And the most serious sports mind, Bill James, has changed his previous notion that clutch was a myth.
Main Entry: clutch Function: adjective 1 : made or done in a crucial situation <a clutch hit> 2 : successful in a crucial situation <a clutch pitcher> Leave a Twellman or a Ruiz alone in crunch time; it may become clutch time.
True but every MLS coach and GM I asked, and it's more than 5 but less than 10, agreed with Klinsman.
True to a point, team is important. But how many countries have won the World Cup without a player rising to the occasion and taking control of the tourney? How many mid level countries, which face it the US is, have won it without the best player their country has ever produced. To win it you need a game changer, a imposer of his will. A player who grabs the tourney by the balls and squeezes until he get his way. 02 - Ronoldo 98 - Zidane (and Euor too) 94 - Romario 90 - Matthäus how far back do you want to go? beckenbauer , Cruff (In Euro), Pele, Maradona,
I did. You didn't. You said if Landon had played two years in Germany he woud have had more grit and the U.S. WOULD have won against Germany. I said many GREAT players have played in Europe and their teams lost in WC playoffs. Playing in Europe didn't give them the grit to win. So playing in Europe 2 years would not guarantee Landon would have won. Landon would still be Landon, because he's smart enough to play his game. If he tried to play a gritty game at his size he would most like be having his 3rd major surgery by now.
The problem with mentioning Brazil is they have 5 or 6 players in each WC that could do this. Teams can't stop them all, they can't beat them, so sure one of them scores more goals. Brazil is dominate because of the sheer numbers of great players, all on one team. Cruff didn't win a WC. One of his teams outplayed but lost to Germany in the final. Holland lost two straight WC finals. And, Holland had several really good players. Beckenbauer was a sweeper. That team also had a lot of good players on it. Probably Germany's most overall talented team. He had a lot of influence but he did not score the goals. Maradonna is a good example, but don't forget Argentina had a great defense that really did play with GRIT. Mean as hale Grit! All these players played with great teams. It takes both at that level. I think it takes a great team as a platform for a great player to excel at that level.
Horsecrap. I want you to name me a three times anyone has lost to these guys because they faile to 'come up in the clutch' rather than because Armstrong and Woods are simply better--usually miles better. You could probably name me once, but once doesn't prove squat. I'm not sure I'm willing to go as far as 'clutch doesn't exist.' After all, as a Spurs fan, it sure seems like Robert Horry is a pretty mediocre player on an average night. But I can tell you that the Monday Morning Quarterbacks and internet pundits like us vastly overrate it. Landon Donovan had a flaw in his game as of 2002, in that he thought the only way to score goals was to round the keeper and walk it in. But if anything, his time in MLS has helped shake that habit (to an extent it lingers, but it's not half as bad today). And at any rate, in alleged 'clutch' situations, over his whole career, Landon is about .500, which is where almost everybody ends up. The ones where he's been successful tend to be the ones where the odds were stacked in his favor, and the ones where he's failed tended to be the ones where the odds were stacked against him. Again, that reminds me of only about 10,000 other pro athletes. Somebody tell me, in this photo, which is the 'clutch player' and which is the 'choker': If you answered, 'netiher is either', you win the prize.
Okay, I see what you're saying now. I'm not saying Landon needs to become an enforcer, but that he needs to find a way to be in the game more and make Big Plays. Yes, like he does against lesser teams. I'm talking Taylor Twellman on Saturday kind of stuff - snatching victory from the jaws of death. Show me an example where he did that.
What a load. Lance Armstrong personifies that. Jan Ullrich is technically as gifted as Lance, but one has an American attitude about sports and one has a European one, and it shows plain as day. "Wasn't meant to be", etc. comes from Jan's mouth so consistently I'm not sure the guy knows what else to say. Challenge Jan, and he folds like a deck of cards. Challenge Lance, and he responds by not only meeting your challenge, but also by beating you - usually in embarrasing fashion. But is this all the time? No. Lance races often, but doesn't win - unless it is the Big Enchilada. Right - it is the select few who have the brass balls to make the Play That Matters at The Right Moment. It isn't an accident that Michael Jordan made so many of those shots - and it wasn't just because of his talent. Talent is all over the place, but the ones who stick are the ones who Make The Plays - who handle the pressure. Seriously, you can see it at every level. Guys who have the actual skills to make the play but can't under pressure, and guys who can make the play under pressure or not. Landon has yet to show me that he can handle the pressure being on his shoulders alone. I will give you that he made some big plays for the US. His skill isn't in question. And he didn't choke against Mexico in Jeonju, etc. But - when the chips are down, does he find a way to make a difference? Does he respond to being challenged? I say no, and I think that is something that if he focuses on it and works on it, he can be better with - and it frustrates me to no end that he doesn't. Yeah, relative to Landon, because if that was after his own-goal shot, then yeah, that wasn't a clutch play. Relative to Figo, I disagree. Figo has had multiple opportunities to make The Play for his national team and failed in almost every instance. Against the US and Korea were the most telling ones. Now if you show me Landon's header against Mexico? That is clutch. (Roberto Baggio, anyone?) But frankly it was more Reyna and McBride (and for one play, Wolff) who were more clutch in that game.
