Match 7 - The Becks Classic
In soccer, it’s common to support multiple teams. At the very top, we have international and club teams. International football is based on nationalities. The World Cup is the main tournament for those teams. Clubs are the privately owned organizations that pay the real salaries (exceptions being women’s soccer and the Saudi Arabian national team, who apparently all got Rolls Royces for beating Argentina in the first game week). So at the very least, most people have an international team and a club team. For me, that’s the USA and Liverpool.
But with soccer’s global geography and separate leagues, it’s common for people to support multiple countries and clubs as they rarely cross paths. The USA will mostly play teams in North America, Liverpool will mostly play teams in the United Kingdom (often Europe). These divisions often allow for fans to support multiple teams in different markets, heck even in the same league, there are natural divisions (often times in the Premier League, people have their preference outside the big 7 teams, yes Will, 7). Everyone has their own personal hierarchy of how their preferences rank.
It sounds like Becks has chosen the Netherlands over the US. Sorry to out her like this, but it makes sense. As long as I’ve known her, she has been an avid House of Oranje supporter. It is a way for her to feel closer to her Dutch heritage stateside. We’ve made the journey to watch a match at where she hears through the grapevine the Dutch expats will be watching in the city. Sorry, but I didn’t wear my Dutch kit underneath my USA one, but I’ll be happy to wear it for the next round.
USA v. Netherlands Analysis
First off, there were a bunch of English fans there. Speaking to them, they were mostly supportive of the USA, and they had tickets because they were a bit pessimistic about finishing top of the group. Huge number of Newcastle and Leeds kits were abound.
That special USA - UK relationship
First off, there were a bunch of English fans there. Speaking to them, they were mostly supportive of the USA, and they had tickets because they were a bit pessimistic about finishing top of the group. Huge number of Newcastle and Leeds kits were abound. Highlighted three Jordies right here.
The Baby Eagles were okay for spells. But lacked the clinical maturity to put them away. Ending up with one messy goal, but picked apart for the three against them. There was a very exciting 5-10 minute period where we began to have hope. Our USA heavy fan section was bouncing, and it was probably e best ten minutes of the tournament for me. But, as they say, it’s the hope that kills you, and the Dutch smacked home an uncontested third goal. Big Virg marshalled the Dutch defense well, sweeping up most scenarios, and Dumphries was an easy Man of the Match scoring once and having two assists.
After watching the badly produced automatically generated Fox highlights, I have a few more thoughts. Pulisic really needed to score that first opportunity in the third minute. That’s a really bad miss, he’s more than capable of finishing that, and he needs to put that away. The two Dutch goals were very well orchestrated. Dumphries puts a clean low ball on the penalty spot twice. This is a smart move, since our scrappy defense has two center backs that drop deep because the natural instinct is to protect the goal. Either the pair of them need to understand they’re both doing that and one needs to step up a bit, or that they leave a gap between them and the midfielders and opposite fullback, who need to understand it becomes their responsibility then to track back more aggressively and follow later runners into the box.
(I’m sorry for the quality of the photos, but highlights are only available to me via a VPN on my phone)
First Netherlands Goal: Depay
Dumphries puts a clean ball on the penalty spot, Depay strikes it home. Center backs are following the striker and protecting the goal. Musah and Dest need to communicate who is following the winger, one needs to peel off, but McKennie needs to track back as well. Huge gap in the center of the defense that was taken advantage of.
Second Netherlands Goal: Blind
Dumphries puts a clean ball on the penalty spot, Blind strikes it home. Center backs are following the striker and protecting the goal. McKennie could have been more defensive minded and protected the danger area, but Dest really gets caught ball watching and not following his man and responsibility.
In the stadium, we gave Haji Wright a lot of grief in the stadium for his saved shot when he stole an errant backpass. We felt in the moment he took too big of a touch, but watching it over again, yes, it was a slightly too big touch, but he need to make a larger rather than a small one because the keeper would have likely cleaned it up. When he takes his shot, he’s only barely around the keeper, and puts it on target, where Timber had recovered really well. I blame him a lot less in the harsh light of day. Timber deserves more credit than Wright deserves fault.
