flyweight: Demetrious Johnson
  • Women’s bantamweight: Ronda Rousey. Perhaps you’ve heard of her.
  • Women’s strawweight: Joanna Jedrzejczyk

Rousey is easily the champion with the biggest media exposure, gaining a Mike Tyson-style rep for fast finishes while appearing in action filns and making the talk show and magazine rounds like Jennifer Aniston. She has just recently established herself as a pay-per-view draw.

The lighter weight classes have been difficult sells. Aldo needs a compelling opponent. Dillashaw knocked off Renan Barao, someone the UFC had been trying to push without much success. “Mighty Mouse” Johnson has attracted a legion of hardcore bloggers trying to point out his brilliant technique, and his literal last-second armbar win in his last bout should give the UFC a highlight to tout, but casual buyers just aren’t biting. Jedrzejczyk didn’t do UFC marketing any favors — the company held an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter with the alleged 16 best women’s strawweights and crowned tournament winner Carla Esparza its first champion in the weight class, only to see the little-known Polish fighter dismantle Esparza in her first defense.

But the real problems are in those higher weight classes, where the UFC has to market people it pushed away not too long ago:

– Werdum was let go after a disappointing run in the UFC. While beating the invincible Fedor Emelianenko outside the UFC is a nice calling card, he then lost to Alistair Overeem. Since he first joined the UFC in 2007, he is 2-3 against other heavyweights in the UFC’s top 10.

– Anthony Johnson, until recently, was best known as a welterweight and a middleweight who could neither make weight nor beat top guys. His first UFC stint included losses to Rich Clementi, Josh Koscheck and Vitor Belfort. (We’re not counting the “loss” to Kevin Burns, a referee’s error that Johnson remedied in the rematch.) The UFC cast him out, and he pulled a stunning win at heavyweight over Andrei Arlovski before returning to the UFC as a light heavyweight. He fought off Phil Davis, pounded the ancient Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and shocked Alexander Gustafsson to earn a title fight against Jones.

– Lawler spent years in the MMA wilderness, getting cut from the UFC after a loss at UFC 50 in 2004. He fought what might have been the two best bouts in EliteXC’s brief history, both against Scott Smith. Then he compiled a 3-5 record in Strikeforce. In his return to the UFC, he moved to welterweight, with the only loss in seven fights being a narrow decision loss to Johny Hendricks that he avenged in December.

Cormier, an Olympic wrestler and a World Championship medalist, has long-term star potential. Weidman might — he did draw more than 1M PPV buys for his rematch against Silva, and no one who saw that can doubt his legitimacy.

Perhaps the lesson to take from this is that the UFC shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss fighters outside its own ranks. Fans can be excused for thinking, “Wait, was Werdum part of that tournament you said was crap?”

But outside of that, I don’t see many lessons here for the UFC. They’ve done what they can to build up Weidman, Cormier and company. They’ve been unlucky with injuries to Velasquez and former bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, who had an entertaining rivalry with icon Urijah Faber. Then several of their best fighters and biggest stars have either been beaten (Silva, Benson Henderson, Anthony Pettis, Barao) or drifted into limbo (St. Pierre, Jones).

So these years are a test of the UFC’s staying power, and for the most part, they’re passing. Just don’t expect any Lesnar numbers any time soon.

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mma

The Ultimate Fighter 21, Episode 1: These teams matter

Posted on by Beau Dure

How do you keep The Ultimate Fighter fresh after 10 years? Give the UFC credit for trying.

In 2011, they used it to introduce their bantamweight and featherweight divisions. T.J. Dillashaw has gone on to do pretty well for himself, and John Dodson isn’t bad, either.

In 2012, they tried a live season. They decided it didn’t work, so they backed away.

Then — women! First as coaches and half the cast as Ronda Rousey yelled at Miesha Tate for a while. Then as the whole cast last season, with the winner getting the belt. (And, sadly, not successfully defending it.)

