Who would have thought the only players with yellows would be: Dolo Demerit Altidore Beasley Findley already served suspension, so he does not count. If we can avoid a red, this means the only suspensions might be for the quarter, if we get by Ghana...a big IF. Yellows erased after the quarters...occasionally FIFA gets it right. Now, if they could just figure a way to get the offsides calls right. I'm not hammering the linesmen, since calling those tight offsides properly is close to humanly impossible.
Although I haven't done an analysis, my gut feeling from watching all of the games is that the US is in much better shape than most teams going into the Round of 16. May be even the best shape...
And with THE best draw around. A semifinalist will come from USA-Korea-Uruguay-Ghana. We could be in with Mexico-Germany-Argentina instead of England. There are no easy games at this stage in the tournament, but I'll take our spot vs England's spot no doubt about it.
If you bet me we'd get through the group stage with no red cards on Clark or Bradley, I would've lost a lot of money.
I kept waiting for something stupid to happen, resulting in yellow or red cards. So glad those expectations were not met. If FIFA had a sensible practice of reviewing cards after the game, we would have even less. OMG! Maybe the US will get the Fair Play Trophy!!!!!! We should at least get the Most Entertaining Team Award.
Amazing we've got no red cards after three games when at the Confederations Cup we had three reds in the five games. Lot of credit to Bob Bradley here for getting us to be more disciplined and not making rash challenges, especially considering how strictly we seem to be scrutinized by the refs historically.
The yellows are erased AFTER the quarters. If someone gets a second yellow in the quarters, they will be suspended for the semis. To state it a different way, the change only prevents someone from being suspended for the final. While having the stars available for the Final is a noble goal, it means in practice that 2 yellows in 5 games results in a suspension, as opposed to the 2 yellows in 3 games that was the result of the prior rule and wiping the slate clean after group play. 2 in 3 seems like an issue; not so clear that 2 in 5 warrants a suspension personally. By and large I would think this benefits the top, top squads who have lots of depth, although I guess in fairness they're the ones most likely to get these extra games for the most part. As you note, USA is in very good shape in the count, but there will certainly be others for whom this is going to become an issue, and frankly USA can't really afford to lose any defenders for any games.
The list can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_disciplinary_record Ghana has 6 with 1 card: Lee Addy Anthony Annan André Ayew Jonathan Mensah Prince Tagoe Isaac Vorsah Uruguay have only 2 with 1 card: Diego Lugano Mauricio Victorino Note: Nicolas Lodeiro got 2 and served his suspension in last game. South Korea / Korea Republic has 3 with 1 card: Lee Chung-Yong Yeom Ki-Hun Kim Nam-Il As stated in the original post, USA have 4 with 1 card, plus Findley having served his and now ready to go. It feels like only 4 is in pretty good shape, but in reality USA has 6 cards in the 3 games. With the average at 3.82 per game (for both teams), USA is actually slightly on the higher side. From a quick glance at some of the others who may advance in other groups: I see that Switzerland has 8 players with 1 card, with still a game to play in the group. While Chile also has 8 yellows from 2 games, with 2 players suspended for the Spain game and 4 players on 1 yellow. At least one of these teams will advance. Germany has had a player serve a suspension (Klose for 2 in 1 game), and has 6 players with 1 card as they take on England.
We may get most entertaining but the wikipedia linked page shows Spain with no yellows albeit a game less than us so far. Hard to believe a team can have no yellows through 2 games, but I guess we will see if they make it 3. They may win the fair play trophy with that kind of record. Also Japan and Italy have 1 each through 2 games. Italy must not be diving as much as usual. The Japanese probably don't tackle hard for fear of offending someone so not surprised about them.
Do not be deceived!!! Italy: PK in the New Zealand game... Japan: Drogba's arm (friendly, but still)...