Also, Haji’s goal was bananas and he more than did his contribution to the team. We had a perfect angle on it, to see it loopily spin into the net. Strange one, I doubt he’d replicate it 9 times out of 10. But darn was it fun and it gave us so much hope! Our section was raucous and we really gave it our all. I missed the Iran match, so this was the best American atmosphere I had been a part of. Too bad the Dutch crushed those good vibes with Antonee Robinson’s mistake. Hard on a quick counter, and to be covering a man. But he was covering the wrong man.
USA Exiting Reaction
The USA went the furthest out of the North American teams, but an overall disappointing display from the Continent (CONCACAF). The USA should be in the Round of 16 every World Cup. That’s my standard and that should be the team’s standard. Wales and Iran were very beatable teams, and we should have always made it out of the group. Achieving basic expectations, it’s hard to be impressed or thrilled with anything. On the reverse side, it was always going to be a hard route into the Quarterfinals, and the team didn’t disappoint to much. They grinded out the results, it was less than inspiring, but they got there.
Gregg won’t be fired yet. He met expectations, and he’ll keep his job. I’m still baffled by decisions, like not taking one of the more in form strikers in Jordan Pefok of Union Berlin. But striker was a big missing position for the team and that’s not Gregg’s fault. Josh Sargent was an obvious choice with his form with Norwich, albeit in the second division of English football. Three of the top guys in 2021, all went missing for their clubs in 2022. Daryl Dike had a big season for Barnsley before disappearing at West Brom. Matthew Hoppe seemed to start becoming big at Schalke, before becoming anonymous at Mallorca. Ricardo Pepi couldn’t stop scoring for the USA and Dallas, but couldn’t step up in Augsburg. This is a position that needs to be a priority for the federation to find a clear man to take advantage.
One of the managers most important roles during a game is managing fitness and using their 5 substitutes. This is the first World Cup with five, it’s typically been three. For some reason… people are still antiquated with the old logic. 5 players, means you can freshen up half of your outfield players. You can start getting more nuanced with your instructions to certain players. Guaranteeing starters to pace themselves to play 60 minutes, and guaranteeing bench players that they’ll have 30 minutes to make a difference. The lack of rest between games also encourages managers to use this new rule change, for the health and safety of the players.
Japan is the best example of adapting to the new substitution rules. In all three matches they used all 5 substitutes before the 80th minute. Of these 15 substitutions: 5 were at halftime, 6 were in the 60-70th minute, and 4 were in the 70-80th minute. 3 of their 4 goals in the first round came from substitutes. Mitoma, Tomiyasu, and Minamino are arguably some of their best players, and they’re coming off the bench for them. Clearly using workhorses, to keep the game close, and then bringing on stars to make the difference with fresh legs. Simple, but fantastic game and tournament management.
Gio Reyna finally got some game time, but it didn’t amount to much, he’s out of form coming back from injury so it’s hard to rely on him too much right now or be too harsh on his performance. Not playing Aaronson more feels like a huge missed opportunity. Especially with the experience he has playing with Tyler (they’re both at Leeds, similar to Ream and Robinson, both at Fulham). If it were me, I would have moved Musah out wide and Weah up top.
Final Thoughts on Jordan
While I said food was meh at best at the Cave in Wadi Musa, I should point out that we also had some great Jordanian food. Al Wadi was the highest rated spot in Wadi Musa (with over a thousand reviews). It’s farther from the entrance to Petra, so you’ll need a car or cab to get you up there, but it’s fantastic food. We got two Jordanian staples there: Mansaf (really spectacular, we scraped these bones clean) and Maqluba (which was pretty good as well). Closer to Petra is My Mom’s Recipe. Food was pretty solid there as well, albeit second best to Al Wadi. Keep in mind, you really can’t go wrong with dips and breads. The dip life here is just fantastic. Martin Short from Only Murders in the Building would be thrilled. I mean the hummus is fantastic, labneh has been tasty. I don’t know how they’re so much better here. But they are. The staff at Al Wadi were amusing too. They had to go to the Mosque to pray because it was midday on a Friday, so they just told us the restaurant was ours and they’d be back in an hour!
