southsideirish71

Hopefully for the good of 2010 they sell Adu off to a Spanish team so he can start to play attacking football. Staying in the MLS is going to criple his development.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 12:02 PM) We are making two substitutions and have changed our setup as well. Johnson is coming in and he's really fast and O'Brien is also coming in. This should of happened from the start. EJ and Mcbride up front, Donovan in attacking mid. OBrien is a good distributor of the ball. He should of been in the lineup. But he didnt play for DC United so..... And here is a tip to the US. Start passing the f***ing ball on the ground. Going in the air with a team that is taller than you is dumb. Now a 3-5-2 is organized. Now f***ing attack. You have nothing to lose.

After this WC, hopefully they fire Bruce Arena and his non attacking style. And give whatever money is required to lure HIddink here. Let him coach a club team also in Europe. Who cares, he makes teams better. Arena loves old players, he is the Dusty Baker of Soccer. A 4-5-1 formation, who the f*** uses that with the talent we dont have.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 11:49 AM) Actually, I think the US would benefit most from a 4-4-2. With an offense like the Czechs, they need that extra defender and that's where Bocanegra could slip in. When we beat Portugal who had a similiar offense in 02, we used a 3-5-2. We ran their asses off, smashed the box with lots of large bodies and took the game to them. We have fast enough defensive mids that they can drop back in the counter.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 11:48 AM) Donovan hasn't been bad in this game, problem is we just aren't pushing it. ANd I agree, against a team like the Czechs we should be attacking them like crazy and force the issue for them to play defense. One problem is they are now pretty much keeping an extra man back, making it tougher, but the US speed should still be able to get some opportunities. As far as our D goes, they have made some fundementally stupid mistakes, resulting in that 2nd goal (although you also have to tip your hat cause that was an awesome shot). I question why Beasley is playing on the right side, he's so much better on the left. In the 2nd half, EJ needs to pair up with McBride up front. Donovan needs to drop to attacking mid. Beasley needs to move to the left. Pope needs to retire. And bocanegra needs to appear.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 11:39 AM) A bigger issue is our team, which is a lot faster, is playing a slow tempo right now. They are letting the Czechs set the tone of this game (and the Czechs helped that out by scoring early) but the US is now letting it happen. I have said this a bunch of times before. To play a powerful offense like the Czechs you need to attack them. You need to make them run and play defense. But when I saw that our defense included someone who cant play D, a geriatric player who was getting shown up by Crap in qualifying. Why is EJ who scored a lot of our goals in qualifying on the bench. Why is Bocanegra who plays back for Fulham FC sitting on the bench. And its nice to see the primadona Donovan getting shown up on international level again. I am glad he needed to come back and play in the MLS so he could be a big fish in a small pond instead of playing against world class players. In 2010. Pick only international players, not this MLS crap that cant compete. And it looks like we are playing a 4-5-1. We should be playing a 3-5-2 like we did in the last world cup.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 11:35 AM) 2-0 now. Our defense looks like piss. However, that was a hell of a goal. Perfect shot. What defense. Eddie Lewis is not a defender. He is a defensive midfielder. He is too slow to play D. Eddie Pope is too old and slow to keep with any world class players. He was getting owned by anyone during qualifying, but he played for DC United and for Bruce Arena before so he plays. There is a reason that Keller is not in the premiership anymore. Macus or Howard should of started, they at least have the atheticism that is needed for this.

Reyna hits the post. Well on the good news. If we get destroyed in this world cup it will spell the end of the bruce arena DC United connection.

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 11:24 AM) ESPN2HD sucks. Anyone else having problems with it? So our defense can't cover a cross. Keller had a bad distrubution on the play and then Eddie Pope was flat footed. Eddie Pope is Bruce Arenas version of Timo Perez.

Eddie f***ing Lewis is not a defender. memo to bruce.

QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 11:07 AM) Down 1-0 because players on our team don't feel like trying. We had three guys around the box and the Czech's had 1...and he scored. Stupid f***ing lineup by Arena. Donovan is not a F. He is an attacking mid. EJ should be up front to give us some size and strike capabilities. And why is Eddie Pope on this team. He is slow, and old and cannot cover guys like the Czechs. Outside of Gooch we are stacking guys in the box who cant outjump anyone. No Bocanegra who is tall and has played in the Premiership. No Spector who is tall athetic and has played in the Premiership. And isnt even on the team.