You can make a case that every team in the last 8 of the World Cup has great players. You can't even get there without great players. But on that big a stage one player makes the difference. Once player can take his team and win the cup. You need that player to win it. Donovan clearly is not that player. Could he be? god I hope so, maybe Eddie can some day. But the fact Landycakes bails on playing at a higher level, for whatever reason, is not a good sign. I makes me believe he never will be. Why is it that coaches, GM, and almost every player you ask about this will agree with Klinsmann? I am not making that up, ask them yourself. Many "legit" columnists have written about it. No one begrudges Landon the right to come back home. But he has all the skills to be a world beater. It's the willpower that is missing... to this point. I hope for me, but I am not expecting.
When did Ulrich choke? When did Ulrich ever have a lead to blow? Lance Armstrong is flat better than Ulrich. Armstrong is a superstar, the Michael Jordan of cycling, and Ulrich never got to 'crunch time' to see how he'd have compared. Where do you draw the line? You've pursued the slippery slope bait I dangled for you all the way to its extreme. By the logic you've used here, everybody who wins must have been clutch, and must have won solely because there were. This should have been one of the more obvious cases. If you were going to challenge me, one would think it would have been on golf, a game where physical endurance, speed, and for the most part strength is taken out of the equation, leaving us only precision of form, and concentration; a game where we can point to some places (Sergio Garcia versus Woods, Greg Norman versus anybody) where it appears a player physically poised to win mentally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. In truth, there are only handful of players who might have true cases on either end. 99.9% of all players regress to the mean if given a little time. They used to call Mark Lemke clutch. An ordinary baseball player who walked into the World Series in 1991 and did this: Code: G AB R H BAVG SLG 1991 6 24 4 10 0.417 0.708 Pretty darned good. Trouble is, when he went back, he did this: Code: 1992 6 19 0 4 0.211 0.211 1995 6 22 1 6 0.273 0.273 1996 6 26 2 6 0.231 0.269 Totals 24 91 7 26 0.286 0.374 Ah, there's the Lemke we knew and loved. Becoming the player that Mark Lemke was. I'm not surprised you'd also cite Jordan. It's perfectly natural--he's won a lot of titles, he must be clutch. But on further scrutiny, there's a lot letere that tends to debate for your opposition as well: Michael Jordan was a fabulous player on ordinary nights. We should have been surprised if he didn't perform in the NBA Finals. Here's his career through the second retirement (sans Washington Wizards): Code: G Min FG FG% 3Pt 3PT% FT FT% Pts AVG Regular 930 35887 10962-21686 0.505 555-1670 0.332 6798-8115 0.838 29277 31.5 Playoffs 179 7474 2188-4497 0.487 148-446 0.332 1463-1766 0.828 5987 33.4 So what do we have here? Jordan's scoring goes up come playoff time, but his shooting, three point shooting*, and free throw percentage (shouldn't that be mostly mental) all go down--he just tooks more shots per game. His NBA Finals scoring average is 33.6, indistinguishable from his playoff average. As for those game winners everyone remembers, Jordan himself will tell you that over his career, he's missed as many as he's made. He may have a case for being clutch, but it's not in the data that's easily found (I gave up looking for all his Finals stats to see if his percentages go up), it's ultimately based on a couple of shots, and in the end, if it were true, how much difference does it make? 99% of the success Jordan had as a player was as a result of simply being a fabulous player. You've got him as "the right man at the right moment" as if that was something magical, but he was the right man at every moment. When you really look at it, this is a textbook case of the word 'clutch' being tossed around as an off-hand cliché by people who aren't really thinking about what they're saying. And Landon Donovan is, too, because the implication that he's some sort of 'unclutch' player is based on a couple of instances, when the deck was stacked anyway, when he's done well in alleged clutch situations (he has an MLS Cup MVP, you know) as often as badly. Even if clutch exists, it's used about fifty times more often than it should be to explain something. This thread is no exception. * - {Note: You have to take it another digit to see this, .3323 versus .3318, but this number should have been biased up, because Jordan was a crappy three point shooter early in his career, but got better over time, just as the Bulls were winning championships.} {Another note: it might be worth doing a point-by-point on the rest of your posts, such as that Lance Armstrong certainly does not race often, and that Landon Donovan had an excellent game against Portugal, and not merely that moment, but it's not central to my point, and the format of BS threads tends to generate significant forest-trees problems.}
But you must remember that Lance doesn't train to win those races. Those races are part of the training to win the Big Enchilada, so can you really use that as part of your argument? No. Everything that Lance sets out to win, he wins, whether it be the Tour de France, a specific stage, a time trial. That's not clutch, that's game .
