It was a pretty interesting game. Spain controlled possession like they should, but seemed afraid to pay the price inside the attacking 18 yard box to get the result.

America's defense was spectacular, but in my opinion their goals were both sloppy on Spain's behalf. I think more than anything it's a good wake up call for Spain heading into a World Cup year.

I also thought the red card was a joke. The linesmen were pretty bad on offsides as well. The americans had 2 clear breaks called back on incorrect offside calls.

They got inside the box a number of times. It's a credit to the US backs that they cleared so many balls without fouling and giving Spain a pk.

The teams that Spain played against in the tournament before the US didn't give them much trouble. Fernando Torres pulled a hat trick in the first 20 minutes against New Zealand. It was almost painful to watch them take the Kiwis apart like that. After that they defeated Iraq and South Africa, shutting out both teams.

The US goals did come off of Spanish mistakes, but the US also took some shots that went wide that weren't from Spanish mistakes. At any rate, Spain had 8 shots on goal, the US 2. Spain took 29 shots, the US 9. Spain had 17 corner kicks, the US 3. Spain had possession 56% of the time. It's still unbelievable that the US won the game.

As for the red card, Bradley's play was aggressive but he touched the ball. The only explanation I could see (without assuming the worse of the refs) was that they thought he went into the slide cleats up. His toe was pointed up exposing his cleats, but his heel was still on the ground, and he made contact with the ball. It was a weak call. That's why I suspect they wanted to give Spain an advantage for the final minutes of the game. If there's any team out there that could score 2 or 3 goals in 10 minutes it's Spain, but not today.

Total aside from the topic of the thread, I find it odd to see American terms applied to football;
- shut out
- backs
- cleats

ah, you Yanks and your crazy language [wink]

Iirc, "shut out" comes from baseball.

What do you call the defensive positions closest to the goal keeper?

What do you call athletic shoes with knobs on the soles?

As a collective term "defenders", although you do have the 4 sub-positions of centre back, sweeper, full back, and wing back when talking about a perticular position in the defense.

The shoes thing depends on the context; boots is common, or [sport type] boots (so 'football boots'). However, in the context you were using the term it would have been 'gone in with his studs showing'.

What do you say as opposed to "shut out?" I know you guys say "nil" for zero (which I always thought was funny), but do you have any special term for beating a team and not letting them score at all?

All this talk about soccer makes me miss playing [sad]

I've never heard of a term specifically for that; normally it would be 2-nill or 2-nothing.

Quote: Original post by MikeTacular
What do you say as opposed to "shut out?" I know you guys say "nil" for zero (which I always thought was funny), but do you have any special term for beating a team and not letting them score at all?

All this talk about soccer makes me miss playing [sad]

You could say you kept a clean sheet, but if you are giving the score such as "we won 2-0" then it is already evident that you kept a clean sheet. By the way Howard broke the club(Everton) record for clean sheets this year.

Quote: I think the refs wanted to give Spain a chance to make a comeback and keep their streaks going

Rubbish, if the ref wanted to give Spain a chance he would of given the stone cold penalty when the score line was one nil. As for the sending off it was harsh but you get these types of "European style" decisions given in international games.

Quote: Original post by phantom
As a collective term "defenders", although you do have the 4 sub-positions of centre back, sweeper, full back, and wing back when talking about a perticular position in the defense.

So if you wanted to talk about the players in all four positions, why wouldn't you call them "backs"? I suppose you might call them "the back line".

Quote: Original post by phantom
The shoes thing depends on the context; boots is common, or [sport type] boots (so 'football boots'). However, in the context you were using the term it would have been 'gone in with his studs showing'.

So "studs showing" instead of "cleats up"? I don't know the etymology of "cleats" but it also seems to me to come from baseball and was borrowed from sailing. A "cleat" on a ship, if I'm not mistaken, is a squat T shaped piece of metal used to attach ropes to the deck. Professional level baseball players wear shoes with flat metal studs that look similar to ship cleats (although substantially smaller). People started calling those shoes "cleats" and carried over the usage to any shoe with studs attached to the bottom.

Quote: Original post by dmail

Quote: I think the refs wanted to give Spain a chance to make a comeback and keep their streaks going

Rubbish, if the ref wanted to give Spain a chance he would of given the stone cold penalty when the score line was one nil. As for the sending off it was harsh but you get these types of "European style" decisions given in international games.

The ref was from Uruguay. As for rubbishing my assumption, did you see the play? did you see the replay? It was a foul at best, not a red card. Earlier in the game one of the Spanish players high kicked a US player in the face in the penalty box. It didn't even draw a foul, let alone a red card. The US player - Clint Dempsey - went on to score the second goal. He plays in the Premier League too, for Fullham, iirc. At any rate, I questioned the integrity of the ref only because the call was really sketchy.