Pros in England score three; Brits lose 2-1

At the beginning of England's game against Uruguay, I was surprised to see Suarez in the lineup for the South Americans.  Not because of talent, of course, but just because he didn't play in the first game due to a lingering injury.  (And Forlan was on the bench; probably relatedly.)

I must say that it felt very natural seeing him in a sky-blue jersey again.  Liverpool's red still looks a bit weird to me.  One thing we did see, although I didn't make a note of when, was he and Gerrard had a full-body collision, and Luis had no trouble staying on his feet.  Gerrard, on the other hand, went down.  So we see how much crap it is that he goes down at the lightest touch (incidentally, I never noticed that when he was playing at City.  Did he not do it, or did I just not notice).

One thing that jumped out, right at the beginning, was how deep Uruguay was pressuring the ball, defensively.  At one point, they were pressing all the way back to the box.

England, on the other hand, was only pressuring to just past the midfield stripe.

In any event, Godin of Uruguay was lucky that he only got a yellow card on his handball play in the ninth minute; that close to goal, a red is not unlikely.

Christian Rodriguez had the next pretty good scoring chance at the fifteen minute mark, but he put the shot a foot over the crossbar.

The game stayed pretty tense, as both teams were hurrying the ball up the field.  Uruguay somehow didn't get a card for applying the defense of "put a forearm to the throat of the opposing player".

And I didn't note who did it, but there was a shot where a header went off the underside of the crossbar and back out.

But in the thirty-ninth minute, Suarez definitively makes his presence felt.  A fellow Uruguayan was bringing the ball down the right side, and served a cross right to Luis for an unopposed header that went in.  A very nice job on the serve (and I wish I had noted who placed it); wretched defense to leave Suarez so wide-open.

I didn't note any more chances in the closing minutes of the half, but there was definitely a lot going on in that lack of opportunity.

The second half started the same way, with the south americans getting the first chance.  The Uruguayan got the ball into the box, but outran it by a half-step, which forced him to push it wide.

In the fifty-third, Rooney continued his World Cup frustration by shooting directly into the goalie from about six yards out.

Somehow, that's where my notes end.  But Rooney did end that frustration in the seventy-fifth with one of the easiest goals he's ever scored.  The defense was focused on a run down the right hand side, which gave him a tap-in from a couple yards out when the kick ended up being a pass across instead of a shot.

But things only went well for England for another ten minutes.  Then, the Uruguayan goalie punted the ball downfield, and two midfielders went for the header.  They both missed, and the ball bounced all the way past the defenders, and Suarez took off for the ball before any of the defenders.  That gave him a clean breakaway, and nobody was surprised when he planted it in the back of the net.

Did I say it was wretched defense on the first South American goal?  Yeah, that was iron-clad defense by comparison to the second.  The defense generally was very good, but Suarez, right now, is good enough that there's almost no margin for error in covering him.  Those might well have been the only two times he got loose, but he buried both of them.

Frustration continued for England, as they did have more chances, but nothing was converted, so they finished the game winless, leaving them in a precarious position for moving on.

For Rooney, you have to imagine that he had very mixed feelings.  No win, which had to hurt, but he finally scored, which will greatly cut down on the amount of flak he gets in the media.  Not that he's played poorly in the World Cup; I remember saying that I thought, despite the lack of goals, that he was excellent in the last tournament.

Regardless, the game did not leave the Brits in a good place.  And they have to be hating that the winning goal in both of their games came from people who played for Manchester City last year (or maybe two years ago; I don't know exactly when Balotelli left, but I think it was in the middle of the season right before the one that just ended).

Roman nose win

I wasn't sure what to expect from England and Italy, in their game Saturday, except that it would be tightly contested.

And it was, with Italy mostly controlling possession, but England still getting plenty (maybe even more than Italy) of chances.

One thing that was weird was that both teams were taking an awful lot of long-range (outside the box) shots, and were mostly not putting them on net.  I think it'd've been a better game if both teams had laid off of those shots a bit, although it's true that Italy scored first on one of them.  It somehow threaded through four (!) defenders and the goalkeeper and found the back of the net; lot of luck there.

It took only two minutes for England to strike back, though.  Sterling shot a perfect pass a lot way down the left side to Rooney, who centered it from a long ways out (a yard or two from the touch line), right onto Sturridge.  From a couple feet out, Sturridge put it in to knot the score.

Italy almost took a second lead in stoppage time of the first, when the Hart came out into no-man's-land, and Balotelli chipped it over him.  One of the defenders was able to head it away, but it was a very close call.

