"for all intensive purposes" Weren't our soccer players college graduates back in Burns' pre-Adu days?
Mike Burns is a columnist now? Wow. It seems like only yesterday that we were watching him getting run over by Zague against Mexico in the Gold Cup.
Then there's "I don’t believe there is another country in the world who has ascended in there region as quickly as the United States . . ." Cripes, at least they could have edited his column for him, to spare him the embarassment. Burns went to Hartwick College. My guess is that he was not an English major.
I don’t believe there is another country in the world who has ascended in there region as quickly as the United States, something all of us should be proud of. Mike knows his synonyms as well as he hugged the post against Germany! Fortunately, Bruce Arena and some players have gone through the qualification process, making things a little easier in terms of there being less surprises. And his grammar is about as good as he covered Zague when the US played Mexico. (Hint: "fewer" surprises.) As soon as Amado Guevara was ejected in the 39th minute for throwing an elbow at DaMarcus Beasley and the U.S leading 1-0, the game, for all intensive purposes, was over. And his memory is as good as his contributions to the US attack when he played. (It was actually 2-0 when Guevara got tossed.) We’ve already seen what happened with the U.S. Olympic Team, an easly medal prediction before they had even played a qualifying game. And, he spells like he defended!
i remember watching USNT games and just making fun of how bad that guy was. him agoos and dooley were all targets back then and agoos still is even to this day.
What's wrong with that man??? He's only talking about the really, really intense purposes. The laid back, relax purposes have nothing to do with it.
Or maybe: He played like a journalist, but he writes like a soccer player. Just for the record, I've watched that stupid goal a dozen times and still can't figure out how he let it in. Maybe his brain and torso are both made of silly putty. Reflective note: Once heckled Burns during a Wiz-Revs game by getting a couple friends to shout ``grab the post, burns. grab the post,'' as he ran by. He actually stopped, started to respond and then walked off, shaking his head. Chrikey, I'm still angry about that goal.
He did the right thing on that play and got unlucky. The goal mouth was wide open and the striker was on the penalty spot (or inside it). It's instinctive to move to the most likely place for the ball to go. Bad luck. It happens. Get over it.
I don't see it as bad luck, I see it as a terrible play. And, while Burns shows it "does" happen, that doesn't mean it "should" happen. I have never been so upset at any one player in any sport at any time than I was at Mike Burns after that play. I thought I'd gotten over it but when I was reading his shoddily written article, all these feelings of anger came back as I recalled how I felt when he made one of the biggest mistakes in our soccer history. Now, would we have tied Germany if he makes the play he's supposed to? Doubtful, but you never know. Would France have still been a debacle if he had made that play? Probably, but you never know. World Cups can change on crucial and isolated moments where indivduals do, or do not, make plays, some of which seem key at the time, others that seem no big deal when they happen but later turn out to be big. Burns had a chance to make one of those plays, but like Stallone in Copland, he BLEW IT! And, as a fan of the US National Team, I have every right to still be bitter about it. In fairness to Mike, there was a play in a qualifer against Jamaica where he cleared the ball off the line and preserved a point and a game against, I think, Colombia in the US Cup 95 where he cleared the ball off the line, I think with his head, to help the US win that title. That helped Steve Sampson remove the interim from his title and maybe Steve's gratitude towards Burns resulted in him starting against Germany as the wide midfielder in the 3-6-1 even though it didn't, at all, play to his skill set.