American soccer fans have long endured idiotic sports writers who trash soccer on a regular basis trying to reinforce the idea that Americans hate soccer. But there is absolutely no excuse for dishonest reporting, no matter how often it happens. Steve Jones has an article out via Reuters that is just plain dishonest because it leaves out critical facts that are directly relevant to the point he is making.

Last Kick highlights Steve’s latest where he makes dishonest comparisons:

If you look west from Germany these days you’ll see America stifling a yawn at the World Cup.

Despite a doubling of TV ratings for the first-round matches this month, before the U.S. squad failed miserably, soccer still ranks below televised poker tournaments in a land where baseball, basketball and American football rule.

To put it in context, ABC-TV’s average rating of 2.5 for the first eight matches it aired represents barely 8 million viewers in a nation of just under 300 million. Only 3.9 million Americans watched the 2002 World Cup final, out of 1.1 billion worldwide.

By comparison, nearly 91 million viewers watched this year’s Super Bowl, the glitzy climax to the season for America’s home-grown form of football. Nearly 39 million watched the Academy Awards, Hollywood’s big night, in March and 36 million tuned in for last month’s finale of "American Idol," a TV talent show.

And on ABC’s sports cable network, ESPN, which presumably attracts more serious sports fans, the World Cup has had even fewer viewers, averaging around 1.75 million on channels that reach 91 million homes.

Did I mention this is dishonest? Do you see Univision mentioned anywhere in this article?

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I’m just a lowly youth league president. My biggest problem are hooligan parents (joke - mostly). But even I know that you don’t talk about the performance of teams in a tournament, at least until it’s over. But maybe that’s just me. FIFA President Sepp Blatter is at it again, complaining about England’s offensive strategy so far. Via the WorldCupBlog, we see he isn’t happy:

"I am happy that play is very offensive. The only exception is England, who fielded just one striker in their second-round match," Blatter said Thursday. "That’s not the kind of offensive football you would expect from a title contender."

Maybe I was watching a different tournament, but my recollection is most of the matches have not been offensive and exciting. A few have for sure, but England is not the only one playing less than exciting soccer. If anything was offensive about England’s performance it was this. Just kidding.

Have there been utterly boring matches this World Cup? Sure. But that’s bound to happen in a tournament with the best teams from around the world. Don’t forget there are teams who played beautifully who are on flights home. If a team has played ‘boring’, but it’s been enough to advance - how can you question that? Exciting soccer often means risky soccer and needless risks can end in early flights home. I know FIFA wants exciting matches to draw more viewers and make the sponsors happy, but sometimes the ugliest of matches can be the most exciting or intense to watch. Bob at WorldCupBlog notes:

While Mr. Blatter, Nike and those who profit off the World Cup would love nothing more than to be able to sell a product that is beautiful, the reality of football is that it is often times not. There’s nothing wrong with that. The Portugal and Netherlands card-fest in the Round of 16 was not a Picasso, but if you are like me you were still glued to the television, watching ugly, yet compelling World Cup football.

I know I was.

I stumbled across a fun tool called BlogPulse which is similar to Google Trends, except it tracks trends of phrases in the blogosphere. Lets see how often you find "World Cup", "NBA Finals", and "Stanley Cup" on blogs this month:

That’s pretty impressive. 2% of the blog posts on the Internet June 9th were talking about or mentioning the World Cup. We soccer fans sure are a talkative bunch! Wonder what a league comparison looks like. I had tried to get some similar World Cup search trends from Google Trends, but the second quarter data hadn’t been loaded in yet.

If you come up with some interesting comparisons, post a link in the comments!

According to Nielsen, the USA v Ghana World Cup match pulled a 2.6 rating and 3.819 million viewers on ESPN, making it the #7 Cable TV program for the week of June 19th. Not too shabby considering it was on between 7AM and 10AM on a weekday across the country. Via MultiChannel News:

"ESPN officials said the contest ranks as the fifth-highest-rated and second-most-viewed soccer match in the network’s history, trailing only the U.S.-Germany quarterfinal match in the 2002 World Cup, which drew a 4.4 household rating and 3.77 million homes."

The MultiChannel News article also contained some interesting average ratings info:

ESPN, which had aired 28 matches through June 22, posted a 1.0 household rating, 938,000 homes and 1.17 million viewers, respective gains of 67%, 94% and 82% relative to the same stage in the 2002 tourney.

For its part, ABC averaged a 2.5 household rating, 2.79 million homes and 3.74 million viewers during its first eight games through June 18. Those levels were 89%, 97% and 103% above the 2002 competition, when ABC had only presented three matches to that stage.

