In re: McCaskill, she reminds me of the kind of competitor you want by your side when you get in an alley fight. She's a dog with a lot of fight in her!
Which puts her in the same camp with Reynaldo and Messi. Add Suarez. And two of thos don’t play defence, which she does.
That is a picture. Not sure what you are missing or don't understand. Watch from when the ball leaves Rapinoe's foot. It is headed toward Morgan nest the penalty spot. Hits off the English defender towards the goal. If Beardsley doesn't touch it it is an own goal or it goes wide. She just makes sure of it haha
She does now. She didn't then. At least she didn't have any defensive responsibility. She could apply freelance pressure, but she had no responsibility. If you want to say that at WC 2015, she was in form equal to a female Messi, ets. I'm fine with that (although Messi actually works like a Hessian to get the ball back). If you want to say that what Jill is doing is tantamount to taking a Messi, etc and making them play defense, I agree with that (although, we're talking a 35 year old Messi at this point). Where your comparison falls apart is those guys, in addition to being brilliant scorers are also very good to brilliant passers. Carli is a pedestrian passer. She doesn't have much vision, and her passes are not well weighted or particularly accurate. Actually, after looking at it every which way, I'm not sure what you were trying to say.
By FIFA guidelines a deflection has to be off an intentionally played ball to be an own goal. A ball grazing off a defender right in front of you doesn’t meet that test, if anything the play the fullback made was to avoid getting hit. And the ball can be argued to be goal bound before and after it grazed the fullback. In fact, it stretches credulity that Bardsley intentionally made the play off her foot. If you see her hands, she was expecting to play the ball as a a catch, which is why I said she was possibly screened in a previous post. It’s not enough that the ball bounce off a defender to be an own goal. And we need to heed what the ref wrote down, which is that the own goal is credited to Bardsley in the box score. Fifa is adamant that the referee report is the final say. http://www.fifa.com/news/y=1997/m=4/news=when-own-goals-don-really-count-71928.html Whether the ref is right that Bardsley intentionally played the ball and whether the ball was goal bound when she did, is the only real matter of contention. Keepers touch an awfully lot of balls that get credited to attackers. But if you have the WatchESPN app, you are welcome watch the video and show any screenshots that support your view. The game replay is still available.
Of course, if it was a shot on target and it deflects and still goes in, that is not an own goal. Rapinoe's cross that hits the defender was not on goal, nowhere near it. It is a pass to Morgan that hits the defender and goes closer to the goal. Still not sure it would go in if Beardsley doesn't kick it in. It is an own goal off a pass to an offside player. You literally post the rule and highlight "Shot that is on target..." and again, it is a cross to Morgan.
When she runs, yes, it looks frightening (like a freight train about to run you over). She still needs to bully people off the ball, and win those balls on the ground. She lost several of them when she was out there, when going after the ball. She needs to add a bit more Melissa Tancredi, "Don't F*ck with me out here" attitude.
[ Haha. Ok, a cross to Morgan on frame. You are confusing intent with direction. Show it wasn’t on frame. Here’s a frame of a cross from Sonia Bompastor ( bottom of frame) to Thiney ( 12 yard spot). Guess what? It went over Thiney and bounced directly into goal. Look in the FIFA stat book and see it’s so. Or watch the full video. ( about :48 seconds into the video) Morgan and the two defenders with her are running towards goal. It looked like a ball towards goal that was possibly intended as a header chance, a LOT like the Bompastor goal. That Barkley was close enough to fool the announcers seems to support that, she was the furthest player away from the goal in this picture, to the right of Morgan. and she ended up in front of Bardsley, who stepped forward and was almost even with the near post when it hit her. To support your claim, you need to start showing some evidence the ball wasn’t on target, not what the intent was. I see a ball that would have intersected with Morgan on a path to goal, and well could have gone in anyway. Yes, it took two deflections to go in, but the strike also looks directed towards goal to me. The difference looks near post- far post. Show me I’m wrong. Just your saying it wasn’t on frame initially means nothing without support.
It was a hard (curving?) ball into the box, of the kind that causes trouble, which is one of Rapinoe's specialties. At the worst, Rapinoe gets credit for putting a ball like that into the box causing so much trouble that the result was a goal.
... tho the betterment of the game is only furthered when we're willing to seek and are at least persuadable by fact.
what i saw against denmark and her scrappy goal against france suggest otherwise. not against the others you listed, but don't think they are better players than pugh.
