Very early in this blog’s life, I came across “The Post,” a blog authored by Ryan Noel.  I made it a point to direct whomever I could to his excellent analysis.

As you know, this blog has laid dormant for a while and will resume hibernation while I train in Alabama with the Air Force for the next three months.  But before that winter slumber, I wanted to make sure to congratulate Ryan on his promotion to Yanks Abroad’s blog.

I trust that most people who care enough about U.S. soccer to read this blog already check out Y.A., but if not I strongly recommend it.

Today UEFA announced that it would not appoint Bulgarian referee Anton Genov for any further matches while an investigation into match fixing is ongoing.  The suspicious bets were placed on penalties awarded and that at least three goals would be scored.  See the AP story here.

This blog was/is most known for its coverage of irregular calls in U.S. international matches during the 2009 Confederations Cup.  We’re not equating those irregularities with the alleged match fixing here.  But it seemed worthwhile to look at that match and compare it with Mr. Genov’s standard practices, the same process we use to analyze referees before and after matches.

The match in question was the November 14, 2009 exhibition between Canada and Macedonia.  At the end of the first half, the score was tied 0-0.  But after a goal by Macedonia both teams were awarded two penalty kicks (Macedonia receiving the final one in stoppage time of a friendly with a two-goal lead and on a foul that didn’t merit a card.)

According to the match report from Canadian Soccer, Genov awarded four penalty kicks, two yellow cards (one to each side), and no red cards.  He called 30 fouls in total.

As for Genov’s traditional calls, we turn to WorldReferee.com.  Genov has officiated 28 tournament matches.  In those 28 matches, he has awarded a total of 9 penalty kicks.  In 2 matches, he awarded 2 penalty kicks.  He has awarded 101 yellow cards (an average of 3.61 per match).

Analysis

Genov awarded twice as many penalty kicks in the questioned match than he had ever awarded in an international, non-friendly match.  In 28 matches, he had awarded only 9.  And yet he awarded four in a single match.  More suspicious is that only two yellow cards were awarded.  Four penalties –one handball and three fouls in the penalty box – could reasonably be projected to result in more than two yellow cards.

To add a little context to Anton Genov’s life, he is a surgeon and was 43 years old at the time of the questioned match.  International retirees are forced into mandatory retirement upon reaching 45 years of age.  So we have an international referee with only two years left in his second career, a friendly match, and double the highest number of penalties that he’d ever awarded in an international tournament match.  Throw in the suspicious betting patterns and we can understand why UEFA wants to investigate the matter further.

I haven’t had a chance to see the play — and knowing Honduras, a foul in the penalty area isn’t beyond belief — but Courtney Campbell has for the third time in three matches involving Mexico awarded Mexico a penalty kick.  In each match, the game was tied 0-0 at the time of the call.  This time it was a 73d minute penalty kick in Mexico’s World Cup Qualifier with Honduras.

We previously noted that Mr. Campbell, a member of our “Oh Crap, This’ll Be Fun” List, had awarded penalty kicks to Mexico in both of his first two Mexico matches (in the 2009 Gold Cup — against Haiti [handball] and the U.S. [foul, i.e. Dos Santos dive]).  While this wasn’t an elimination match, it pitted two of the top three teams in CONCACAF qualifying.

And remember that Mr. Campbell is not generally a penalty kick awarder (he’s now issued only 5 in 36 matches.)  But 3 of those 5 penalty kicks were awarded to Mexico.  And each in a 0-0 match.

Maybe it’s a perfect coincidence, but if I’m Mexico and Campbell’s the referee, I would like my chances.

UPDATE:   Here’s a video of the foul.

The Big Lead’s scathing criticisms of U.S. Soccer included a striking set of numbers:

Against big-time opposition (Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Italy), the USMNT was 1-5.  They outscored those teams 5-3 in the first half.  They were outscored 13-1 in the second, when teams adjusted tactically.

I would add a little more to this observation:  while the U.S. has never fielded the most tactically sound teams, the sheer grit, determination and fitness of MNT players has often allowed us to outlast opponents.  So, it is unlikely that the current crop are physically unable to endure the full 90.

If your players can play even with four of the top teams in the world and have historically been capable of enduring for 90 minutes as well as, if not better, than their opponents then why are you losing 13-1 in the second half?  I’ll agree with The Big Lead here — strategy is the logical answer.

Bradley’s Bucket is not designed to score goals.  It’s designed to prevent them.  And yet it has conceded 13 goals?  So, we’re relying on a strategy that doesn’t prevent goals and doesn’t score goals.  Frankly, you couldn’t pick a more apathetic approach to a match.