I should note that MultiChannel News said the US v Ghana match netted a 3.2 rating - not sure why they don’t match. MultiChannel News also had overall ratings information for Univision:

For 50 2006 World Cup matches through June 24, Univision averaged 1.44 million households and 2.17 million viewers, up 133% and 155%, respectively from the same span in 2002, when the World Cup was held in Korea and Japan and most of the matches aired live in overnight periods in the U.S. due to the time-zone differential from the Pacific Rim. [ed. matches aired often after midnight]

Compared with the 1998 World Cup in France — when the time zone differential to the East Coast in the United States was the same six hours as it is Germany — the 2006 World Cup was ahead 86% in households and 91% in viewers, according to Univision officials.

I wasn’t able to find a rating for the USA v Ghana match for Univision to get a combined US rating for the match. If you know it, please post in the comments! Sure, 15.71 million viewers watched Game 6 of the NBA finals - in prime time. But assuming that Univision pulled in 1.5 times the viewers that ESPN did (that’s the average ratio), that gives you 9.55 million viewers for the USA v Ghana match. In the early morning on a Thursday.

That’s damn impressive.
I’m done listening to "soccer will never be popular in the US". Talk to the hand.

Now this is one lucky little girl. Yes, that’s a real Teamgeist.

The Football kNuts put up a fairly detailed post filled with ideas on how to fix the fundamentally broken game of soccer. Many people have complained about the state of soccer in the 2006 World Cup and many have been upset over the number of bookings (though others will say they are justified). Being an opinionated sort, I figured I’d throw my 2 cents into the kitty as well.

In a nutshell? I don’t think the beautiful game is as broken as we think it is. It all comes down to consistency.

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Austin Kelley has an article up at Slate that tries to justify diving as a civilizing influence on the beautiful game. While his overall intentions are reasonable, using diving to achieve them is just, well, wrong.

First, there is diving and there is DIVING. If a player gets fouled by a hard tackle and adds a little flair to his fall, that’s not a huge deal because it shouldn’t matter to a good referee who will call the illegal tackle, regardless of how the player fell. (Wishful thinking, I know) A player who trips over his own feet and writhes in pain from some alleged contact needs to be shown yellow - that’s DIVING.

Now Austin sees diving in similar terms and also feels DIVING should be carded no question. However, when it comes to normal diving, it is seen as an equalizer between smaller skilled players and bigger brutish players.

Consider the classic matchup between a skilled dribbler and a big, tough defender. The attacker must use his quickness and wit to get by. The bigger man, though, can always resort to a "professional foul" - an intentional foul in which there is no attempt to play the ball. The defender will give away a free kick, but that will hurt only in certain parts of the field. So, what is the attacker to do? If he finds a flailing leg in his way, he can do nothing except barge right into it. And maybe writhe around on the ground for a bit, encouraging the referee to hand out a card, thus discouraging the brutish defender from trying such rough tactics in the future.

Far from being a sign of corruption, diving is, in certain ways, a civilizing influence. Divers are usually quicker, smaller players. As athletes get bigger and stronger, the little guy gets nudged aside. If professional fouls and brute force reign supreme, creative play and joyful improvisation will suffer.

Almost leaves you speechless doesn’t it? Fear not - lack of speech has never been a problem of mine!

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The complaints started before the first match. Why did ESPN choose a baseball announcer who had no clue about soccer to call the premiere matches in the 2006 World Cup? US Soccer fans, overjoyed that all 64 matches would be broadcast live, were dismayed at the choice of Dave O’Brien. In early March an online petition was started, begging ESPN to replace O’Brien before the World Cup. They already have over 4,500 signatures.

For those of you who don’t know, Dave O’Brien normally calls baseball games for ESPN. He was pressed into service as a soccer announcer because ESPN felt that new fans would feel more comfortable hearing his voice - a known quantity to baseball fans:

"It was a calculated risk," Jed Drake, a senior vice president and executive producer with ESPN and ABC Sports, told The Washington Times on June 10. "We wanted to take a signature voice from a mainstream sport and make it the signature voice of this event. We hope it pays off."

Before I even get started with O’Brien’s performance up until now, the viewpoint of ESPN executives is appalling. "A signature voice from a mainstream sport" Which obviously means they feel soccer isn’t a mainstream sport. There’s the old ‘nobody likes soccer’ mentality hard at work. The arrogance of ESPN is even more galling:

When asked about criticism of O’Brien from soccer fans by The New York Post on June 9, Tim Scanlan, ESPN senior coordinating producer for World Cup coverage and the man believed to have chosen O’Brien, said: "You can look at this from another side. Maybe soccer has finally been given its due to have this type of broadcaster delivered to the sport."