For comfort food. Don’t go much farther than the touristy restaurant in the Petra Welcome Center. They serve a pizza straight from the freezer that gives you home alone vibes. It’s not half bad.
Also, if you rent a car, be prepared to get some sort of speeding ticket. My mother got one, but it certainly felt a bit more like a tourist tax than an actual infraction. But geez, is that drive from Petra to Amman boring as heck. And in retrospect, I wish we went to Wadi Rum. It looks cool. Very different than the dune desert camping we did in Merzouga, Morocco last year. This looks more like Mars (and is in fact used often in Hollywood depictions as the red planet).
And in hindsight, maybe it’s a good idea to not go jogging near an airport. And definitely don’t do it with earphones in and playing some Mumford & Sons (Stomp & Holler remember?). And definitely not in country where there are security checks on the highways, and all the hotels have metal detectors. And definitely definitely don’t reenact the Rocky Balboa training montage on the way out of the Airport. I’m kidding on that last one. But if you do the former, you will get pulled over (even though I was jogging) by an armored vehicle, and they bring you over to a security checkpoint to figure out why you’re running away from an airport (pretty quickly, if I may pat myself on the back for my speed). After some polite banter about how I don’t speak Arabic and once they realized I’m from New York, and jogging is just what people do there, I was on my way.
What I was actually doing was just dropping off our rental car, and the airport hotel is just outside the airport grounds. So instead of waiting for the hotel shuttle, which had no guarantee of coming, I thought I would just get a bit of exercise in (remember point a to point b is appropriate jogging exercise), it was only a mile. I suppose you don’t really see people going on runs near airports in general…
Also never stay at the Airport hotel in Amman Jordan. It’s overly priced, gross, and the WiFi is terrible. It exists only through its convenience, and nothing more.
Qatar (Souq Waqif and City Center)
Before the match we traveled and experienced some of Qatar. The Souq Waqif, their downtown bazaar market situation, was recently renovated in 2008, so it feels much nicer and fresher (and seems to have some sort of outdoor air conditioning) than other markets of the Middle East / North Africa / Asia Minor that I’ve been to. A lot less pushy. And way more diverse of a selection. You could pick up groceries, household supplies, home improvement materials, even a sort of pet area filled mostly with birds and rabbits, along with all the touristy things you would expect. A surprising amount of locals seemed to shop here. I’m still looking for a good pearl / gold spot. Need to get some gifts for some South Carolinians.
One cage of the many bird cages at the Souq. This plaza was very loud, full of chirping birds. Being downtown finally means being amongst the tall buildings and a lot of them are adorned with star players.
Quick tangent on dogs. There are stray cats around, but I have yet to see a stray dog in Qatar. Or even someone walking a dog. It made me suspicious, so I started researching. There are strict laws around registration of pets in Qatar. Also the summer is dangerously too hot for dogs. And dogs are not allowed in public places, like parks?! Those reasons make pets rarer in Qatar. And…for the World Cup, the Qataris (there is no official connection between their actions and the government) started exterminating stray dogs with guns (and considering it’s very difficult to get a firearm here, we can assume there’s some sort of government approval at some level). So let’s add that to the list of issues. Also, I didn’t know this, but Muslims seem to tend to not like dogs.
But I really don’t like Doha or Dubai. These heavily car-centric cities are brutal to travel around. For someone who gets road rage only at the infrastructure system, not the drivers themselves, this has been nightmarish. Nothing is designed particularly well. I get that there are extra road closures and traffic for the World Cup. But it definitely feels like a systemic problem. Bad traffic lights, intersection design, road design. Half hour trips turn into hour long frustrating multi-step commutes.
Also security is a joke. They’re overly secure for the sake of seeming secure, and it is bothering me. We get it, you want to make sure there’s not an ounce of illegal alcohol. But stop pretending it’s for safety. You’ve checked again and again. What do you think I have on me in this tiny country? Thank goodness for the United States. For all our problems, there’s nowhere else I’d rather live.
Whoever they bought all the fences and signage from, made a killing. How do I invest in that company?