This season, things are totally new. Yes, you’ve seen it from the ads — they’re staying in a house that will be underwater when the ice caps melt.

(Disclaimer: Reading the preceding paragraph may be illegal in Florida and North Carolina.)

But this season has a few other novelties:

1. They’re in Miami, not Las Vegas.

2. It’s a matchup of existing teams, not something contrived through a draft. These are rival gyms in South Florida. The fighters are all from those gyms. The fights will be in the gyms. After a coin flip for the first fight, the winner gets home gym for the next fight.

3. To keep up the team-vs-team aspect, this isn’t a tournament. Teams are fighting for points — 25 points for each of the first four fights, 50 for each of the next four, 100 for the last. Fighters can fight once, twice, three times, or none. You have to fight twice to fight in the finale. (They don’t mention the criteria for an overall winner.) And the gym with the most points gets paid.

Oh, and the owners don’t like each other.

Dan Lambert runs American Top Team, which has been around forever and has 45,787 professional fighters, including 17,786 in the UFC. That includes Robbie Lawler, who has completed the improbable rise from middling Elite XC/Strikeforce fighter to UFC champion.

Glenn Robinson used to train with ATT, but he says Dan banned him after he helped some fighters work through … some stuff. Or something. They’re not specific. But Robinson and those fighters struck out on their own. And in a bit of good timing, Rashad Evans bolted from Greg Jackson’s gym and figured South Florida was a trade up from New Mexico.

The best early zinger, from ATT: “Glenn’s just a fat guy who makes tools.” (Thanks to commenters at Bloody Elbow, I know now it’s because he owns a big-time tool company, which may explain the opulent house he shows off later.)

So the only recognizable part of this season is the TUF house, which looks even more opulent than ever, occupying one of those little points out into the water that’ll be worth a lot of money until the next storm hits.

Each team’s arrival in the house looks like this:

The curious thing: Why just one weight class? Does each gym really have eight quality welterweights? I guess they think so.

We get a really quick intro to all the fighters. The standout name is “Creepy Steve” from ATT. The standout resume goes to ATT’s Steve Carl, the former World Series of Fighting champion. (Yes, they mentioned another promotion on the show, though not on the official site’s bio pages.)

We also get a trip over to Glenn Robinson’s dazzling house, where the Blackzilians watch teammate Anthony Johnson’s stunning demolition of Alexander Gustafsson. If you watched the lead-in program, you know that the UFC producers named Gustafsson’s close loss to Jon Jones the best UFC fight … um, ever, apparently. So Johnson’s win was a very big deal.

Over to the ATT gym, where they talk about their strategy for picking fighters. It’s sensible — if you want people to fight more than once, you’d better get them in that first fight early rather than trying to have them go twice with little rest in between in the last few weeks.

And they pick their first fighter: Michael Graves, who describes his style as “wrestling, but all over the place.” If you watched Bull Durham, you know that’s not a compliment. But he doesn’t care about that — he has a fiancee who’s expecting.

Back at the house, conflict has already arisen in the most obvious place — the kitchen. The ATT guys say the Blackzilians are writing their names on all the food, including stuff they didn’t order. Looks like they’re still making a nice meal, though. How did all these fighters turn into such good cooks? I know journalists in their 30s who can barely handle Lean Cuisine.

Speaking of journalism, the Blackzilians’ complex has office space that looks like something big newspapers built before the business model crashed. They do a quick video conference with their guys in Sweden before picking Kamaru Usman for the first fight. Bloody Elbow likes this guy.

Usman is shown praying at the fighters’ house before we get his back story — born and raised (until age 8) in Nigeria, pursued Olympic wrestling career in Colorado Springs (not mentioned: he won the 2010 NCAA Division 2 championship), switched to MMA under Evans’ tutelage, has a daughter.

