FIFA World Cup Qualifiers for Qatar 2022 (soccer)

That's worth something, I guess.

Earlier today I was reading about how the Christmas celebrations in England were canceled in 1647 and I believe the playing of football was one of the festivities that was banned. Evidently, it's quite an old game.

 

According to FIFA, modern soccer began in England in 1863. However, the very earliest form of kicking a ball seems to have originated from a Chinese military manual dating back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries called Tsu' Chu.

 

Very interesting. I imagine kicking things around has been one of Man's oldest pastimes. Kinda like riding around on a horse and chucking a goat carcass into a goal.

 

If you think that any of the individual states could qualify go for it.

 

Football was banned earlier than that.
Edward II banned all frivolous pastimes including football in 1349.

 

...and the first ever International game was between England and Scotland 9 years later in 1872.

 

I'm not aware of any interest in that here. Even if there was I don't know FIFA would allow it.

 

It would appear that attempts to ban football have a long and less than distinguished history. One can't help but chuckle at some of the excuses for the bans:

"...there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls from which many evils may arise which God forbid; we command and forbid, on behalf of the King, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_ban_football_games

LOL - Okay, I get the wisdom and rationale behind focusing people's attention on archery at that time, but as for the "many evils" that may arise from the "hustling over large balls".

Then again...

Honduras v El Salvador: The football match that kicked off a war
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48673853

Maybe Edward was on to something....

 

Only two more days till CONCACAF WCQs resume.

It seems like forever since the teams last played.

USMNT vs. El Salvador
7pm in Fortress Colombus
Broadcast live on ESPN2

Big game against the Canucks on Sunday in Hamilton
3pm - Broadcaster TBA (ack - may be NBC Universo and Telemundo Deportes)
*NFC Championship game starts at 6:30pm

U.S. lineup against El Salvador - Pulisic. McKennie and Dest are a go - Reyna still out, but if all goes well he'll be ready for the matches against Mexico and Panama in late march...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/so...mbus-on-jan-27-against-el-salvador/ar-AAT1cka

 

About ready to go, cold game 32F

Come on guys warm up

 

I have 81 inside, outside 15, windchill -1
and a nice cold Bier

 

Its a win, 3 points.

But it was a very lousy game. The US has to do better.

 

USA 1-0 El Salvador:

Ugly game. We didn't play well. Some players did, like Robinson, McKennie, Musah, Adams, and Dest... But some others, not as much, like Weah, Ferreira (oh man, how do you miss those two first half opportunities???), and even Pulisic who wasn't inspired tonight. Substitutions didn't really improve play. We were sloppy most of the game.

Antonee Robinson was the Man of The Match, very easily, and not just because of his goal. Even if he hadn't scored, he'd still be the MoTM in my opinion. He was always harassing El Salvador's defense, very dynamic, with way more energy than his peers. Weston McKennie was a close second, all over the pitch as usual, defending, organizing the midfield, attacking, what an outstanding player!

I keep thinking that Ricardo Pepi would have bagged those two opportunities that Jesús Ferreira missed... I didn't understand why Gregg went with Jesús rather than Ricardo and didn't even sub Ricardo in when it became clear that Jesús wasn't doing well.

Our defense didn't look comfortable and could have conceded an equalizer a couple of times, but ultimately Turner wasn't really bothered as their opportunities went wide or high.

Our best attacking play actually ended with Musah who produced a fabulous strike, saved by El Salvador's goalie by miracle. That whole play was a true beauty, while the goal we did score came out of a rather disorganized and messy play, except that Antonee's finishing was excellent in that play, and he really deserved his score.

I agree with @gnoib, we need to play better at home against a team that is among the bottom two, and has scored only 4 games in this qualifying campaign.

A bit concerning that both Weston and Sergiño seemed to be limping at the end, maybe with pulled muscles. We need them against Canada on Sunday. I hope they were just tired and crampy but not injured.

I think McKennie is 40% of this team. He may be the best US player we've ever produced. No wonder he is an absolute starter for a major European team like Juve.

The home crowd in Columbus was great as usual. I'm very thankful to this city for supporting so massively the USMNT. Sold out and animated crowd, in this chilly night.

Ugly or not, getting the 3 points at home was of course important and another big step towards qualifying. We are now a good distance from the 5th placed team (Costa Rica), 9 points, with five more games to go. So getting at least the playoff spot against likely New Zealand won't be so difficult. But it's always a lot better, obviously, to be among the top 3 direct spots, and on this, we're just 4 points ahead of the 4th placed team, Panama, so that's not as comfortable. We do need to play better, especially at home, with a raucous home crowd, and almost complete with most of our main starters playing (minus Reyna). We can do better than that.

 

Give credit to El Salvador @CenterField, they did not hide and their pressing gave the US headaches

 

That is true.
Corrections for my post above: I meant El Salvador has 4 goals, not games.
Actually we're only 6 points ahead of Costa Rica, not 9. So while we're in a good situation, nothing has been decided yet, including because of the five games left, we have three road games against Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica, one home game against Panama, and only one game that should be easier, the home game against last placed Honduras. If we do poorly against the four teams that are direct competitors for the spots, we could still get in trouble.

