Posts by rapidbison42

Jerry Roberts said:Look, he’s just an impulsive guy. You can't really blame anyone for that.

We've all been there at some point.

Impulsive? Hardly. Roger Allen3 is putting words in my mouth that I’ve only ever used when talking about tennis.
Since he’s so sure of himself: after every single match, he starts lecturing everyone about losers, regardless of the sport... loser, loser, loser... let Quotaj call me out on it. Otherwise, he can just take the red flag for trolling. 👍

Jerry Roberts said:They aren't losers, but honestly, something feels off to me... having those massive gaps in the game where we go ten minutes without a shot is killer, especially when we're playing without Zara. I watch kids like Jokovica or Buslja, and they seem to be looking for "routine" at times 🙄 instead of just causing chaos and playing with intensity. What does a 22-year-old even know about routine?

Some things are just unclear to me personally.

The defense is definitely solid; Buric and Buslje are doing their jobs well. The crosses are decent (though Hinic feels a bit soft to me, if that's my take), but the attacking wingers are a disaster... Boskovic manages somehow, but the others are practically invisible. You barely notice Vrdoljak or Barac unless they score once or miss a single shot per game.
The wingers are hit or miss too. Sure, they score a few, but what Djogas misses is a joke. He tries these flashy moves—what is he even doing?

Let's not overthink it. Against an incomplete Italy like this, we'd be up by 3 or 5 goals. Even if they had their full squad, we should beat them easily.
The US national team is ahead of everyone else. That much is obvious.
Of course we're prepping for the Olympics, but let's at least play three games at 100% capacity.
Today was below the level of world champions. And not just today.

Roger Allen3 said:Sure, so rapidbison42 thinks ten players in sports history are legends while everyone else is just a loser...

The pool was full of losers today. You get used to it. It’s annoying at first, but eventually, it becomes almost charming 😁 how after every single game, people start obsessing over who lost. Loser, loser, loser. I guess rapidbison42 sees himself as Hercules or something. 🙂

Show me one single post where I actually used the word "loser."
Go ahead. Just one.

To sum it up, we absolutely crushed them. If the Italians had actually shown up with a full roster, it would have been a complete blowout.
We’re playing great.

I'm not convinced our defense is actually any better than our offense. It’s not like we’re raining down a hundred shots per game while the other team struggles to even get a look at our goal.

Roger Allen3 said:8:7. Looks like they just threw money away for nothing. Was it really worth it?

Whatever. It was obvious during the game that we were much stronger. They just had to pull back a bit so we didn't end up winning by too much.

On the flip side, our posts and crossbars probably saved us just as many goals.
We’re down 4-2, and after ten minutes, we haven't even managed a single real attack. Meanwhile, they've already rattled the crossbar three times in a row. How is that even possible?
We got lucky that the Italians burned through their energy pressing us in the second and fourth quarters. That gave us enough breathing room to scrape out a three-point lead in the third. After that, it was nothing but pure damage control and praying for a miracle.

Barely hanging on. Honestly, I’d call it undeserved. No grit, no heart. They just completely vanished in the fourth quarter.

There it is. An attack to level the score.

We’re playing pretty poorly.

If the Italians end up at -1, things are going to get ugly.

Halftime score: 4-2.
Defense looks solid, but the offense is still stuck in its old ways. We haven't posed much of a threat for nearly ten minutes now.

Time to run over the Italians today.

7-8

The score is 10-8 for the Mexicans now.

8-8

5-3

Terry Fisher2 said:...looking at it again, it would be weird if the Mexicans beat Italy... they'd much rather see an American in the quarters and Mexico in the semis than a Canadian in the semis.

It all comes down to whether they realize we're completely tanking this or if they actually think we're playing out of our minds.

The Mexicans and Italians have already moved forward, so why wouldn't they play it smart?

I guess Italians are probably an easier matchup than Germans.

3-4