And we get one of my big TUF Pet Peeves: The guy who says he’s fighting for his family’s financial stability. You want financial stability? Work at a bank. Work at Starbucks and get your degree in the process. If you’re a UFC veteran who continues to fight because you’re actually getting a payoff, OK — then you’re fighting for your family’s long-term financial stability. When you’re on The Ultimate Fighter? You’re chasing a dream. Like me when I ditch this whole writing thing and start my prog-rock trio.

Obligatory beach and water shots, then over to the weigh-in. This is the first time the fighters will know who they’re fighting. Game plan? What game plan?

Anonymous Florida commission guy (that’s right, we’re not in Nevada any more) runs the weigh-in with remarkable formality. Both guys weigh in at 170. They face off, sort of — Graves is looking at the floor.

This is a 90-minute episode, so we get Robbie Lawler on camera along with the usual training cliches. Did you know a lot of fighting is mental? (Funny, I did well on the SAT — can I beat Jon Jones?)

Quick trip back to the house — damn, what are they making in the kitchen? Can we make this a cooking show instead?

I still don’t know much about Graves. He was born three months before I graduated from college. I’m not sure whether to call his hair a mullet.

Usman oozes confidence. He says he scouted everyone on their team. Graves is talented at controlling distance, he says, but that’s against lesser opposition.

Dana White loves the atmosphere, which is strange when you consider that he isn’t there to do the “two five-minute rounds, then sudden victory” speech. He leaves that to our unnamed ref.

Round 1: Usman does the spider crawl across the cage to start, and he soon gets Graves down by the cage. Graves does a decent job of getting up and eventually out. He lands a glancing head kick, and Usman again goes for the takedown. Graves has blood on his cheek somehow, but he gets up again and gets stuck clinch-fighting. Usman gets the underhooks, but Graves powers out and fires a strong knee. His punches, though, lack conviction. With a minute left, Usman lands a solid punch to the face and another takedown, though Graves again bounces right back up. I hate to give the round to someone just because he got a couple of takedowns and did nothing with them, but Graves didn’t do enough to win it. 10-9 Usman

Round 2: Graves is picking up the tempo on the feet, flinging a couple of kicks and punches. Usman gets the clinch against the cage. Ah, my favorite part of MMA — the pointless clinch against the cage where the clincher occasionally tries to land a knee from two inches away to show that he’s busy. Graves gets out, Usman shoots again, Graves gets briefly on top, and … they clinch again. Usman gets him down briefly and very briefly gets on Graves’ back. They break again, and Graves tries a half-hearted spinning back kick.

You get the picture. It’s another one of these fights with a wrestler who has no other discernible skills facing a guy who can’t get his striking game going.

Then suddenly, with 1:40 left, Graves dodges a takedown attack and takes Usman’s back. Usman stands with Graves draped on his back. Graves grits his teeth, going hard for the rear naked choke, but he can’t get the arm under the chin. Graves is on the verge of sliding off Usman’s back when Usman flings him off instead, landing in half-guard and dropping a couple of elbows. “GET UP, MIKEY!” yells an ATT member.

The coaches think we’re going to a third round. It’s 11:21, so it’ll be a brief one if we go.

And we’re not. It’s a majority decision for Usman. ATT is pissed that Usman got the second round, but one submission attempt isn’t going to overcome a whole lot of positional dominance.

The highlights show Graves’ early kick to the face was pretty powerful. But that was it.

An ATT guy starts yelling at Usman that he’s next. Usman comes over to yell back at him. Pity we didn’t know who it was.

Over to Dana White. He is not impressed. At all. He says neither guy fought like he wanted to win. Each guy was trying to do just enough to get the decision.

And that’s the curious problem with so many recent seasons of this show. I don’t get it, either. A spectacular loss on TUF will do more to get you in the UFC’s good graces than a grinding win. But that’s easier said than done.

We get a name for the guy who called out Usman — he’s Hayder. That would be Hayder Hassan, whose bio tells us he has a degree from Florida State.

