2012 Algarve Cup

As usual, tons of nonsense by batfink. We defeated pre-Lima Brazil in Olympics 08 when Hope Solo was put back in our team. But the same Brazil thrashed Germans 4-1 in semifinals (did Ms. Prinz play in the semi-final?). So much for the consistency of German football. Combine that with their quarter final exit in this WC. Batfink, your idea that we somehow won against Brazil and France is nonsense. The game against Brazil should have been over in regulation if the referee had not inserted herself in the game. And against France we scored three goals against them in regulation and none of them were fluke.

US has a far superior record than any other team in Olympics. If I am not mistaken FIFA gives equal weight to WC and Olympics in their determination of rankings. WC may have a slight more prestige than olympics but the quality of games are not any different.

Also, please be aware that Germans play the most unattractive soccer both in Men's and Women's soccer.

I really hope that batfink does not degenerate to the level of newsouth, because I still think he is better than that.

 

was i suppose to be evolving on a sports board?

 

Yes, we are all evolving around you, old dinosaur! LOLZ

 

Sorry to disturb again the near-flaming in this thread for practical reasons, but I'd need some more info about Algarve. I looked for flights and I found that there is a decent number of them from Milan to Faro, via Lisbon; I also looked for accomodations and I found something not too much expensive and not far from both Faro's airport and Estadio Algarve (someone had talked about being in the same hotel as the team: is it really possible? How? ).

What I still have to ask before deciding if I really want to make this trip is: how easy is to purchase tickets for the matches, USA-Japan in particular? You can do it there at the stadium, the same day of the match, or is it better to purchase them in advance, and if yes how you do it? I didn't find any "official site" for Algarve Cup; you have to go through Portuguese Federation? And, by the way, how much normally a ticket for a match at the Algarve Cup costs?

 

Tickets to matches should be no problem at all even if you just walk up. Some matches might not even charge. At previous tournaments, the attendance was only a couple/few hundred even at the big matchups.

check the old WNT blogs to see what hotels they stayed in. It shouldn't be too hard.

 

I'm glad your putting me on the degenerate list, it's just means I'm not afraid to go against the status quo, and the status quo seems to be you can't comment on your enjoyment of any other nation playing women's football, if it juxtaposes the merits of the USWNT.

I was asked to leave the U.S. forums because of pre WWC PMS deciding to squash the open nature of threads in favour of chest beating patriotism, but I only go on what I see, and all I see is manifesto's for future improvement being formed all over the globe, and none of them mention many values the USA seem to see as important.

For all the * worthy records, the podium finishes, and recent WC bandwagoning, USA are not playing football any different from their past sides. For all the supposed Galactus like superiority of FC USWNT, the games best players, and the sports best footballing teams, now regularly come from nations once decades behind women's sports most celebrated program.

Whenever all those teams I bandwagon do well , they tend to leave little doubt to their success. Utilising complicated forms of football, how they approach the game is often just as important as wining. As a result these teams will typically have mixed results as they attempt refine and accelerate their programs production of talent, but over time they eventually begin to reach levels of excellence that wins them trophies, moving the game forward in the process. By simply remaining competitive for a much longer period of time than anybody else, the U.S. program hasn't produced anything significantly better than anything else out there, have they?

Oh, and the myth of unattractive German football is just that, a myth. When you consider the superior technical nature of a host of their male and female players down the years, that's a ridiculous claim to make. I mean seriously, how can any U.S. fan say their team plays better football than GERMANY, lol. Even a uncharacteristically poor footballing German women's team had more intelligent touches of the ball than repeatedly firing bombs at their tallest girls head . As Germany were wining group games, their fans still criticised them for playing below their typical footballing expectations. Would a nation with fans understanding of "unattractive" soccer do that?

 

Thank you very much, Cliveworshipper... So it's only a question of getting there and I won't have to worry for tickets. That sounds good!

Every National Team has a blog with the hotels they stayed in? Since i am mostly interested in japanese team, won't their blog be written in, well, japanese? In this case, are you sure "it shouldn't be too hard"? Well, for me, at least, Japanese or Arab are the same: I can't read anything!