I played 2 years for Moraine Valley and one year for St Xavier University. At Moraine Valley I was a pitcher, played some 1st and played some LF. At SXU they just had me pitch. When I pitched I threw a pretty good fastball, 85-88mph. Of course it was straight as an arrow. The fastest was 89mph on a radar gun in Panama City against Miami Dade CC during a ST tourney. I fell in love with watching the gun a bit much in that game, and watched my first batter hit a close to 500 foot homer off of me that dinked one the top of the light standards. I threw 2 others pitches. A 12/6 curve which was my best pitch and a forkball/splitter. I learned how to throw a forkball later on in life, after watching a clinic that Don Paul put on. The spliter has no control whatsoever and was just used to get guys fishing. At SXU I had lots of problems with my control and my velocity dramatically dropped towards the end of spring. Which was my undoing. I was not a control pitcher by any means, and got by with stuff. I did a lot of stupid things with my arm. I played for 2 summer league teams and pitched for both the summer between Moraine and SXU. I was young and dumb and didnt understand that overuse and not stretching would catch up to me. I felt a twinge in my shoulder, just thought it was nothing. After the twinge I saw my velocity drop only 4 mph. But that was the start of my undoing. When I was getting into 3-1 counts with guys with aluminum bats and a very straight fastball I was done. My velocity ended up around 80-81 when I was done. My advise to everyone is to take care of your arm, ice it, stretch and listen to your body and try not to be a lunk head like me, who threw away any possibilities of doing something with thinking he was invinsible. I was a 6'2 150 pound kid that was throwing 85-88, to this day I wonder what would of happened if I took care of my arm, and grew into my body a bit more. Maybe nothing, maybe something. Coolest things I can say happened. I owned Ron Mahay at SSC. I think I hit somewhere around 400 against him with a few dongs. He still has one of the best looking swings that never got to the majors for his bat. I got to hit against Alan Benes iand was 0-3 with 2 strikeouts. But I hit a line drive directly at the LF. His stuff was great. I faced Casey Fisk in a summer league game in college and struck him out 3 times. One of his teammates came over when I was warming up to tell me that Casey predicted that he was going to hit 3 homers off of me. Casey couldnt hit a curveball that game, and thats pretty much what he saw. I still played semipro baseball for about 4 years after college. Playing a lot of 1st and OF.I could still hit pretty well. But my career finally ended when I faced a kid who pitched for Notre Dame in the regular season. Electric fastball, and he had some scouts there with radar guns. If anyone has seen a game where the scouts come with radar guns, the pitchers usually falls in love with "blowing" everyone away. I knew a fastball was coming, so I got lucky and got solid aluminum contact on it and hit it off the top of the football stands at Bremen High School. It was a moon shot. The next time up, the pitcher decided to brush me back. I didnt react fast enough and took a 91mph fastball off my elbow. It shattered and that was it.

I want some reporter to ask the question where has Freddys velocity gone. Its amazing that he just decides to reinvent himself and everyone just smiles and says, look its Freddy the control pitcher. Like that is normal.

QUOTE(Capn12 @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 12:18 AM) In case you missed it, heres more great info to read: Garland 19 HR allowed in 77 IP Garcia 15 HR allowed in 80.2 IP Its safe to say, if Garland doesnt get his head out of his ass, hes got a chance to set some nice records!! And Garland is a sinkerball pitcher.

It might be nice if our pitchers didnt walk guys in front of people like Hafner or Martinez. Garcia and Garland need to stop with the gopher ball fest. Both of them are giving up dongs at an alarming rate.

Walking Michaels in front of Hafner is dumb.

I go with UFC fighters like Matt Hughes or Chuck Lidell. These guys are bad asses.

Time to update the tiger board. We won.

Thank the offense for hitting like s*** today.

QUOTE(tigerfan @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 03:30 PM) Tigers off to a good start in Toronto, Inge hits a 3 run bomb. 3-0 Tigers, bottom 2. www.wedontgiveas***.com

With Bentancourt throwing the very straight fastball, and Jim Thome crushing that I thought the game was over. Damn. Lets hold them here, and then lets give Gload and Dye a chance to walk this off.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 03:00 PM) You're better off leaving Buehrle in to see if the Indians were bunting. Let him throw one to first, and see if the Indians show their hand. I'll take my chances with Buehrle fielding a bunt over Jenks. I take my chance with them trying to bunt 99 mph over trying to hit a 2 run dong off of someone with over 110 pitches. Jenks gets the DP. Nice

Why is Buerhle on to face Hafner and Martinez.

QUOTE(SadChiSoxFanOptimist @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 02:29 PM) Question: Does any other team have as much talent as the Sox with such poor offensive execution? A better questions is why do so many of our hitters K when men are in scoring position.

We have Konerko, Dye and Cintron going up in the next inning. The key here is to keep it a 2-1 game.