Glenn Robinson is amused in the locker room. “‘I’m next?’ What do you mean — you’re next to lose?” Oooooh … snappy comeback.

We go straight to TUF Talk, where Karyn Bryant asks Usman what he thinks of Dana’s dissing. Usman says he’s a big fight fan, so he’s used to hearing that. Well, I’m inspired.

TUF Talk has more topics lined up on the right — “Hayder challenges Usman,” “Breaking down Usman” and “G. Robinson calls out Lambert’s ex.” Yeah, I think I’ll go to bed.

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soccer

NWSL: A worthwhile investment, not a charity

Posted on by Beau Dure

Women’s soccer players are giving up a lot to play professionally. That was the point of my recent post at SoccerWire and Jeff Kassouf’s piece on players retiring in their 20s.

Deciding to play or retire isn’t easy, as Colleen Williams eloquently describes in her piece about stepping away after a couple of knee injuries. Some people are still chasing a spot on the national team. Some just want to keep playing as long as they can.

The thin silver lining here is that players’ opportunities are improving. Imagine how these pieces would’ve been written in 2007, when players who weren’t in the national team pool were either out of the sport entirely or playing for free in the W-League or WPSL.

What you’ll often hear in response to these laments is that professional soccer is neither a charity nor a cause. And that’s true.

But let’s phrase the argument for backing the NWSL a little differently, borrowing from youth soccer …

The goal of youth soccer is twofold — grow the sport’s talent pool and its fanbase. The latter is often overlooked, though far more youth soccer players will grow up to be fans rather than elite players.

That’s also the goal of women’s pro soccer. And that’s why it’s worthy of investment — by U.S. Soccer, by sponsors, by anyone who cares about the game.

We’re all lamenting the fossilized talent pool for the U.S. national team. Tom Sermanni’s efforts to expand that pool were in vain, but if the NWSL continues to grow, players will have opportunities to play their way in at some point.

And NWSL games give more fans a chance to see players in action — both national team stars and local heroes.

So it’s not a charity. It’s something with value worth supporting as fans and backers of the game.

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soccer

European academies and stunted growth

Posted on by Beau Dure

Is this the model we want?

Chelsea’s had 68 players play in an FA Youth Cup final in the last 10 years. They’ve played in a total of 84 senior team matches, an average of 1.2 matches per player. Nobody’s played more in that group than Josh McEachran, who’s featured 22 times on the senior level. … Chelsea will continue putting off their first team minutes until, by the time they’re 23, they’ve been shipped off on a bevy of different loan spells in myriad different systems. Lacking a consistent, solid ground on which to plant themselves, they’ll then be sold off to a middle-tier club in Europe with a fraction of the nourishing first team experience they could’ve had.

via Chelsea won the UEFA Youth League title, flaunting talent it’ll never use | The 91st Minute | Soccer Blog | Videos | Pop-Culture.

Related: German clubs don’t like UEFA competition because it takes kids away from school.

And that fits with the German emphasis on education:

“When I went to Aston Villa eight years ago I told them our players, under-17, 18 and 19, go to school for 34 hours a week,” he says. “They said: ‘No, you’re a liar, it’s not possible, our players go for nine hours.’ I said: ‘No, I’m not lying.’ They said: ‘It’s not possible, you can’t train and do 34 hours of education.’ I said: ‘Sure. And what do you do with the players who have for three years, from the age of 16 to 19, only had nine hours a week of school?

“They said: ‘They have to try to be a professional or not. They have to decide.’ I said: ‘No, we can’t do that in Freiburg. It’s wrong. Most players in our academy can’t be professionals, they will have to look for a job. The school is the most important thing, then comes football.’ We give players the best chance to be a footballer but we give them two educations here. If 80% can’t go on to play in the professional team, we have to look out for them. The players that play here, the majority of them go on to higher education. And we need intelligent players on the pitch anyway.”