Five minutes into the second, Balotelli did manage to give Italy the lead again.  One of the other strikers brought the ball down the right side, and Mario drifted back to the left.  The other striker centered it, and hit him near the far post.  Really terrible defending by England, especially against one of the top strikers in the world (I still think he hasn't played up to his talent.  He's apparently gotten engaged, recently; maybe that will help).  They needed to do better than that.

After that, Italy was mostly content to pack it into the box (plus they subbed Balotelli out, though whether to rest or for fear of his temper, I don't know), and dare England to break them down.  The Brits tried gamely, but were unable to do so.  They got a couple of chances, but no great ones, and none that they were able to convert.

It wasn't a terribly exciting game; I guess the pace was fairly slow.

Sterling looked very good for England; Sturridge did as well.  Rooney looked a bit off; his passes were not as good as usual (he also managed to not put a corner kick onto the field, at one point).

On the flip side, Mario was the only one who really caught my attention, although Pirlo did have one really good free kick attempt.  It missed the net, but not by much.

This will be an interesting group to watch; with Costa Rica managing a win, it's going to be tough on both England and Uruguay (possibly Italy, too, especially if they lose to Uruguay).

Premier finish

I've finally finished watching the last few games of the premiership season.  Over the weekend, I still had Crystal Palace and Liverpool on the DVR, so I watched that one.  It didn't start out looking like it, but that probably ended up being the most interesting of the several I watched over the last few days.

It started with Liverpool needing to win, and win big, so they could pressure Man City for the title.  They needed to close the goal differential between the two teams.

For much of the game, Crystal Palace was mostly hanging back (they rarely pressed past the midfield line), letting Liverpool build up, but giving Liverpool very few good chances.  And that's how much of the game went.  Liverpool did get one in the 18th minute, but that was all for the first half.

Things broke open soon into the second, however.  A fortunate deflection put Sturridge on the board, and that's when I decided I'd had enough.  Well, mostly.  Instead of turning it off, I started skipping ahead, and saw almost immediately that Liverpool had scored again to make it 3-0.  That definitely felt like the end, but I kept skipping ahead (after backing up to see the goal; helped along by a fortunate bounce in getting the ball to Suarez above the box).

Not long after, I saw that Palace had gotten a lucky deflection of their own to make it more respectable.  Almost immediately, they got another to come within a goal on what looked like a 2-on-1 counterattack (six defenders got back, but somehow none of them managed to cover Gayle).  At that point, I needed to watch the rest of the game.  And Liverpool was playing like a scared team, back on their heels.

It took six more minutes, but Palace kept pressing and managed to hit Gayle as he got behind Skrtel.  Mignolet wasn't able to stop him (it would have been an amazing play, if he had; I'm not blaming Mignolet by any stretch), and they got the Crystal equalizer.

I was kind of hoping Palace would manage to win, at that point, but that was the end of the scoring.  Brutal rug-pulling for Liverpool fans, and quite a cause for celebration for Crystal Palace.

The next game I started to watch was Man U v Hull City, but I turned that off after only a couple of minutes when I decided that its irrelevance to the championship made me not care.

So I turned on Man City's game against Villa.  I was expecting a good game, likely with City winning.  Well, it wasn't a terribly good game.  It started with Villa immediately bunkering down.  They weren't even challenging City at midfield; they were giving them a good 15-20 yards beyond that.  And they couldn't hold the ball at all.  I didn't see the stats, but I bet City had 90% or more possession in the first half.

But somehow, they weren't able to break through for the entire first half.  They had a couple of good chances, but weren't able to put it in.

But Djecko put one in in the sixty-fourth minute, and that pulled Villa out to challenge more.  And, as you'd expect, that gave City a lot more room to operate, and they did, clinically.  They scored in the seventieth and ninetieth minutes, and capped it off with one hell of an impressive run by Yaya Toure in the ninety-third minute for his twentieth of the season (and City's century?  This one or the one before was the team's hundredth).

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that City didn't score more.  It was an impressive performance by City, and a strong statement that they intended to take the title, probably without worrying about goal differential (though it certainly would have been amusing for City to win on differential again).

Some stronger disappointment set in when I realized that all ten Sunday games were played at the same time; I'd wanted to watch more than one of them.  So the final game, for me, was seeing Liverpool playing Newcastle for the hope of the title.

