Pretty impossible to tell for sure what's going on in that video, but it looks to me like mostly Honduran fans fighting with Salvadorans. It seems that some of the Hondurans are decked out in US gear, presumably since the US played the first game and Honduras played the second game. I assume that the Hondurans supported us in our game before their game started and some Salvadorans took offense. If I recall correctly, there is no love lost between the Hondurans and the Salvadorans. That's at least what that video looks like to me.
You could be correct. I don't know and it doesn't really matter. CONCACAF absolutely needs to do so much better than this in terms of its security presence. Know your audience. If we on a message board know to expect this stuff, shouldn't there be at least someone at CONCACAF who could have predicted some of this *might* happen. We didn't have anything this bad in our section, but I feared for some other US fans sitting near us who were sitting right below a group of 10-15 pissed of Salvadorean fans. Too many other Salvadoreans who weren't directly involved seemed to be egging it on anyway rather than either ignoring (if they felt unsafe too) or standing up for the other fans who just wanted to enjoy a soccer game.
Couldn't tell the difference between Honduran/Costa Rican colors and ES colors but good observation. For all we know this could be gang related.
Ok, so I've never seen anything like that at a US game. Bags of G-d knows what, batteries, obscenities. Yup. Belts? That's new.
Did the ball travel past the last two defenders? Seems like Donovan played the ball off the corner to an onside position. Torres was it? trapped the ball and Donvan ran up and took the cross. I get confused about the nuances of offsides, but if I'm not mistaken, doesn't the ball have to travel past the last two defenders to be offsides? In this case unless Torres played the ball to an offside position it shouldn't matter if Donovan came back from an offside position to take his cross.
Having been to two of the last three Gold Cup finals, I'm not sure how everyone manages to find so much trouble. The beer-throwing gets old quickly, but I ended up getting hit with more during the celebrations of Beasley's goal in Columbus. And the poor behavior was there, but nothing compared to "Dollar Dog Night" at Phillies games.
I'm pretty sure it was beer related. BTW, the ticos didn't have a lot of fans in the stadium and they were easy to distinguish. The blue in the ES and Honduran colors is pretty much identical, so that was pretty tough to keep straight. Luckily the country was printed on just about every square inch of fabric the fans were wearing. I did see a couple of cheap knock-off jerseys that said "EL SALUADOR" across the back collar.
For those commenting earlier about our goalscoring in this tournament and comparing it to previous performances in the Gold Cup, I'd like to point out that our current total of 16 so far is already 2nd best all-time to Mexico's 2011 record of 22, and they also scored 16 through 4 games. Our second best performance was 13 over only 5 games in 2003, and 13 also in 6 games in 2007.
back a few pages or somewhere on this board with over head stills that appear to indicate the keeper and #12 even with LD when JFT touched the ball. No offsides level goes to the offense.
It was discussed. You're incorrect. I posted a position paper earlier in the thread from US Soccer that addresses the exact situation.
Donovan had one foot in the corner quarter circle - the keeper was further out - while JFT was touching the ball. There's a shot in another thread with a line drawn that shows Donovan clearly behind. In any case it was so close you can't blame it not being called.
You need a shot from when Torres releases the ball technically, Donovan could be offside while Torres touches it but still be fine if he moves onside before he releases it, right?
No you're right. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I don't get the point of that short corner play anyway. It bought him all of two feet on his cross and it's not like it helped him get a better angle with a wall or anything.
There was a quote from LD JK after the game on this. I'll try to dig it up, but basically he said the short corner draws 2 defenders out of the box and they'll be using it a lot this GC. Let me see if i can find that quotation.... EDIT: ah it was JK, not LD...: "We had that planned out to play constantly short corners because it usually pulls two guys out of the box, and the teams that we face so far often were with eight or nine defending around the six-yard box, so we almost made it mandatory today. If the players make their runs and come from the 18-yard line and not being in too early, it will give you opportunities. It worked out great on Eddie’s goal.” -
I saw three of his games live at the time, two in 'kusen and one in Nürnberg. He wasn't a world beater, but he was good for the most part. Was in a great position to be a starter the next season, if not by the end of that season.
I get that, but why not just use Torres as a decoy then? It worked, they didn't call it, but it seems like the defenders come out when Torres goes toward the corner, so there isn't a need to play the ball to him.
That's what I was thinking. Most passes aren't like the trap Torres made, but I assume its when he releases his foot off the ball that you need to look at Donovan's position. I also have to assume both coaching staffs are breaking this play down. ES clearly figured it out as you can see how quickly the keeper and defender come off their line. They were definitely looking for the offsides call. For an AR that far away and getting screened by the keeper and defender he'd have to be sure to call it. It's also not a sequence that happens often. I've never seen offsides called on it because teams are often slow off their lines. This play definitely brought up a new instance that you would hope the ref crew was being briefed on before the next game. I wonder if we'll see short corners vs. Honduras. We should have some serious height advantage on corners. I know the short corners worked twice for us, but are they necessarily good ideas? I haven't ever been a big fan unless you catch a team napping or as a change of pace, but as the sole strategy, I don't like them. The offsides aspect is just another reason not to like them. Edit: Just saw the post with the JK quote. That rationale was really the only reason I could think of short corners being a good idea. But just putting Torres out there doesn't mean you have to use him. You can still take a normal corner, just with one fewer player from each team in the box. One wonders why not just put two players out in that vicinity and make the 6-yard box just that much more open to Goodson and Johnson etc...
Perhaps this is why JK is so open with explaining the strategy and how intends to use it a lot in the next game. You have to actually execute it in the ES game for it to be a meaningful decoy in later games.
No offense, but yes it was. Not an American fan in sight in the end zone. Perhaps it was better in the better seats, but I doubt it...the colors spoke for themselves. Drove and parked there too. Was an international experience, to say the very least. Was at USA v Honduras too. Mostly 50-50, and nice people.
JP is good, but I think his best years are behind him. It seems like he was a generation before his time. He doesn't have the same vivaciousness he had in the 90s.