Rapinoe really blows the play when she takes an extra touch. Morgan makes the run, is open, and Rapinoe doesn't pass it. Instead she takes a touch, maybe two, puts Morgan offside and then tries to cross to Morgan. If the cross had gotten through, you could say it was a good cross just she waited too long as the whistle would blow for offside. But it deflects and is nowhere near Morgan. Just the GK has to pick it up and commits an absolute howler; aided by the CB crashing the play for no reason. No, Rapinoe gets no credit for hitting the fullback with the ball, late. Morgan gets all the credit from me for stopping. If she had continued the goal might have been disallowed for offsides. Pulisic put a hard cross into a dangerous area that forced an own goal yesterday. This is just a howler. But whatever, I can't believe people are trying to say the USWNT's offense is just fine because we scored this goal because it wasn't an own goal. It would make more sense to me to hang your hat on Pugh hitting the post than to try and make something out of this GK howler, deflected cross to an offside player. We won the tournament without scoring a single goal that came from a 3+ passing move by the team. We didn't even have many moves with 3+ passes. But everything is great!
Agree totally own goal about which we should not feel placated. Agree that Rapinoe takes too many touches in general hoping she sees and opening for an opportunity for individual greatness. That in this event her slowness of play resulted in the Morgan offside. Agree Morgan does well to hold. Rapinoe's choices are not too unexpected in an older player trying to stay relevant and valuable and who knows tie goes to the younger player... Tell my kids its not a great shot unless it results in a goal. Maybe good, but not great. Pugh's finishing is weak. She has many opportunities for which she should be credited, but lack of a finishing touch is more than concerning.
Ellis not withstanding, the main thing still missing from the attack is patience. Numerous times Morgan passed the ball to a wide forward looking for the pass back as she cut to the goal. They never came. Instead, the player, Pugh, Rapinoe, whoever chose to dribble the ball looking for a shooting option. Less dribbling in the attacking third and quick short passes is what I want to see.
I don't think it is totally weak to point out the NWSL players have been off for months. Hopefully, mid season form Rapinoe hits the pass when it is needed, shoots when a shot is necessary, and passes when that is the play. This whole tournament, she took extra touches, shot when teammates were open, and passed when they weren't. A big part of the problem is the lack of USWNT offense through the midfield. It is really just get it to Rapinoe or Pugh and see if they can do anything.
I agree but I think it is by design. You see it with the U20 team and the U17 team the past 12 months too. Get the ball and get it to your speedy/tricky attacker on the wing as fast as possible with as few passes as possible and see if they can do anything.
Look at the play in slow motion. Rapinoe had to delay a cross to Morgan because she saw that Morgan was offside. By the time Morgan was onside, she was covered front and back. Rapinoe's intention was to cross the ball to Morgan -- but the chances of that cross getting through were not good at all. Rapinoe's instinct is always to launch a rocket toward the crowded area near the goal and hope something good happens. Something often does -- and it did on this play. To say Rapinoe "blew the play" is a bit rich as her action led to the only goal in the game. Maybe you didn't notice, but the U.S. won the tournament. .
Of course they "won" the "tournament". They lost it last year getting killed by France in the last game. But all you heard was, "just an experimental exercise", "all that matters is 2019", "more important to find players and try formations." Well, how come this year it is just, "they won, that is all that matters"? If losing doesn't matter, why care about winning? What has been accomplished since last year? Elllis abandoned the 3-back and Long at CB (although I'm not sure how she could tell which was the problem) and the defense has gone back to what it was when they conceded 0-2 goals per game at the Olympics. She has given extensive playing time to Short, Smith, Dahlkemper, and Sullivan; maybe three bench players for the World Cup. They scored 1 goal last year, they scored 2 this year. A 100% improvement! If you think scoring .66 g/gm is good enough for the USWNT, and if you think winning made up tournaments is more important than getting ready for the World Cup, then everything is going great! Sounds a lot like Bruce Arena to me and we know how that worked out.
So it's not a great shot unless it results in a goal (I agree) but if a player puts the ball in the box and it results in a goal something's wrong with what the player did?
I’d argue a continuing issue has been the lack of production from forwards. Only two goals came from them the last WC ( Morgan, twice) and twice in the last olympics ( Morgan, Press- if she was a forward) The back line scored more.
I agree it should have been Rapinoe's goal. I think there were a series of three minor deflections that help Pinoe find the net. The ball was not played by a defender into the goal. Was it fortuitous? Yes. Was it victorious? Absolutely. Was it an OG? Absolutely not.
But is that the problem or the symptom of a different more systemic problem. Morgan was actually more out there to be an outlet for passing. This was necessary because there didn't seem to be any understanding of how to get the ball from the GK/CBs to the forwards. To be honest, they didn't even try that often. Usually, it was a long ball to Morgan who settled and dished it to Rapinoe or Pugh or back to the midfield. Pugh on the right is also a problem because she doesn't pass that well and doesn't anticipate Morgan's runs. Rapinoe and Morgan linked up better, but mostly with give and goes where Rapinoe was in on goal.