Wow. That is one of the rare times someone has tried to out-number me. But this isn't rotisserie baseball. This isn't about career stats. It is about when the Crunch Time is on - that Moment when the game is decided. Who made the big shots for Chicago, when everyone knew he was going to get the ball and no one could stop him? Talk to a Cavs fan or a Jazz fan and see what they say. Why don't we stick to MLS for a moment? You know why I don't hate LA the way I hate Chicago? Both groups have an entitlement complex that is vomitous. But LA (sans Ruiz) has never been able to Win When It Matters. They made more MLS Cup appearances than any other team that hasn't won, but has only won once - when they finally learned that it is team cohesion and Making The Play that matters. 1998 is a great example. The '98 Galaxy was an absolute monster in the regular season. But when it came to crunch time, they lost to the Fire, a team that was strong enough to go on to beat DC. Same thing for Miami's great team, etc. This is why I love the playoffs and while I respect the Shield winner, I put more stock in the MLS Cup winner. Give me the teams that knew how to get a result - of which I think the 2000 Wizards are probably the best example. They more than any other MLS champion could grind out a 1-0 win whenever they had to. But hey, if you don't believe that desire, want-to or focus have anything to do with sports, you keep on keepin' on. Have fun with that. Enjoy your entitlement complex - I'll take the guy who will out-work you in addition to being talented any day of the week and twice on Jonno's birthday.
There is something to that, but what about the times where Lance crashed? Certainly you can't say that he planned those moments. Or when he had to go off the road a few years back. He could have just said "I'm not good enough" and be done with it, or he could have done what he did - take it as a challenge and rise above it. Every time you see Jan challenged, I don't see that same response. And while I think that Lance and Jan are closer in talent than it seems others do, certainly with all that is involved, if it really were just about ability, surely something would have happened in the prior six years that would have given Jan a chance. A fall, a blown tire - something. Some sort of opening that he could jump on. But he hasn't. Instead, he has hung his head every time that something blocked his way. And you know what, if he had risen to the challenge and just not been good enough, then I'd be happy to admit that Lance is simply more skilled. But that hasn't happened.
But that's actually an argument for Jan being handicapped against Lance. Lance's team is built solely around him - and his big race. On Telekom, they can't just treat everything as training for the Tour. They are expected to win other races, so their focus is diverted. Plus, Jan isn't the only option for the team. How can you focus on beating everyone in the race when you're trying to make sure your teammate don't beat you out of the #1 spot on the team? Plus, Lance does not win everything he sets out to win. He didn't win the time trial at the start of the Tour - and he wanted that badly. Lastly, Jan is not as technical as Lance - he's too heavy, for one thing. That makes him, despite his talent, a little muscle-bound on the mountain climbs. Lance himself has said that he was always talented as a cyclist, but until cancer treatments wasted his muscle mass, he wasn't light enough to speed up the hills the way he does now. Jan has been criticized for his lax training habits and his party attitude, while Lance is famous for his discipline and willingness to suffer to improve. They are not starting out on the same plane with some mysterious "clutch" factor tilting the results Lance's way. By the way, when Lance went off the road, the leaders waited for him. Part of the "honor code" of cycling.
Actually, that was the crash with the food-bag, not the off-road incident. And considering the shock of crashing, even with that waiting, it still puts the rider at a disadvantage (to whoever might be tempted - please let's not argue this point - you're not seriously going to argue that falling from a bike at 20-30 mph is something you want to do...) You know what, I'll take that and apply it to Landon and come out with the same thing. Landon is NOT famous for his discipline OR his willingness to suffer to improve. It may not be the mysterious "clutch" factor, but close enough for my purposes. He is NOT working as hard as he can to raise his game. Period. THAT is my problem. He has an entitlement complex that frankly makes me think that we got the best of the deal with LA - that I'd rather have Carlos than Donovan. Period. When the going gets tough, Carlos gets going and Landon complains to the ref. End of Line
You're not even making sense any more. Donovan has more Cups than the Fire, FC Dallas, heck, everybody except DC United. You put more stock in that Championship, but then you say he has no grit? This is a player who elevated his output in the playoffs - both in scoring and assists. But you're still using him as a poster boy for "lack of clutch"? Mind you, I'm not staying he is "clutch". I'm more inclined to believe the concept is an artificial construct used by folk as an convenient excuse to dislike a player without having to use actual evidence of said player's lack of skill and productivity.