(From the classic Guardian piece on German development)

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soccer

Takeaways from Washington Spirit v North Carolina

Posted on by Beau Dure

North Carolina is always an interesting test for NWSL teams in preseason. They’re often missing a couple of players from various national teams (Katie Bowen started for New Zealand against the USA earlier in the day), and the remaining players are athletic and aggressive.

That skillset is especially challenging for midfielders who need to rev up to regular-season playing speed. A little mistake or hesitation, and you’re going to be dispossessed and/or on the ground.

“In the past, they’ve been one of the teams we’ve played first in preseason,” said Tori Huster, one of the few Spirit players with any institutional memory. “I think Mark (Parsons) wanted us to get a game (before the regular-season opener) that was going to be similar to the NWSL with the pressure. They pressed all over when I was in college (ACC rival Florida State), and they did it again today.”

The Washington Spirit passed that test, more or less, against the Tar Heels on Saturday. They’ll regret their lack of scoring against a short-handed college backline, but the Spirit controlled most of the action and got in a good workout. If not for goalkeeper Lindsey Harris and some finishing that might be called “preseason-quality,” the score would’ve been closer to 3-0 than the eventual 1-0.

“We were outbattled last week by (Virginia),” coach Mark Parsons said. “There’s not many tougher teams or faster teams than UNC. We were really strong — very intense, very physical — and that was good to see.”

A few takeaways:

– Estafania Banini has some skill and speed. She seems to be faster with the ball than without. She might frustrate her teammates if she doesn’t get them the ball. A questionable decision to take the ball on her own rather than passing paid off when her 24-yard shot hit the left post and went in, but at other times, she waited far too long to look for a teammate.

– As a whole, the final ball was lacking — a couple of bad touches in open space, a couple of bad decisions to pass or not to pass. “We just need to continue to play together,” Christine Nairn said. “After we look at the video, we can only improve.”

– The passing game is promising. In the first half, the Spirit struggled passing the ball in their own half but did pretty well combining in the attack. Yet the goal came from a 60-yard blast from goalkeeper Kelsey Wys up to Banini, and the second half started with a more direct approach. Perhaps that was a bit of impatience, but it loosened up the UNC defense. The Tar Heels, not playing college substitution rules this time, faded toward the end. Then Huster started to carve them up with clinical through balls, several of which should’ve been finished.

– The center midfielders are interchangeable, with Huster, Nairn, Joanna Lohman and sub Angela Salem switching between attacking and defensive midfield throughout. “With Joanna Lohman and Angela Salem, they’re able to shift down into that No. 6 position and spray balls out,” Huster said. “A couple of times, I got bumped into what you’d call a No. 10 position. We were able to get some combinations together. …

“Mark’s going to be asking (us) to play all these positions because he’s going to ask us to rotate. And that’s just the flow of the game as well.”

Other notes:

– Parsons said he would’ve made some attacking subs if this were a regular-season game, but he wanted to build fitness among his starters. He attributed some of the mistakes to fatigue.

– No surprises on roster cutdown day, Parsons said. The players under contract all made the team. They’re listed on the site, and they include players who haven’t reported yet (looking your way, Mexico) but are expected this summer or after the World Cup. Cuts will be necessary if everyone’s healthy when the latecomers arrive.

– UNC goalkeeper Lindsey Harris was outstanding.

– Parsons is a little worried about his team as they head into the heat next week in Houston. This game wasn’t as frigid as last week’s game against Virginia, but it was still chilly and breezy. Nairn, for one, fought back sniffles as she said she was looking forward to getting into hotter weather.

– The game was well-reffed with one notable exception — Huster was fouled multiple times, and as usual, nothing was called. It’s uncanny.

Update: I had a rough formation and some game highlights written in my notes, and I figured I’d add them here for posterity and future reference:

FW: Del Rio

Wings: Banini left, Da Costa right

Center mids: The fluid Nairn-Lohman-Huster triad

Backs, left to right: Reynolds – Johnson – Oyster – Singer

Keeper: Wys

7′ Reynolds get up from left back, cross to Nairn cut out.

