Before I get into today's news on soccer I would like to celebrate my wife's successful completion of her first year of medical school. Congratulations Rachel on a great 1st year. You have done wonderfully. I am very proud of you!!
So...... just like in American sports there are psychological edges that teams try and get over each other. Today a flood of news hit the wire regarding the condition of big players, but how much of these reports do we actually believe?
So probably the biggest news has to do with Didier Drogba. Before all of you "every 4 years" soccer fans get on my case because you feel the sprained ankle of Jozi Altidore is bigger news, Drogba is the driving force on arguably the best (but ugliest and shallowest) football clubs in the world, Chelsea. He scored 29 goals in 32 English Premiership League (EPL) matches and in the grand scheme of things he is much bigger than Jozi. Anyway, Drogba supposedly broke his arm in Ivory Coast's pre-World Cup friendly against Japan but I am calling shenanigans on Drogba and Sven-Goran Eriksson (the Swedish manager of the Ivory Coast national team). Anyone who has watched 3 and a half EPL matches that involved Chelsea and is not a Chelsea supporter will tell you that Drogba is in the top 5 drama queens in the world. Drogba's collision with the Japanese defender, Tanaka, was hard and rather ridiculous (I have no idea what Tanaka was trying to do) but I do not think that it effected Drogba's arm. Watch replays on YouTube. Ivory Coast is a part of the so called "GROUP OF DEATH," group G, and I can see Eriksson and Drogba trying to get any leg up that they can in that group. If that means faking serious injury, so be it. That is World Cup fever.
Now to what we all feel is more important, the England v. USA match. First things first....Jozi will play in that match. There is no way that with a minor ankle sprain, a week before the match, that Jozi will not play. So now everyone can sleep soundly tonight. I guarantee that Jozi will play. Second issue, the captain of the England squad, Rio Ferdinand, is going to miss the match. The difference between Ferdinand's case and the prior two is Ferdinand's roster spot has been substituted. He is out and he is a part of their central defense!! Him being out will open up their defense. We like that.
Tomorrow morning at 8.30 am et USA will be playing Australia in their pre-World Cup match. I will post some thoughts after the match tomorrow but let us all pray that there are no injuries in this match. We can not afford that. Sleep well y'all.
1 comment:
Do they call Group G the "group of death" because one of the founding members of the "Axis of Evil" is in it and they've been up to more questionable behavior lately?
I might call Group D the "group of death" 1) because "D" is the first letter in the word "death" and also 2) its lowest seeded team is #32 Ghana (then again our Group C's lowest seed is #30 Algeria).
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