 

Google language tools Will translate whole sites. ( sort of)

 

All this debate over 'the one superior' national side is silly. The fact is Norway, China, Germany, Brazil, and the USA have all had times in their history of being excellent. Norway and China were giants in the 1990s. Germany and Brazil eclipsed them in the 2000s. It's possible we're seeing Japan and France emerge as legitimate challengers for the 2010s. Sweden has hovered around the mix for years, but never managed to break into the fold of elite squads. The United States has bridged the gap between the decades, in terms of results. The on-field product hasn't always been pretty, but they've remained among the top three teams since the inception of the modern women's game, and are the only team who can make that claim.

Teams rise and fall based on player talent, coaching style, adaptability, and organization/funding. No single team is destined to be dominant forever. China had a uniquely talented generation of players in the 1990s they've been unable to replace. In the case of Norway, their inability to adapt beyond direct, long-ball tactics proved costly.

Germany have always been well coached (three coaches in the last 30 years...yeah, that's consistency) and the DFB has a great program development plan. But the personnel of their 2011 squad was off; they struggled without Birgit Prinz serving as their attacking focal point and Lingor/Meinert/Weigmann pulling the strings in midfield. Plus you could tell they were feeling the host nation pressure.

Brazil 2011 had a few significant player problems (no Daniela, notably), but coaching was where they failed miserably. Lima had them playing far too individually and not unified, and he failed to reel in their cheap, cynical "gamesmanship" tactics. Discipline comes from the top down, and Brazil were glaringly lacking it this past year. The 2004-2008 editions of Brazil were able to hold their emotions in check and play beautiful soccer, even if the final results didn't favor them.

 

http://futebolfemininoportugal.com/index.php/tag/algarve-cup-2012/ is as close as it comes, I think.

 

Haven't Germany also always been in FIFA's top three? And the US always in the top two?

 

I never said that US women play good football. They play awful. So do Japanese, Germans and French. I saw their football in WC and honestly I would not care to watch any of those games. I only watch US games because I just like cheering for my country's team. The women's football is still of low quality. That being said any claim to superior technical play by any other nation is bogus in my view.

I am the one who said in some other post that Marta is the only player who has made women's football worth watching. But overall Brazil play even worse football than US women.

As far as German football is concerned, they have had great technical teams in past, ( in the recent past, Rummenigge, Brehme, Mathaus come to mind) but currently they play very unattractive football.

 

Since they started doing women's rankings in 2003, yes.

Norway was #2 briefly twice in 2003, and Brasil was briefly #2 in 2008 or 2009.

The USA and Germany also shared the #1 spot for a while in 2005

 

Really? How many of those nations have a player with 100 goals on their active rosters?

And which footballing teams have been ranked higher than the USA? that is everyone's true measure of "best"

It seems pretty hard to back your statement up in the plural.

 

I should have mentioned that not only is the algarve a refuge for European snowbirds, it's a preseason training ground for many Euro clubs.


Several hotels have training facilities right at the hotel. Some are at:

http://www.algarvefootball.com/

With the number of national teams at the tournament, it seems certain you will meet SOME national team at one of them.

That should narrow your search.

 

Seriously I agree with everything you said. The whole of your post was on point and perfectly balanced, but I still have to reply. Sorry .

OK, that's fair, the U.S. are rubbish, but so is everybody else???, lol. How can I begin take you seriously with that mentality? You obviously can't even be bothered to assess the game fairly for what it is, on it's own merits

The women's game may not be as high, or as deep in quality, as the very elite of the men's game, but that's why it's great to see the nations who are prepared to make things better every four years. Since 91' to 99' the U.S. were the nation leading the way with the most professional approach, and the games best athletes. Since then though a host of other nations have taken over the baton, leaving the U.S. with a simplistic win at all costs approach.

It's bogus for you to say you can't see this taking place, when you obviously don't even care about the sport beyond a simple opportunity to jump on board the jingoism train once in a while.

For somebody who claims women's football is poor because the men's game is so much better, your opinions on Germany are supremely flawed. This isn't the place to discuss this, but I don't know what your basing your logic on. Any serious global football fan would scratch there head at what you say here.

How many nations mistake the spaces in between the international timetable as a FC USWNT club season?

Who can actually play and win enough international games throughout the next 4 years to make #1 contention a reality?

