Archive: Ramblings
Who's Going to the Semis?
We've played the prediction game over the past eight weeks, picking the order of finish in each group. So now is a good time to ask: who do you have in your final four? I just scratched out a bracket. Here goes nothing ... Semifinalist 1: Argentina. I say they win the Group of Death, beat Portugal in the round of 16 and Germany in the quarters. Semifinalist 2: England. They win Group B, beat Ecuador in the Round of 16 and surprise quarterfinalist Ivory Coast in the next round. Semifinalist 3: Brazil. They win Group F, beat an underperforming and scandal-distracted Italian side in the Round of 16, and beat France in a rematch of the 98 final in the quarters. Semifinalist 4: Switzerland. There's always a surprise semifinalist, and this is mine. The Swiss beat France in the first round to take Group G, then grit out wins...
By Jon DeNunzio | June 7, 2006; 10:05 AM ET | Comments (20) | TrackBack (0)
He's On His Way
Steven Goff made it to Hamburg today. He filed this en route, and we thought you would enjoy it. (I know, I know, I'm behind. I'll open up Group H predictions soon, allowing for comments over the weekend and into next week). I am 4,080 miles from the World Cup, sitting on a Lufthansa jet that has been delayed 20 minutes because of what the captain says are nasty thunderstorms pouncing on the East Coast. I look out the window and see nothing but construction cranes lurking over Dulles. We are still very much in the United States, the land that, until a dozen or so years ago, soccer forgot. But aboard a European-run airline, one that just happens to be an official partner of Juergen Klinsmann's German national team, soccer can't be too far away. I take a closer look at my boarding pass: silhouetted is a Lufthansa aircraft...
By Jon DeNunzio | June 2, 2006; 08:52 PM ET | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
The Premier(ship) Player Source
From Bloomberg News: English leagues are sending more players to the World Cup than any other nation. More than 100 are named in World Cup squads for the June 9- July 9 tournament, with Chelsea contributing 16, Arsenal 15 and Manchester United 12. ... Host Germany was second with more than 70. How many MLS players are going? Or, to be fair (or snarky), I should ask how many players from U.S. leagues (MLS, A-League, USL, MISL) are going? Full Story Update: The Bloomberg link is becoming troublesome. Will effort to fix ......
By Jon DeNunzio | May 18, 2006; 01:00 PM ET | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)
Pele and Maradona Were Born in October
As mentioned in the comments (thanks, WOW and cica), the NYT had a good piece Sunday about an odd statistical quirk -- elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the first few months of the year. One potential explanation: Since youth sports are organized by age bracket, teams inevitably have a cutoff birth date. In the European youth soccer leagues, the cutoff date is Dec. 31. So when a coach is assessing two players in the same age bracket, one who happened to have been born in January and the other in December, the player born in January is likely to be bigger, stronger, more mature. Guess which player the coach is more likely to pick? He may be mistaking maturity for ability, but he is making his selection nonetheless. And once chosen, those January-born players are the ones who, year after year, receive the training,...
By Jon DeNunzio | May 8, 2006; 04:05 PM ET | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
On Diving
The refs may claim they will crack down on "simulation," but I'll bet at some point in the World Cup, we will be forced to write a "look at all this pathetic diving" piece. Nicky Campbell in the Guardian, prompted by Chelsea's recent, um, performances in the EPL gets philosophical on diving and other forms of "cheating": But is not calling a footballer a cheat akin to accusing a prostitute of promiscuity? We all do it. I do it, in my rare excursions on to Astroturf. If you claim and accept a throw, corner or goal that you know is not yours, you are still "hiding the zed", as they say in scrabble. Full story ("Hiding the zed?" Maybe I need to play more Scrabble ...)...
By Jon DeNunzio | April 6, 2006; 10:30 AM ET | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Thanks for the Comments ...
Lots of good comments so far, and I wanted to address a few here: 1. Where will the blog regularly appear? Looks we will have a nice link on the Sports front of washingtonpost.com. 2. Technical analysis. I hear you out there. I'll make sure we consider the hard-core fans' desire for more than a surface description of on-field action when we cover the games this summer. The trick will be balancing that with stories that also appeal to a broader audience. I think we can do that ... We have a really good trio of reporters going -- Steven Goff, Jason LaCanfora and Camille Powell -- all of them know the game and are fantastic journalists. Anyone who has read Goff's soccer coverage over the past 10-15 years knows he knows the game; Jason and Camille do, too. Which brings me to ... 3. I'm not going to Germany....
By Jon DeNunzio | April 6, 2006; 09:00 AM ET | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Welcome to the Camp ...
... I guess you all know why we're here. Or maybe you don't. Well, let me tell you ... I convinced the nice folks at washingtonpost.com to let me do a blog in these final weeks of preparation for the World Cup for a few reasons: 1. I'm a soccer fan, and I have always thought that following international play can be a challenge for those of us who love the beautiful game but live in the U.S. The news and scores that are important to us are not on ESPN's crawl; many of the stories that do run in newspapers like The Washington Post leave us wanting more. (See this item from Tuesday's Post, for instance). So I wanted to write a blog (is that the right verb -- "write" a blog? "Compose" a blog? "Blog" a blog?) that soccer fans could use as a one-stop shop for tidbits...
By Jon DeNunzio | April 5, 2006; 08:30 AM ET | Comments (18) | TrackBack (0)