Let me be one of many when I scream at the top of my lungs: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! Soccer is given it’s due because ESPN ‘delivered’ O’Brien to us? Where can we write return to sender?

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I’ve seen a number of comments on various forums where people think the flood of cards in this World Cup will turn off ‘new’ US fans who tuned in for the first time, reaffirming it as a ’sissy’ sport. I just don’t buy that. American Football? The flag flies constantly. Basketball? Players spend a whole lot of time on the foul line. Hockey? You may not get ejected, but you play a man down for 2-5 minutes. Americans are used to fouls in sports and I can’t see why they would see soccer any differently. You trip a guy, he gets the ball back. Fair enough. You commit an egregious foul, you get carded or ejected. You deny someone an easy goal, they get a penalty shot. Nothing outrageous there. I expect most Americans see this as normal.

I’m not excusing the number of cards this go around by any stretch. I’d prefer to see more yellow for the divers than the players who make a marginal tackle that should rate a foul, no more. But I just don’t buy that new US viewers who watch this World Cup will be turned off by the officiating. It may drive longtime soccer fans nuts, but an American new to soccer would just take it in stride - a foul is a foul, etc.

Besides, we Americans LIVE to argue with and yell at sports officials. This World Cup and soccer as a whole is right up our alley!

What a great game. Playing a man down, Italy manages to hold the Socceroos back 0-0 as stoppage time is expiring. Both teams have numerous closeup attempts on goal with a number of turning strikes. Grosso of Italy gets by the Australian defender to the right of the goal, gets taken down in the box, and Italy gets a PK with stoppage time expiring. Totti punches it in, Italy wins 1-0. WOW.

The Socceroos could never seem to press the Italians back and take advantage of playing a man up. Italy was dangerous near the goal often even though the Socceroos controlled the ball more. Say what you will about the Italian Diving Team, but they definitely have sweet ball control and stripped the Socceroos of the ball often.

As for the referee, the red card was a really close call. Balboa on ESPN felt Materazzi wasn’t the last defender, but it was REALLY close. Overall, I thought that ref dished out cards that were called for and let the game flow. I think this referee, Luis Medina Cantalejo, makes the short list for the final. I don’t see how you question the PK, the Australian never touched the ball no matter how much Grosso dove.

UPDATE: Some fans are saying they don’t think Neill ever touched Grosso at all. I thought he did then slid out of bounds when ESPN showed the replay. So I went to FIFA’s official site to check the video highlights and was amazed to find highlights for every shot and red card up through the 81st minute. Then the highlight film goes black without showing the foul or the PK. Odd.

UPDATE II: ESPN showed it again during halftime of the Ukraine v Switzerland match. It looked to me that Neill missed him on the initial tackle, but then Grosso tripped/fell over Neill’s torso. Could Grosso have stayed up? Probably, but damn he’d been playing for a full 90 and Neill was half sitting up when Grosso went over him. I think the ref got it right - PK.

UPDATE III: I know I’m not taking the popular angle for thinking the PK was legit. But watching the replay some more, you have to hand it to Grosso. He pulled the ball back at the last possible second before Neill touched it which made all the difference in the world. Neill was headed straight for the ball as he slid. Grosso flicks it towards himself and Neill misses, ending up right in front and under Grosso who falls/dives/trips whatever over him. PK.

It was a brutal match with tempers flaring, red cards flying, and not what one thinks of when referring to ‘the beautiful game’ But I confess that the Portugal Netherlands battle was fun to watch. I know, I know, I really should should scoff at the players behavior, but after the England-Ecuador sleeper it was a welcome change.

Best comment over at The News Blog’s daily World Cup Thread by lull:

Isn’t the slogan of this World Cup "a time to make friends?"…

…I’m starting to think neither team got the memo.

A World Cup record 4 red cards and a record tying 16 yellow cards. Ouch. Many felt the ref lost control earlier in the match and was forced to clamp down once things got out of hand. But most of the bookings were deserved. FIFA’s president felt the officiating was a problem:

"There could have been a yellow card for the referee," said Fifa president Sepp Blatter. "He was not at the same level as the players.