On the subject of apathy, Altidore’s disallowed goal against El Salvador has never been adequately explained.  The Honduran referee disallowed a goal that wasn’t offsides and didn’t otherwise appear to be problematic (though he did seem to call fouls on whomever won a ball in a challenge, even if it was a challenge against thin air).  And the U.S. now trails Honduras on Goal Differential.  Shouldn’t the U.S. Soccer Federation demand an actual decision on the goal be enunciated by the official?  That goal was important and had El Salvador scored a second goal, I’d hate to think about our chances of qualifying for the World Cup.

And while on the subject of the El Salvador match, watching a confident El Salvador march into our country and start a match like they expected a victory (especially in front of a pro-U.S. crowd) was unfortunate.  But when you throw away your unbeaten streak at home (as the U.S. did in the Gold Cup final), you lose the aura of invincibility.  And intangible things like that make a difference in close matches.

I’ll start with the teaser.  Given the way the U.S. has played the past couple months, can someone please check Bob Bradley’s clipboard and make sure that it contains all three thirds?

And can U.S. Soccer quit trying to divert our attention with a slicker home page at the cost of almost all of its statistics (current and historic)?

Because we’re about statistics here, let’s talk about the lack of them from U.S. Soccer recently.  Prior to the U.S. Soccer web site’s recent revamp, you could view lots of match statistics:  shots taken, passes, PCR, shot location, etc.  Starting with the Confederations Cup Final, the statistics suddenly became infrequent and are now completely gone (even for the matches that used to be up.)  So, it’s harder now to quantify how good/bad the team is.

And starting with the Mexico qualifier, U.S. Soccer’s match tracker no longer details who took shots and when.  What used to be some real statistics are now replaced by the simple ones:  so simple that fouls committed and fouls suffered don’t even make the cut.

I can’t understand why U.S. Soccer would suddenly take away all its statistics.  (I know that site revamps take time, but I don’t see where the stats are even supposed to go, so I’m going to assume it’s an intentional decision and not merely new-site growing pains.)  Is it to prevent opponents from getting some tactical advantage?  To keep fans in the dark about the true quality of the MNT’s performances?  Seriously, this blog has previously pointed out that the U.S. was performing well in excess of what its statistics suggested.  And now the statistics are being hidden?

But when a team takes only four shots and puts only one shot on goal, it doesn’t take a historical analysis to know that they didn’t perform well.  And conceding 15 shots (7 on goal) to your opponent at their home?  Not the recipe most successful teams use.

Of course, Bob Bradley’s got his own coaching philosophy and that appears to require new benchmarks.  Let’s suggest a couple:  Can the team get more shots on goal than yellow cards?  Or can we put more than 0.2 shots on goal for every save we force Howard to make?

Did anyone really think that we’d hold Mexico at home scoreless for 81 minutes?  The team that has scored at least one goal in the second half of every home match during 2010 World Cup Qualifying?  The team that whomped the U.S. 5-0?  Just look at Mexico’s 2010 World Cup Qualifying home record.  Mexico has played seven home matches.  They have won four of them by the final score of 2-1.  In none of those four matches did Mexico have a lead at the half.  And at home Mexico has scored at least one second half goal in every 2010 World Cup Qualifier.  In other words, Mexico scores late at home.  The fans in the stands know it — they’re standing around waiting for it to happen.  And frankly it seems like the MNT’s bucket formation meant the U.S. players were doing almost the same.

Perhaps it is time to revisit the discussion about the quality of this year’s squad.  A couple months ago, the experts talked about how the 2010 team just wasn’t as good as our 2002 (and perhaps even our 2006) teams.  But now Bradley’s got 3/11 players starting in the Premier League, one playing for A.C. Milan, and Landon Donovan at his peak.  Given the Herculean efforts previous coaches have demonstrated with lesser squads, can we begin to wonder why Bob Bradley can’t generate more than one shot on goal from Donovan, Dempsey, Davies, and Altidore?  The way Donovan’s playing for the Galaxy, he’s the soccer equivalent of those “nothing but net”  Jordan-Bird McDonald’s commercials.  And Davies seems to score goals every time he laces up his cleats.

In short, like most other U.S. supporters, I am left dumbfounded by this team’s consistent inability to (a) maintain any semblance of an offensive strategy beyond 35 minutes and (b) execute its chosen strategy of playing 10 back and praying.  I’m not saying the bucket is a good strategy, but if it’s going to be your strategy shouldn’t you practice it?  And shouldn’t you be good enough at it that you don’t concede two goals?  With one of the Premier League’s best keepers in the net and an A.C. Milan defender in front of him, shouldn’t that be enough to make even a mediocre bucket hold water?