San Jose had played like Ronnie Ekelund, Richard Mulrooney, Jeff Agoos (how many championships with DC?), etc. Guys who sure as hell were clutch and gritty. You can't point to Landon and say that just because he was on that team, he has grit. Besides, that was a comparison of teams in general - teams that had heart and teams that didn't. I would put San Jose as a WHOLE into that category because of the other players on the team. In fact, this goes to my point - that Landon is happier letting other players do the dirty work. And lookit - I'm a US fan, too. It is BECAUSE I want Landon to be better that I have a problem with his attitude and work ethic. He is NOT trying to be the best player he can be, he is finding a comfort zone. And hey, if that is what makes him successful, fine. But as a fan of the US, I know that at some point, for the US to make it to that next level, it is going to take more than that. Landon COULD be that player. He is choosing not to, and I think less of him for it.
When Lance went off the road, he cut across a short section of field and lifted his bike back onto to road. Landon's training is intense, and I can't think of anyone but Hejduk that matches his fitness - if that doesn't take discipline and willingness - I don't know how you define it. You keep returning to blanket statements, like :"He is NOT working as hard as he can to raise his game. Period." without offering anything to back that up. As for Ruiz and his "clutch" factor - perhaps that was what he was looking for in Guatemala when he was AWOL from FC. As for Ruiz not complaining to the ref - well, perhaps because you don't speak Spanish - but when the ref does speak it, I've heard Pescadito plenty of times.
San Jose had Eddie Lewis once too, and they still stunk. History may change this, but the team never had a championship until Donovan. He shows up, they win. The teams play him harder, tougher. He improves and returns his team to the championship again. No, he's not the only guy on the team by far, but nothing before him worked. the numbers were posted earlier and I don't want to review the stats in Donovan's favor, because the bottom line is, you don't like him, and you couch that behind your disappointment of him. You want him to do more, but you're content with other players doing less or the same because you like them. If you said you liked Carlos' grin more than Landon's smile, that would be on a more objective level than this "clutch and grit" argument.
Right - but that WASN'T the time the people waited on him. Good for you to recognize it. I'll give you that. I don't think he has ever been flat, physically, for a game. But that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about challenging himself to be a better soccer player all around. What is he doing in MLS? The same old thing. Nothing new. If he wanted to be a better player, he wouldn't be content to be a big fish in a little pond. Now, granted, if he doesn't want to be in Germany or with BL, I could see that. It could be site or team specific. But what happened to the looks to England? Why not look to Spain - he certainly speaks the language. Uh, no. Big fish, little pond. That addresses that. Yeah - I want my players to want to play for the best team, in the biggest moments, and from his perspective (basically BEING the Guatemalan NT), those were bigger games. And I expect him to go play for G on 11-13 if that is what it takes to put them in the World Cup. And I want EJ to get the most he can from MLS and then move on - because ultimately, I believe US still has a ways to grow, and the better the NT is, the better the league will be. I love what DMB is doing. If you have the skills and the stones to play at a higher level than MLS, then do it. Why should it be any different for Ruiz? (Now, this sets aside the fact that there was a communication breakdown that hopefully has been addressed. THAT is a different issue.) Oh, I know he will complain to the ref, but not to the extent Landon does, nor for the reasons he does. Landon is more of the Mexican League "ooh, he touched me, foul!" crap. Ruiz will initiate contact.
That's a great point and also the reason why I think less of him too....great player, great ability....he just chooses not to be THAT player the US needs to push on by not proving himself (because every US fan honestly knows he has what it takes to succeed aborad) overseas.
Dude, you're kidding me, right? None of the other players (except for, I believe Mulrooney) were there in 2000. In that off-season, San Jose made wholesale changes after getting Yallop as the coach. And Eddie Lewis, before he went overseas, wasn't the player he is now. He was good and young, but not a go-to guy. You don't know jack about me, chief. So don't go making assumptions like that. Landon is soft and plays like it when it is time for him to be more than just a pretty boy. THAT bothers me. If I don't like him, it is because of who he is. I'm not making up excuses because I don't like the guy. There is something to the fact that I want players to get results. But not because I "like" them. What? The hell does that have to do with anything? Frankly, I don't know either player personally. Hence, I don't have an opinion on either one from that angle. What I do have an opinion on is their performance for my teams. And when Landon plays for the US, I admire his skill and touch. His pass to DMB against Jamaica was wonderful. But when he'd rather let someone push him around or not impose himself upon the game to get a result, it drives me nuts. I WANT the guy to do well - THAT is why his failure to raise his game bothers me.