Call me petty but I still don't know why Boxx got a red card and I enjoy beating Brazil. Heath got better as the game progressed. I'm a homer so watching her score made me happy. Lavelle was great and seems to have worked on her fitness. Ms Davidson there is no need to channel your inner Agoos. Good game otherwise and I hope you become a defensive rock. Dunn is too dangerous on both sides of the ball to be a LB. Ertz was solid but unspectacular. Did I mention I enjoy beating Brazil?
I froze the image as the ball leaves Pinoe's foot, Morgan is definitely on side. Can someone tell me how I can post an image?
At the bottom of the new post window there is a button labeled "Upload a File". Pick the image on your hard drive, then put your mouse where you want the image and click the "Full Image" button at the bottom. Finally, press the "Post Reply" button at the bottom and voila. PS - I labeled my screenshots 1.jpg and 2.jpg for simplicity.
Good image snatch--and you think that she's onside? She clearly looks offside to me--not even close. How is any lines-person supposed to watch both the foot hitting the ball and the players breaking, I don't know. I don't think it can be done.
Here's another image with the ball clearly in the air and Morgan is still even with the Brazilian defender. With respect to your other point, sideline judges are instructed to keep the play onside if it's too close a call.
They don't watch both, but rather use multiple senses to do their job. The linesmen listen to the ball hitting the foot and watch for players breaking the offsides plane.
Seems to me that the 91ers and a whole bunch of other people went to s lot of trouble to make it possible for Horan and Pugh to not go to college if they didn't want to... I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but my love of it was somewhat tempered by an awareness that some of the folks there with me would much rather have been somewheres else....
Morgan made that run deliberately. It's surely a training-time game she's worked out with Rapinoe, not much different in spirit than a wvb team drilling the 3 (shoot set), or the Warriors drilling perimeter curl routes off screens for open 3s. It's just timing, which you practice. And it's fun. Essentially, Morgan saw that her (young?) defender was sagging way off, ceding a good 3m of cushion, and was ball-watching. What's the simplest way to punish that? Back-cut or front-cut her when she's not watching, and time your sprint-start so that you use up 2.9m of the cushion just as the ball is struck. That "just" requires that you know Rapinoe's cadence, so that you can start your acceleration at exactly T minus 0.4 seconds or so. And that's just practice to learn each others' timing (and hand signals, etc.). Rewind and watch Morgan's run, and you can see the whole thing unfold. She deliberately slants her run diagonally across her defender to stay onside. If she guesses wrong (or Rapinoe does a stupid stutter-step), she'll be offside. If she's too conservative, she's onside by too far, and maybe doesn't get there in time. She timed this one just about perfectly. (In the first photo above, Morgan's defender is the yellow-and-blue outline behind Morgan's left side. Yes, that's a defender. Watch the video.) The downside is that this cheap trick probably works only against Brasil, or a lesser team. I don't see it working against, say, Japan, Sweden, or Nigeria, because they'd know not to give anybody 3m of space, and/or they wouldn't lose the footrace. Brasil's backline was a mess all night, letting us roam to their box top at will. It must be tough for them to train up one good group of defenders, given the even greater lack of support they get at home.
Here are 2 screenshots just split seconds apart. In the first, you can see Morgan onside as Pinoe is winding up. Then you see the ball has left Pinoe's foot and Morgan is even with the defender.
That works for a baseball umpire standing next to a base. It works less well when a player kicking the ball is 35 meters away. Mach number at sea level is 340m/s, so there is more than a .1 second lag between when an action happens and you hear it., and then time to process that. So it probably would be of no help whatever on the Morgan play.
1. US is very hard to play in an open game but has trouble with good teams who sit back 2. Liked that the attack was more balanced right and left. 3. Horan is winning me over, still not sold on Lavelle 4. Big positive was answered need for a fast, ball handling middie in the 10 hole. Whether it's Lavelle, Press or Dunn. Lavelles darting runs caused fits. 5. Feel bad for Mathias who was basically a practice player instead of at ICC with her club. As it turned out Mewis could have been there too.
As you know, reffing is not a perfect science. Human beings make judgement errors. Also, in plays like the one above, decisions are based on split-second, bang-bang plays. We, the audience, have the luxury of instant replay, the refs do not. So, sometimes they get it wrong. I do not think they got it wrong above.
Carly Lloyd got her first goal against Japan in the last WC final on that slanting run off a corner. It’s been a standard play on set pieces for a decade. The second goal went near post to Horan with a back heel where she knew two players would be crashing off thos slants. It’s not just the run, but that it happens off a curling pick ( a legal one) that isolates the scorer.
Impossible in this instance due to the guy 5 seats down from me constantly yelling at that AR after the 30 second mark of the Match when she was within 15 yards of us.
Contributions in key moments can win games, as last night's game demonstrated. While you single Heath out and obsess over her mistakes, I prefer a wholistic perspective. I'll concede that she had a sloppy first half, but your analogy about her burdening the offense was loaded with hyperbole, and your prediction that her continued presence in the match would cause the U.S. to lose factually turned out to be completely wrong. Just saying. I suppose I should thank you though. I kinda jinxed her by commenting positively on her play en route to an assist during the match against Japan. You seem to have done the exact opposite. So...thank you. Be that as it may, Heath improved as the game went on, and even her toughest critics would probably concede that she was a net benefit to her team last night. What role she is called to play on this team in the future is up to Jill Ellis, but I know this much: if there even exist certain players from whom one can safely expect consistent failure, Heath is not one of them.
I believe the 'soccer reasons' that Hinkle was cut are that Ellis has firmly decided Dunn will be the starting left fullback and Short will be the backup. I see no need for further speculation as to where Dunn will play for the World Cup. As we have seen, Ellis will move Dunn up the field during games when she thinks she needs to.
Which explains why a time comes when you don't bring in new players, but rather put the "same old" players out there, game after game. Gives you a little practice at starting your acceleration at exactly T minus 0.4 seconds or so.
Brazil all over the place as usual. I'm used watching the mess called Germany, so watching US is a joy compared to Germany. I've been rather impressed by the US this tourney, but I have some question marks about the goalkeeper, whether she's actually the best goalie in US right now...? Horan and Ertz huge in the midfield for US, I've been highly impressed by them. If Brian gets in better shape before the WC next year, US might play that midfield out there, although I find Horan and Ertz a tad slow sometimes. Rapinoe and Morgan still going strong out there, and highly impressed by young Davison in the backline and Dunn. Sauerbrunn's declined a bit for me, but still a better option than Dahlkemper, although the fight for a CB spot is between Davison and Dahlkemper, no? Said some weeks ago that I thought US would win the WC, and I still think they will with Australia as their main opposition. What on earth is Carli Lloyd still doing in the USWNT?
I can think of many other players on that team more useless than Marta. Their biggest problem is their backline, which is terrible. Goalkeeping as well.