Fall Out From The World Cup Begins

While America continues to ignore the World Cup, other countries are taking their teams performance very seriously. After getting bounced in the first round Nigeria's president has decided to ban the national team from international competition for two years, supposedly so they can get their collective act together.

Niboro said: "President Goodluck Jonathan has directed that Nigeria withdraws from international competition for two years to enable the country to put its house in order.

"This directive became necessary following Nigeria's poor performance in the ongoing World Cup."

The president also plans an audit of the country's World Cup organising committee.

I wonder what he would do to the American team. I know Landon Donovan is getting a lot of attention for his goal that allowed the Americans to advance to round two only to get manhandled by Ghana.

Being a big soccer fan, and someone who played the game from the time I was a teenager until I was forty something and the body just couldn't handle it anymore I get to be a armchair midfielder and offer my 2¢ on the US men's team performance. In a word: pathetic.

The only time they played worth a damn was when they were behind, which was normally within about 10 minutes of the start of a game and then as soon as they got it tied back up they would revert back to the style of play that caused them to be behind in the first place. Until the men's team gets a coach which will let them play wide open all the time and quit trying to mimic the Europeans or the Latin American countries their fate will continue to be one of a team which does okay but will never rise to upper echelons of the football world.

I say that because nobody takes into consideration the psyche of the American. We approach life, sports, and everything else with a different attitude then the rest of the world. Or at least we used to. Americans like to live life on the edge, on the attack, wide open. When they played that way they took control of the games they were in. If you want proof of this watch the champion women's team games sometimes and compare it to the men's games.

The women go all out for the whole game. Always pressing, never giving the other team any breathing room. The best example is the Ghana game. Watch the first half of the game where the Americans got behind. Then watch just the first 10 minutes of the second half. They came out on fire and everybody realized they had the Ghanans on their heels. They tied up the game and went back to that namby pamby UN, Euroweenie style of play and they lost.

I'm not bitter. Much.



Yeah he get's a dig in on Dick Cheney but halfway amusing anyway.