Pleasant Valley, NY –The cup of life is here.
On June 11 the World Cup begins in South Africa. The beautiful game will be played by 32 nations. They include the United States, Spain and North Korea. As many are well aware, ESPN and ABC have been gearing up for the big event by showing commercials advertising the games. Here is one of the most powerful TV spots to date,
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXlBSlyU8xY]
Bono’s voice over, the bumping soundtrack and the intense images make this commercial one of the best on TV.
Not only has ESPN been saturating the airwaves with ads , they’ve also been running more soccer highlights and news on SportsCenter, PTI and Around the Horn. The Walt Disney Company, proud parent of ESPN and ABC, hopes to capture the interest of Americans who are indifferent to the game the world calls futbol.
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. While most other countries have soccer stadiums that fit close a 100,000 fans (Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea seats 150,000 people), most Major League Soccer teams either share a stadium with an NFL team or have their own soccer “stadium” (seating capacity of 25,000 on average.)
The big question is, how will the hometown boys fair in the World Cup? Many people think that we’ll make it out of Group C, the opening round. I agree. My confidence increased after I read a May 13th ESPN article where Landon Donovan–the great American hope–was quoted,
”Rooney[forward for England] is a top player. In my opinion, he is one of the best players in the world right now,” Donovan told Yahoo!. ”But the other part of it is that he has played a lot of games and he is tired. He is probably worn out.”
Catch the USA/England match on June 12 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time on ABC. To see the current preliminary roster of the US World Cup Team and the World Cup game schedule you can visit the US Soccer Website.
- jon boi
Tags: around the horn, best world cup commercial, bono, cup of life, england, ESPN, futbol, landon donovan, major league soccer, MLS, new york, North Korea, ny, pardon the interruption, pleasant valley, PTI, Pyongyang, ricky martin, Rungrado May Day Stadium, slovenia, soccer ball, soccernet, south africa, sportscenter, Team America, u2, walt disney, walt disney company, wayne rooney, world cup 2010, world cup commercial
Um, Rooney is not, as you say, a midfielder for England. He’s a forward. And if you can tell me how Michael Bradley and (if we’re lucky) Maurice Edu are going to deal with Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, I’d be most obliged. And even if Rooney is deemed still not 100%, how does the US deal with the Spurs forward duo of Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch?
Thanks for catching that mistake. I appreciate it.
The United States is going to deal with England the same way they dealt with Spain in the Confederations Cup. They’re going to play hard and draw on their underdog status for inspiration.
While Bradley and Edu may not be as talented or experienced as Gerrard or Lampard, they do have one thing going for them, their youth. Lampard is in his 30s and Gerrard is almost 30, while Edu and Bradley are in their early 20s. Like most sports, the younger the athlete, the better (the one obvious exception that immediately comes to mind is Brett Favre, but he’s a freak of nature.) Hopefully we’ll have Onyewu back in top form so he can stop the English attack.
Unfortunately you seem to have little grasp of the realities of football. Making comparisons between the World Cup the Confederations Cup is quite frankly laughable. The Confederations Cup is little more than a sequence of glorified friendlies that come at the end of a tough domestic season for the top players playing in Europe. Lampard and Gerrard seem to do quite well in the Premier League and Champions League playing against the best players in the world yet according to you they’re over the hill and Edu and Bradley are more than capable of handling them? I think you should be worrying less about stopping England and more about stopping Algeria and Slovenia.
The Confederations Cup is held every four years as a prelude to the World Cup and is considered to be the second most important tournament for national teams.
Also, I’m not saying Edu and Bradley are more talented than Lampard or Gerrard, but I do believe that they will be worn out due to their tiring club team season. Edu will be in better form since the MLS season just started and should be well rested.
In regards to Algeria and Slovenia, the US should not have any problems stopping them. Both those teams are relatively inexperienced, leaving England as the only real competition. At the end of the day, the United States and England are the favored teams to make it out of the group stage.
Nice article but I have no idea why your confidence in making it out of the group would increase because of some frankly idiotic comment from Landon Donovan about how much Rooney has played. He’s played no more than any of the other top players involved in the Champions League. In fact he only played in 3 of United’s final 7 Premier League games due to injury so if anything he should be fresher than some other players.
In the article Landon Donovan was is in the right state of mind, a winning one. This is the reason why I am confident that we will succeed.
He is coming off a great loan to Everton where he played against some of the greatest players in the world. He has scored two goals in ten appearances. Yes, Rooney has played in less games and should be fresher than other European players. But, many of the players on the US team play in the MLS (ahem, their season just started.)
I understand where you’re coming from mate but seriously you’re barking up the wrong tree as far as tired players vs players in the middle of a season etc. This is the World Cup we’re talking about here it’s quality that is the difference between teams tiredness doesn’t really come into it. As for the Confed Cup being the second most important international tournament….I don’t mean to be insulting or condescending but are you either insane or on drugs? Both the European Championships and the Copa America are about a million times more important than the Confederations Cup. Literally nobody cares about the Confed Cup it’s purely a dress rehearsal walk through for the host nation to iron out any flaws a year prior to hosting a proper tournament. Anyway good luck with your blog and at least it’s nice to see Americans take an interest in football, try and put things in the proper world perspective though.
jonboi:
oh, where to start. Let’s start with Michael Bradley, who is indeed young. But, while playing fewer matches than Lampard and Gerrard, who were in the Champions’ league and Lampard went and won the final of the FA Cup, Bradley played until the last week of the Bundesliga season, a week ago. Are you aware that he anchors the midfield for a team, Borussia Moenchengladbach, that conceded more goals than all but two of the other 17 Bundesliga teams? In the next to the last week of the season, Hannover 96 (with Stevie Cherundolo) hosted Moenchengladbach. At the time, Hannover was in the relegation zone. Hannover won, 6-1, and escaped the drop. Bradley played all 90 minutes while Hannover proceeded to score 14% of their ENTIRE SEASON’S OUTPUT in one match.