8′ GOAL Wys long ball to Banini in left channel. Cuts inside recovering defender. Has two passes open but rips from 24 yards off the left post and in.

12′ Good work on left Nairn to Del Rio.

13′ Fristenberg strips from Johnson, who’s dawdling with the ball at midfield. Long-range shot with Wys off line goes wide.

22′ Wys a little unsteady on long, looping shot from Fristenberg

23′ Wys lets things bounce, UNC 15-yard shot goes wide

27′ Free kick floats nicely. Huster doesn’t go for it. Lohman doesn’t connect cleanly.

43’ Boyles hits bar. Wys not in comfortable position.

HALFTIME: Dydasco for Da Costa; Brown for Wys

61’ Huster needed more on pass to Dydasco, who made good run

63’ Salem for Nairn; Church for Singer

70’ Del Rio great layback to Banini, who mishandled it and it goes to the keeper

73’ Good sequence – shot, keeper tries to punch it away, Salem nearly puts away rebound

75’ Great sequence from Salem and Lohman at top of D. Del Rio shot, terrific save Harris (maybe not struck as well as it should’ve been)

77’ Banini gets the ball in tons of open space, dithers, lays it back/gets tackled back to Del Rio, another shot straight to keeper.

81’ Through ball finds Dydasco, who rounds keeper but keeper recovers. Dydasco gets a second chance but is too late, and it’s blocked.

86’ Del Rio surges through, caught and fouled but stays on feet and shoots. Another stop for Harris.

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soccer

Jill Ellis stubbornly goes forth into the World Cup

Posted on by Beau Dure

U.S. women’s soccer coach Jill Ellis talked with Grant Wahl, at last giving someone a chance to ask questions that have been kicking around in the Twittersphere for a while.

wnt-tacticsOn Twitter, they were often phrased something like “What the &*%$! is that midfield supposed to be?!” Here, it’s “Why don’t you consider using a pure defensive midfielder?”

A few takeaways:

1. Ellis still talks about a core of 13-14 players. That would be an unusual approach. In 1999, Tony DiCicco rested several players in the final group game against North Korea — Michelle Akers and Kate Markgraf sat the whole way, and Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy played one half. Supersub Shannon MacMillan started and scored the team’s first goal; reserve Tisha Venturini started and scored the next two. Sara Whalen played half the group stage, sat out the quarterfinals and semifinals, then was entrusted with a spot on the field throughout the final’s dramatic extra time. This year, we’re talking about more games, aging players in key roles, and artificial turf.

Write it down — at some point in this World Cup, the 15th or 16th player on a given squad will have a major impact.

2. That said, Ellis hints at a center mid rotation. Oh, the whole Carli Lloyd-as-nominal winger thing? That was just because Megan Rapinoe was hurt, Ellis tells Wahl. Lloyd will be playing a good bit of center mid, where she excels, in the World Cup.

But so will the duo occupying those spots the last couple of months, awkwardly converted playmakers Lauren Holiday and Morgan Brian. All at the same time? Probably not. Lloyd and Holiday, with Brian as backup? Some sense in that, sure.

And yet it leads to the question everyone has been dying to ask …

3. Ellis cares not for your defensive midfielder wishes. Here’s the money quote:

A center mid has to be able to playmake and also be able to defend … Lloyd and Holiday spray a ball around better than any midfield I’ve seen. So I value that. If I went for a potentially a pure defender, now am I getting that from them? Probably not.

In a way, it’s reassuring that U.S. soccer has evolved from the days of defensive midfielders being one-dimensional. But let’s emphasize something: “be able to defend.”

DiCicco’s 1999 squad was able to move a powerhouse scorer like Michelle Akers deep into the midfield because if she needed to win the ball, she was going to win the damn ball. That’s not true of Holiday or Brian.

4. Abby Wambach’s role is clear as the Beijing sky. Everyone’s OK with that, right?

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