I think that was a bit harsh. Both teams were acting like goons at times and I was really upset that the Netherlands twice took a drop ball after a Portugal injury and didn’t return the ball to Portugal. Classless. MadJock posted a analysis where he went back through the match on Tivo to review each booking. Worth a read.

A lot of discussion surrounding the dismal performance of the USMNT in the World Cup has been the lack of top level competition for the MLS and CONCACAF. What if CONCACAF had a ‘Champions League’ similar to the UEFA Champions League? Would a tournament of the best pro teams in CONCACAF help top MLS teams and talent get even better? Or would it not matter because it is CONCACAF?

During their annual ‘upfront’ presentation of next year’s program lineup to prospective advertisers, Univision included a curious sporting event in it’s planned program lineup:

"CONCACAF Champions League" patterned after the highly successful UEFA Champions League and featuring the top club teams from the Mexican Primera Division and Major League Soccer, the tournament will be televised exclusively on TeleFutura, with 33 live matches including all quarterfinals, semifinals, and the big final game. (July 18 - November 15, 2007, Tuesday and Wednesday nights)

Unlike the current CONCACAF Champions Cup which is an eight team single elimination format, the note of 33 matches indicates there would be some type of group stage (maybe 4 groups of 4 teams, six matches per group home & away with most televised) followed by a knockout round between the top two teams from each group. Many feel this would be a very good thing for CONCACAF as a whole and the MLS since many figure at least 2 or 3 MLS teams would make it.

The main thing is this would occur during the normal MLS season. Many complain about the MLS performances in the Champions Cup because it happens before the MLS season has begun. Given this possible timeframe it would happen during the MLS season when the teams are in top form.

The only problem with all this is there is no word from CONCACAF that any such tournament is in the works. There has been some rampant speculation at BigSoccer as well as some interesting posts regarding who should qualify. HexagonalBlog also has some thoughts on it. Google turns up little beyond mentions of the Univision press release.

Most people are not getting too excited about this until CONCACAF actually confirms it as some fear it might be a sham TV type event between Mexican and MLS teams. But if it turns out to be an actual CONCACAF wide tournament, do you think this will be positive for the MLS and indirectly US Soccer? With Bruce Arena and many others saying that USMNT players need more European experience, anything that can help the MLS improve would be welcome. Do you think it’ll be worth it? Could be fun to watch if we can get past the teams from Costa Rica!

Lest our European friends think we’re fair weather fans… Now that our team has gone down in flames, who will you be pulling for in the knockout rounds?

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It all started with ESPN commentators and ex USMNT members Wynalda and Balboa calling for Arena’s firing flat out. Julie Foudy tried to stick up for him but it was halfhearted at best. A quick look around the Soccersphere and there is no question it’s a pile-on. While it is often instinctive for fans to call for a coaching change after a poor performance, sometimes that is just the medicine that’s required. Do you think fans in other countries would be muted in their response if their team played like we did?

Let’s see what everyone is saying…

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The USA didn’t deserve to advance. What else can you say? Bruce Arena, known for taking chances and winning, turns conservative for the World Cup. Every match many felt he should have put more power up front. One of ESPN’s commentators, Eric Wynalda, felt it was time for US Soccer to think about a new manager. But you also have to fault the players. Beasley had an attitude. Landon showed up for 1 out of 3 matches. I swear I almost threw a cup at the TV late in the 2nd half of this match when Landon dribbled by a WIDE OPEN defensive hole in the box and passed to the far corner of the box. Weak foot or not, one cut and he’d have had a close shot. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the US had fallen into the same mindset that they had against the Czech Republic. It seemed they knew they couldn’t control the ball in the middle so made constant long crossing passes to the wings or punched the ball forward on long kicks where we lost the ball more often than not.

Yes, the penalty kick was garbage. Yes, Reyna made a huge mistake getting his pocket picked at the corner of the box. Yes the header hit the post. But those things are part of the game (just ask France) But my lord - how many free kicks or corners did we send wide or long or high? We wasted so many chances, there’s no way you win a match like that.

I’m sure we’ll all pick this apart in the days ahead, but let’s not forget we US fans have a lot of soccer to enjoy in the weeks ahead. But as any coach can tell you, it hurts to lose, but it hurts worse to lose when you don’t play your best. We did not play our best. It is as simple as that. I can only hope that this poor showing in the World Cup will cause everyone in US Soccer to evaluate where we are, what went wrong, and what we can do to be more competitive in the future. We simply were not competitive in the matches we played and it felt like we played an overly conservative game.

We did not lose this match because of the ref - we lost because Ghana played better soccer.