It seems pretty stupid to highlight topics that are so easily debunked, in the plural.

 

I was referring back to earlier history, before FIFA started ranking the women's game. Until about 2000, Norway, China, and the USA were the best three teams.

Since 2003, when the official FIFA rankings began, yes Germany has been in the top three.

 

Hmm, this quote was by rohrlich, Batfink, not me. No big deal, but as I didn't even know who Rummenigge or Brehme were before Googling them, I couldn't comment on how technical or otherwise they were.

 

Someone on Nadeshiko Japan thread mentioned Algarve Cup 2012 being possibly held without audience. Is this possible?

It's a big international tournament, although for women football. Is it possible that there isn't a place where I can find reliable official info?

 

Don't know what to tell you. The finals last year had 1500 reported attendance.

http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Womens...feats-Iceland-For-2011-Algarve-Cup-Title.aspx

Maybe they just don't take tickets.

 

You are being silly. It's mathematically possible that either Germany or Japan could supplant the USA before the year is out.

Germany is 5 points behind the USA.

Japan is 32 points behind them. That's just about how much they gained and Brasil dropped between the September and December reporting periods. The next report is in about two weeks. We'll see how much shift happened there.


The spread pretty accurately reflects who the best team is and by how much over the LAST four years.

Those "better teams" you claim don't exist, though. It's not chronology that is the issue, it is who is best.



So teams could advance if they excell, and will certainly drop if they don't.


Germany not so much, but that's because they were eliminated from first tier games for the rest of the year when they didn't qualify. That's not the USA's fault. That is all Germany.

If Japan does reasonably well in the Olympics, they will displace Germany in the #2 spot. If they do really well and the USA lays an egg, they could be #1

 

Typing and posting in a rush has caught me out a few times before . Sorry.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, will play as many games as the U.S. over the next 4 years, with no team using friendlies in the same fashion as the U.S. either. In between club commitments, and developing team play for the next WWC, no team will be in any place to hold a #1 ranking other than the U.S. until the next WWC rolls around, and that's based on whatever happens in the Olympics too. Sh*t, pre WWC Canada thanks to the FIFA rankings were regarded as tournament dark horses, and look how that turned out. All it took was another national team to be run like a club side, and thanks to the still undeveloped nature of women's football, they began to collect ranking points like a bonus round of a video game.

Plus can you please wake up from the delusion of Germany being eliminated from legitimate Olympic qualification process. UEFA use WWC placings to decide their Olympic representatives, so the only way any Euro side could have guaranteed a spot for the Olympics was to reach a WWC final, or host the games! Norway and Germany now find themselves in the same position as other good European teams from down the years, which is qualifying for a euro championship, while building for another run at the WWC.

 

Well, you show you don't understand the ranking system, which more that the men's side is an Elo system.

You can't go down if you don't lose, or if you match records with a team you are ranked near. Brasil went down because they didn't do as well against the USA as Japan did. Germany went down because Japan did better in the WC. And Germany only tied Spain, who was an underdog. Germanies 17-0 win against #77 Kazakstan won't help them much

Likewise, the only way to really gain in the rankings is to beat teams that are ranked higher than you, and the importance of the game and the score matter. If Japan wins Olimpic Gold and the USA doesn't win a medal, and Japan shows wins in the Algarve and one or two games over the USA in the Olympics, they will be ranked #1 in the World, especially if they also beat Germany at the Algarve.

Germany could go up a little if they beat the USA At the Algarve, otherwise they are really done until after the Olympics. They didn't qualify. They can't gain points in games they don't play against important teams in important tournaments. If that's what you mean by not getting enough games, then sure.

But who's fault is that?

Simple, really.

Like the RPI, The actual number of games played matters relatively little. What matters is that you do better than what your ranking says you should, whether it is one game or many. Friendlies also dont count for much. You go up by beating important teams in important tournaments.


(BTW, a team 100 points higher I'd given 2:1 odds of winning a game, so if they play three times and the higher ranked team wins twice in that case, their rankings don't change)



Japan has soared in the last year because they held their own against the top teams, And because they beat Germany on german soil, not because they played a lot of games.

 

I find the idea that they would be considered "England" more than slightly baffling. Not even FIFA would be so twisted, surely?