Jozy and the Footycats: Altidore at Sunderland

The reason I will not watch baseball is that it has been reduced to numbers. Soccer is an art not a science, at least by comparison with other sports, and that is what makes it so attractive to me. Hockey comes close to soccer in its resistance to numbers and a reliance on creativity and teamwork on the fly instead.

 

Suggesting that art and science are opposite each other is inherently false. Cherry picking arbitrarily convenient numbers to "prove" a point is anti-science.

 

But he is still allowed to move the foot there and the defender is not allowed to trip him.

 

How can he "dive" - there was clear contact. (I don't understand how you think he could be looking to "obstruct" - he is clearly in playing distance of the ball at all times.)

The LOTG that was violated is clear. Tripping or attempting to trip. I don't think there can be any question that Jozy tripped over Az's leg. That seems pretty clear from the videos. Are you suggesting you think he tripped over something else?

I think it's clear the action happened. The only other question is was the manner of the trip a foul.

It was while a player was attempting a tackle. Jozy had control of the ball. His body was in playing distance of the ball. He was placing his foot legally. I don't think there is any advice, at least in the USSF that suggests a defender is permitted to slide under a player's foot while he is in the process of legally playing the ball, but I'm no expert. Maybe you can give us a link.

 

I thought the call was fantastic. Just like Mourinho did.....

Side-note: does anyone have a link to Jose's post-match interview?

 

Suggesting that art is science is prima facie false.......but you did not say that so it would be unfair of me to imply that you did.

 

Correct, I did not say that. But as in many endeavors, achieving a high level in soccer involves both art and science. Would stat geek Roberto Martinez have achieved what Everton has this year without embracing both aesthetics and analytics?

 

I do love the hockey (secondary) assist stat. No other sport gives credit to everyone involved in a score quite like hockey. Soccer could very easily adopt the stat and it would be appropriate and in the spirit of the game to do so.

 

I agree. The secondary, even tertiary, assist is a wonderful stat. It is arguably as important as the goal itself.

 

You should have seen the look on my face when I pulled up and realized they were closed for Easter.

 

Well, no.

The Sunderland midfield may not be great - and it's nowhere close to Chelsea's - but they're not some bumbling idiots as portrayed here. And, even if they are the worst in the league (off my eyeball test, Fulham's is worse because the Cottagers have no pace whatsoever), they are good enough for 6-8 goals from a competent striker. Fletcher is hurt and Altidore is basically less than useless. In other words, to use conceptional positional rankings from a site like the Football Outsiders, he is the team's biggest healthy underperformer per position and this factor just doesn't sit well with the Big Soccer Illuminati.

As to the PK again - here's Poyet himself, " From where I was, I couldn't comment. I saw it on the computer and I understand why they can be talking if it was or not. It's very difficult. I never, ever would expect to get a penalty here. Ever.”

http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1791296/gus-poyet-sympathises-jose-mourinho-penalty-call?cc=5901

Shearer and Hansen are both wrong. If one were to set this up on a compass, Azpiliqueta was moving about 25 degrees west of the vertical (North-South) axis while Altidore, who was a step ahead of him on the same N-S axis, was moving 45 degrees west. At some point, their feet tangled but the Chelsea defender already occupied his zone - i.e., he beat Altidore to the spot - when Jozy stepped on his foot. That makes it an accidental contact and not a
PK. In real time, however, it's somewhat difficult to nail these intersecting vectors. For example, if the Spaniard's movement was more vertical and so was Altidore's, then one could judge this as an intentional slide into Altidore's path, to which the attacker is entitled to and not much different than a trip from behind. From the replays, it was quite clear that Azpiliquata deliberately slides to the left of Altidore's path and Jozy awkward foot placement has no other culprit beside himself.

 

That. Is. Bullcrap. My sincerest condolences.

 

Ha, I made a similar suggestion a while back that Jozy should "constantly" start following up his teammates shots on goal by running toward goal to anticipate a spill-over or rebound...Problem is, whenever a teammate shoots, Jozy simply freezes in place and watches...In his mind, he's out of the play and there's nothing he can do about it.

If he can condition himself to "always" move toward the keeper whenever a teammate shoots, I'm confident he'd grabbed himself a few easy goals...By now, he should know his teammates straits and when it's likely they will be shooting....
My accuracy in predicting when Borini/Johnson is about to unleash a shot is probably 90%...with that, Jozy can prepare himself to break toward goal-mouth...