 

USA at Canada tomorrow, kickoff at 3:05 PM Eastern time. TVs, Paramount+ for the English feed, and Telemundo for the Spanish feed. While McKennie is fit to play, Sergiño Dest did pull a muscle and his start is uncertain, Cannon is an option to play in his stead.

Pulisic and Pepi have been off-form and with low confidence, Pulsic having a difficult season at Chelsea and not getting a lot of playtime there, and Pepi not having scored in 3 months, but after Jésus Ferreira's poor performance against El Salvador, I'd go with Pepi. Musah played well against El Salvador but needs to press more and help the offense more. With McKennie and Musah helping more, maybe Pepi will restart scoring.

I'll be happy with a draw against Canada because it's a road game against the leaders, and with Mexico beating Costa Rica which would keep the latter down and increase our advantage over the 5th placed team to 7 points if we at least draw. I'll also be rooting for Panama to drop points against Jamaica.

 

Ooooh boy, that was bad again.
2:0 Canada
The US has no teeth, possess the ball, left, right, 10 steps forward, 15 steps backwards and then they lose the ball.
Canada used that ruthless, all 3 shots on goal started with US mistakes and ended in 2 goals.
The US plays without inspiration, spark and does not have a player who can produce the ideas and passes in the midfield.
There is no leader.
Canada played it clever, used the pressing, frustrated the US and then with it produced the horrible mistakes and scored.
Could have been a 3:0.
The US wants to play nice, lots of ball, but there is not the fighting spirit, get down dig in, brawl.

Disapointing.

 

I couldn't even comment for two days, so disappointed I was.
Oh man, so many failed passes in the last third!
I'm starting to get afraid that we won't make it.
We absolutely need all 6 points from the two home games we have left. Because I don't think we will be getting any points on the road against Mexico and Costa Rica.

If my two countries of citizenship don't make it (USA, Italy) I'll be devastated. The World Cup will be no fun. Some limited fun for me will come from rooting for Brazil, a country I have professional, linguistic, and friendship ties with. They have made it already.

But I much prefer to see both Italy and the USA there, or at least one of them!

 

I'm watching Brazil v. Paraguay, and Brazil is showing total and complete dominance. The score at 68 minutes is 2-0 for Brazil but could be a lot more, as they had one disallowed goal in a play that had merit but the ball touched an attacker's arm, and had some incredible misses, as well as the Paraguayan goalie having phenomenal saves. And this, without Neymar.

This team is red hot and will be a real force to reckon with in Qatar. Brazil is certainly in the top four favorites.

This Vinicius Junior is the new wonderkid. Raphinha with a superb performance.

This is Brazil's 32nd undefeated World Cup Qualifier in a row, beating their own record. They booked their Qatar ticket with 6 freaking rounds to spare, and continue to play great even though for them these games are now little more than glorified friendlies.

 

What happened the US dominated this league, without the international stars. It was a hard fighting team, rough, took the fight to the opponent. If you played the US, you had to go for 90 minutes plus, no matter what the score was.
What happened.
Remember US-Germany at the WEC, those were hard fought games, no matter what the score was.
That is what Canada does today.
Mexico against Costa Rica, horrible. Costa Rica great, but Mexico, that was horrible, What happened to Mexico.

I can not believe that the US coach things the US had a good game, because they had 67% ball possession
That's lipstick on a pig
The US got away lucky, Canda missed 2 of its most important player, like The Road Runner

In the other news 2 young players made the move across the pond. To Bielefeld and Wolfsburg. Rough clubs, mid field and close to relegation. That will be a education, were every single point and goal counts.
Good for them, brave. I hope it pans out for them. But they better get tough, ain't MSL.

 

It seems like we're regressing. Some of the games when we didn't have all the "Europeans" we actually played better.
I wonder if the "Europeans" are afraid of getting injured playing for country, which would hinder their lucrative club careers in Europe.
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Full time, Brazil 4-0 Paraguay, a demolition, they could have easily scored 4 more.

 

Ricardo Pepi recently transferred to Augsburg, too.

 

Last weekend was disappointing for sure, and Tim Weah's exclusion against Canada didn't help. The team's lack of depth is really showing right now.

I expect the USMNT will benefit from Gio Reyna's return in March - his absence has been sorely missed. There's just not enough firepower up front right now.

 

Let's hope that tonight's game at home against the last placed team is an easier one for us.

 

It should be, but it would be nice to see our boys get off to a fast start this time. If I recall correctly, the last time they played Honduras they didn't score until the second half. That was also the game where Pulisic got beat up and injured.

I won't be staying up to watch it, but the big match in the Octagon tonight is Mexico vs. Panama (10pm). We face both of those teams in next month's WCQs.