Newcastle was playing an unusual formation, with three center backs to counter Liverpool's striking prowess.  And that worked very well for them, as they were not only holding off the attack but getting their own chances on counterattacks.

And, in fact, one of those counterattacks worked as Skrtel deflected a shot from the flank into the back of the net (sucks when you go to kick it, and hit if off the top of your shin instead of your foot).

That had Liverpool not just worrying about winning the title, but even about coming in second.  At half-time, that was still the score, while City was up one and Chelsea (who had an outside shot at catching Liverpool) was down one.

And Newcastle looked very good for quite a bit of the second, but then the wheels just feel off the hod.  A penalty near the box (right side) resulted in some argument with the ref.  I think one of the visitors was carded, although I'm not sure.

But Gerrard took the kick, and placed a beautiful serve for Agger to volley in for the lead.  Then Ameobi went ballistic and got two yellows for arguing before the ensuing kickoff.  After his sendoff, Liverpool got another free kick from nearly the same spot, with nearly identical results (except for Sturridge being the one to put it in, and doing so from in front of the goal, rather than a hair off to the side).

It looked like Liverpool was going to be able to score at will at that point, but somehow they never got into the net again, even with Dummett getting sent off for the Magpies as well.

But the game didn't really matter anyway, as City comfortably won their game at home (I didn't hear the final, but they were up 3-0 at one point) to take the title.

Thus ends quite a disappointing season at Anfield, while City celebrated (though perhaps a bit mutedly, as I heard something about them being sanctioned for transfer window shenanigans recently, which should cut into their chances of repeating).

Definitely some good games in there.  And Liverpool... wow.  I recently found out (a few days after the Chelsea débâcle) that my chiropractor is a Liverpool fan.  I imagine he was drinking after the Crystal Palace finish.  Will have to ask him when I visit next.

Angletalia

I haven't been watching much of Euro 2012; I keep forgetting to set the DVR. In fact, the only day of pool play I saw was the first day of the Germany/Portugal/Netherlands/Denmark group of death. I also missed most of the quarterfinals; the one exception being the final one, which was between England and Italy. I'm fairly indifferent to the Brits; I like watching Rooney play, and they normally manage a few other good players. I'm not too fond of the Italian diving team; too physical with zero ability to take it in return, it seems like. Although I do like Balotelli; maturity issues aside, he's a fantastic and creative player. All of that left me hoping for a British upset, but with little expectation of that coming to fruition. But despite hearing that the Brits hadn't been playing well on offense or defense, I still expected a closely fought match. And I guess it was that, if you limit your comparison to the scoreboard. But the Italians dominated the game from the get-go. The British just had no midfield quality at all, and couldn't maintain possession at all. In fact, I don't think they got a single chance on goal from a gradual build-up; it was all counterattacks when the Italians got too many men downfield, and missed a close chance. In fact, without some bad luck (by the peninsulars) and good goaltending (by the islanders), this game would have ended up four-nil or five-nil. Well, the Brits might have managed a goal; they did get a couple of very good chances. But with that luck and goaltending, it kept seeming like they might still score and upset. And when they went to overtime, that still seemed to be the case. Unfortunately, my DVR quit before the game actually ended (two and a half hours should be long enough, but that forty minutes of pre-game hosed me), so I didn't see Nocerino's goal called back offsides. And, of course, I missed the penalty shots. I must admit, I thought the Brits would have an even shot at winning if they got to PKs, but it was not to be. The shots, themselves, were pretty creative. Balotelli did his slow-shot that I've mentioned before. One of the other Italians cheekily chipped the goaltender. And I seem to recall there was one other oddball, but I can't rememeber it at the moment. Anyway, that all left me a little disappointed, but it was decent game. The Brits deserved to lose, as they were badly outplayed, but did manage to keep it interesting. As far as individual performances, Balotelli was a one-man wrecking crew; I think he had more chances than everyone else on the field. Not anyone else; everyone else. I'm still astounded that he didn't manage to convert any of them. Rooney did not have a good game; he seemed a little off. Of course, some of that might have been that he just wasn't getting any touches. As I said, no midfield to get the ball to him. And because they were so few and far between, he was probably trying to do too much. Nocerino also had a nice night, despite being a late sub. He had the disallowed goal in overtime, as well as a great chance late in regulation that was stopped by an outstretched foot in an excellent (and somewhat lucky) play by one of the British defenders. Oh, and I alluded to Hart having a very nice night in goal. He deserved a lot of credit for the game making it to PKs. But the Italians will be playing Germany tomorrow night in the second semifinal.