Of course, most of the time he'd be breaking toward goal, there won't be any opportunity to get a spill-overs tap ins, but if he keep at it, he'll eventually get rewarded....He needs to make it part of his game...

 

1 - First of all, I was mostly joking at the end there in reply to you (even if, or perhaps because, I hear English folks of all soccer stripes make such comments about America all the time). I was not levying a charge of anything.

Secondly, American culture is entirely infused with -isms from around the world, too, but that hardly stops a lot of Americans from pretending they are too hoity-toity that have anything to do with furrin stuff or ideas and making a big show of it... while they drink French wine, hide money in Switzerland and drive a Japanese car, etc etc.

2 - Umm that is not what a touch stat is. And I suspect you already know that.

3 - Great! So get Altidore loads of touches and then we will have the problem #1 solved. Any others that come up after that can be addressed as they come. Until then, the issue of positive production is just as tied to the amount of touches received as turnovers. So when Bardsley has as many shots as your #1 striker in pitch time and Alonso takes twice as many a game as that #1 striker, it does not take much to realize that he will not score as much as you would like by default, even if some of the reason for these stats is his own fault. The guy is 11th on the current Sunderland roster (13th overall) in shots per game this season. Find me another team with the #1 striker in terms of pitch time standing even as low as 5th on his teams SPG ranking. We have all come in here throughout the season talking about how they will simply ignore that #1 striker running down the middle into the box unmarked to go dribble wide against three players. There has been all sorts of context for all of it in this thread for much of 291 pages. Coming from Americans about soccer.

Just kidding at the very end there. Even if I am actually kinda not.

4 - When the team scores 2.25x as often with lone striker A on the field as compared to all the other lone strikers without him, it probably has plenty more significance than you are claiming, no? This is not some minor difference.

For example, Borini has four league goals this season and Altidore has played a directly influential part in all of them; obviously then, we see Borini has yet to score when Altidore was off the field. There is a reason and context for it. It is not some overt coincidence. And I suspect you already know that.

 

Wow. There is a lot to hammer away at in this post, but I will confine my reply to this bit.

First off, intent is irrelevant. Write it down. You can jot accidental on there, as well.

Secondly, I do not at all agree Altidore stepped directly down on a foot, and even if he did it was a moving target he did not see. To my 300 or so replay viewings, the defender clearly sweeps into his heel from behind as the foot is coming to ground. if you want to call that stepping on, be my guest, I will not quibble. But to call it that as your argument? Ha!

Finally, setting aside that your explanation for how it was not a penalty involves (if not comes entirely based on) phrases like intersecting vectors and awkward foot placement, it is reeeeeeally long. Wanna see my explanation?

Attacker with ball clearly tripped up in area by defender action = PK foul.

Done. And we did not even need to discuss all the shirt pulling.

 

Hockey resists numbers? When? Where?

 

Mou needs his own sit-com.

 

Jesus wept for Altidore to score a couple goals this summer and erase memories of his 1st year at sunderland.

 

Giving a penalty for that is like giving a penalty when a player shoots the ball to the opponent's hand inside their own box.

Azpilicueta tried to block a possible shot, Altidore puts his leg on Azpilicueta who is sliding, and slides with him.

Bad, bad referee call.

then again, Jozy was finally useful in some way, so maybe, maybe he will get a chance in the next game.

 

Yeah watcha gonna do? And i was kinda lookin' forward to it. And most things here were open especially fast food joints. Ahh, no biggie.

Yeah, Hey i've said it. We aren't alone. It's been said before. From early on i thought it was a good way to maybe nick a cheap goal and relieve some pressure. Same as attacking corners rather than floating to the back post or top of the box. I thought "man he's not often getting in a spot to get one of those tap ins that come from chaos in the box." I also think you sort of have to have that mentality where you're willing to make lots of futile runs so that when the one or two times the ball breaks your there. I don't know if that's Jozy every game. Maybe sometimes. I saw some good work by him late in the last game when they had the lead. But sometimes you don't see it.

 

Wow, I just saw the Poyet comments regarding The Special Freak-Out over the PK call.

Geez, way to back your player/team. The longer I watch this guy, the more baffled I get.

 

The main problem is the numbers have minimal predictive value on player quality or form going forward.

Corsi numbers are a step forward from the discredited plus-minus.

 

You are that good at it? Really? How about lottery numbers for tomorrow's mega millions? Care to share?

 

lol, clearly a dive.

 

It's far from clear.That's a horrible angle but look at the Chelsea fans they have that "Oh shit I hope the ref didn't see that" face.