Next, Maurice Edu may be fresh, but it’s not because of the MLS schedule. He has been playing for Rangers in Glasgow. He only came into their squad late in the season. It is my hope that Bob Bradley might play him. Don’t be all that surprised should BB prefers Benny Feilhaber or Ricardo Clark instead of the higher upside Edu.
How those guys deal with the attacking middies for England is an open question. Some guys on other blogs refer to Clark as “Red-cardo Clark.” Even scarier is how the shaky US back four deals with Rooney. Look, I’m even willing to cut the US a mulligan and ASSUME that Rooney isn’t fully fit, and will only be a sub against the US. I’m thinking Capello will just go with Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch. Defoe has the pace to trouble anybody the US has when fully fit, and Crouch is not just the human stick figure; he’s got skills. He’s surprisingly quick, and can shoot with either foot, and can not only head on goal, but is a very good knock-on header of the ball.
And you dismiss Slovenia and Algeria at your peril. Did you see the FA Cup Final? Nadir Belhadj came on for the last ten minutes, and unleashed two crosses that completely unlocked Chelsea’s defense, and was unlucky not to have two assists. They are a team with a number of fast players-and pace is a weakness for the US. They didn’t do anything at the ACN in January, but that came just after the two last WC qualifiers against Egypt. They went to Egypt, and their bus was assaulted, and they ended up completely equal with Egypt. Then they had to go to Khartoum, Sudan, just South of Egypt, for a ‘neutral’ site tiebreaker. In a stadium where 90% of the fans were rooting for Egypt, and their bus was again pelted with rocks, they produced a 1-0 win to qualify. That’s the Egypt that WON the ACN, and will get to represent Africa in your next precious Confederations’ Cup.
And Slovenia, after a poor start in Russia in the playoff, nicked an away goal at the death. In the return, everyone assumed that Russia would stroll through. Slovenia kept a clean sheet, got a goal, and Russia could not break them down the entire second half, when they knew that they had to. Don’t undersell that achievement. Their qualifying group, with Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Northern Ireland had no dominant team, but was very balanced and was hardly easy. Pre- qualifying, the favorites to qualify and make the playoffs were probably the Czech Republic and Poland. I think Slovenia did very well. Assume a victory at the risk of severe embarrassment, particularly if England applies the hard waxing that I anticipate. Remember how we did against Iran in the 1998 WC? Yeah, me too…
Absolutely spot on Paul I agree with everything apart from Rooney not starting against the U.S. I’d bet everything I own he’ll be fit and starting. The fact remains what I stated earlier and which you reiterated that the U.S. supporters would do well to forget about the England game as it will most likely end in defeat and instead turn their minds to worrying how to get 4 points from the Algeria and Slovenia games. I honestly can’t separate the 3 teams for 2nd in the group.
Mozza: I agree that 99% sure Rooney will go against us; I was just giving a best case scenario for the US. I honestly think that that game has 6-0 written all over it. Key is going to be the second match, against Slovenia, who are tough-minded, well organized, in other words everything Bob Bradley SHOULD want the US to be. Put the England game in the rear view mirror and there’s a chance to qualify (and see Germany, Serbia or Ghana in round 2, oh boy!). Wallow over the first result for even one minute and likely be severely punished. Maybe a horrible WC will get Bradley and Gulati’s cashiered; we can only hope…
Who cares about all your comments and over blown analysis. Brazil is going to win the World Cup.
Remember we are a dark horse killer. 94′ Columbia, 02′ Portugal. Many people are predicting England to do well in 2010. In case anyone has forgotten Spain has lost 1 time in the last 34 games. We will slap England. US 2 – England 1.
Pimping your blog on Soccer Insider? Tacky, and very 2006…
Also, the Confederations Cup is not considered the second most important tournament for national teams. The World Cup qualifying tournaments would be #2, after the Cup finals themselves. Next would be the regional championships which actually serve as qualifiers for the Confed Cup. Brazil, for example, was far more interested in and thrilled by winning the Copa America than the Confederations Cup. For European teams, the quadrennial Euros (the UEFA championship) is almost as big as the World Cup itself.
It might be tacky but you visited my site, didn’t you?
Also, in response to the Confederations Cup, it is the second most important tournament(in my opinion) after the World Cup since it takes the winners from each of the regional championships. Also, teams in the regional championship tournaments only play opponents from their own region(obviously), but in the World and Confederations Cup they are not.
I don’t think anyone other than you believes the confed cup to be important. It’s not competitive at all, the top three competitions are the WC, Euro, and African Nations, then it’s a toss between the other competitions, with Confed last. It’s a pre-season friendly, with only a couple of good teams, it’s hardly the best of the best.