30 June 2010

Football and Technology

So, in the wake of some apalling decisions by the match officials at the World Cup, the cry goes up anew for technology to be added to the game. Well, as far as goal/no goal goes, either a goal judge standing alongside the netting or some form of replay might be in order. Otherwise, kindly keep your technology out of the game. I still haven't seen a foolproof method for video to judge offside or a foul, since the camera has its own angle which is not necessarily the proper one. The real problem is match commentators who know nothing of the laws. This includes former players and managers who infect or TV coverage with their often uninformed views and lack of knowledge concerning the laws. If you ask most of them about the offside law, they'll go one and on about the second last defender but never once talk about where the ball is. there was even one former player turned pundit, an international yet (OK, it was Ty Keogh), who would describe a player as being in an offside position on a throw-in at least one time a year. I'll bet his father Harry had something to say about that. Lord, spare me from the pundits.

28 June 2010

Guess I was a little crazy

Haven't blogged since World Cup started. No, we didn't beat England, but we won the group. Ghana simply outplayed us in extra time of the Round of 16 but I'm happy with USA's World Cup. We showed grit and determination, which is more than England, France and Italy. England completely spit the bit against Germany, allowing one goal not given (we had two ruled out for no good reason except horrible officiating and yet got points out of each game) to toally flummox them. The second half of England - Germany proved the total inadequacy of the English system. Teams are chosen based on reputation, not actual performance. Instead of a cohesive unit, they have eleven individuals. So, instead of picking up where they left off in the first half, they through numbers forward recklessly, failed to react when a free kick was turned into a German counter and then threw up their hands and cursed their luck. Compared to the American effort and England looks like a spent footballing force, good enough to qualify for major tournaments but never a real contender for honors. It's passed time for Europe to be cut down to ten qualifying places out of the thirty two. France and Italy were imposters, Spain and Portugal have it all to prove (one is definitely on its way out) and some of the others really didn't belong. After all, this is the World Cup, not the European invitational.

04 June 2010

Explanation

So, what is a Redpalacenycoskyblueeagleocpbullsox? It is the amalgamation of my leisure time intersts, football (the real kind), baseball and opera. For the record, we have Red Bull New York of MLS, Red Sox of MLB, Crystal Palace Eagles of the English Football League and Crystal Palace Baltimore of NASL, Sky Blue FC of WPS, Opera Company of Philadelphia, and New York City Opera. How do you pronounce it? Any way you want to. Why am I here? Who cares! I'm doing this blog and that's all that matters. I'm still celebrating the rescue from near extinction of Crystal Palace, waiting for the World Cup to start so that the USA can prove me a prophet. I predict the USA will beat England 3-1 and go on to win the whole thing. How crazy am I? We'll see.