The referee for tomorrow’s U.S. – Mexico qualifier is Roberto Moreno (after Joel Aquilar was apparently deemed to lack the appearance of impartiality — he ejected Mexican coach Javier Aquirre during that Mexico – Panama Gold Cup match).  Roberto Moreno has officiated four U.S. matches in the past and has never issued an American a yellow card.

In site news, I recently completed a move and have had irregular internet access.  I hope to get more consistent access established and to bring the site back up to date once I do.  I appreciate your patience in this process.

A quick thanks to Michael and the spectacular job he does on this blog.  He’s been busy this past week, so you’ll have to excuse the lack of posts.  Moving and then traveling from your new home all within a four day span doesn’t leave a lot of time to blog.  Lucky for him it was a pretty slow week for USMNT news.  Actually, the most exciting news of the week for the US National Team is probably that the C team that lost 5-0 was actually playing against 13 of the 20 players on Mexico’s A team in the Gold Cup Final.  Not quite B team against B team.

The last time I checked in with an article on this blog I argued that not only did Freddy Adu need to play well, but he needed to play better than the other attacking players in the Gold Cup lineup to solidify his spot on the 2010 World Cup roster.  At the time, I (along with all of the professional writers) was unaware that Freddy was only going to be around for the first two games of the Gold Cup.

The consensus is that Freddy’s play in those two games was a bit disappointing.  Sure, I thought he looked tentative.  I also think he’s one of four guys on the USMNT that has any talent at creating for other players (for the record, it’s Landon, Deuce, Benny and Freddy).  The bad news for Freddy is that Stuart Holden has been a revelation and is deserving of a look off the bench for the “A” team.  Bad for Freddy, but good for the Nats.

Anyway, moving on, one of my favorite types of articles are those that list who are the favorites to earn a spot on the USMNT 2010 World Cup team.  Others may have done this in the run-up to Germany, but the first site that I recall with this type of article was Yanks Abroad.  In the past month other sites have gotten into the act (Soccer by Ives, ESPN Soccernet, and Greg Seltzer at Soccer365 are three that I have seen).

In looking forward to 2010, I thought it might be interesting to take a look back to 2006, or more accurately to September 2005.  Let’s give some major kudos to Yanks Abroad, who was able to accurately predict 21 of the 23 guys who were on Bruce Arena’s original roster.  Ben Olsen was one of the two guys missed, but I don’t want to discuss him right now.  Number 22, Gregg Berhalter, was added onto the team when Cory Gibbs was injured, so we’ll say that he counts as well.  Here’ s the link.

http://yanks-abroad.com/get.php?mode=content&id=1050

That leaves one guy.  And, if you click on the link above, for some reason, one of the players on the list is blank.  I’m not sure why that is, but I am pretty sure the blank should be Steve Ralston.  Here is what Yanks Abroad said about the “pretty safe bet” Ralston:

[Steve Ralston] – F, ()  What he lacks in skill, he makes up for in composure (or is that just plodding play?). Seems to be an Arena favorite and the goal against Mexico will help. (HK) With no obvious candidates presenting themselves, Ralston seems fairly safe for now. (NT)

Ask yourself these questions… Is there a forward on the USMNT who seems to “lack skill,” but arguably  ”makes up for it in composure” with usually  ”plodding play?”  Is there a current national team forward who “seems to be a [Bradley] favorite?”  Is there a forward whose role on the team is seen as fairly safe not necessarily because of his own success, but because others who would be likely candidates at forward (Freddy Adu, Kenny Cooper, Eddie Johnson, etc.) haven’t “presented themselves?”

Somewhere along the way the composed play of Ralston became plodding and his composure became too methodical. In retrospect, it’s ironic, to say the least, that one of the only two players Yanks Abroad couldn’t predict would make the 2006 USMNT was Brian Ching.

Given that 2005 Ralston appears to have been 2009 Ching, I guess the question for 2010 is “who is going to be Brian Ching’s Brian Ching?”

But that’s another post.

I am officially adding Courtney Campbell to the “Oh Crap, This’ll Be Fun” List.  Campbell joins Jorge Larrionda as members of the club.

Campbell’s induction is the result of a game-changing decision in a close Final.  Campbell, who had awarded only 3 penalty kicks in 33 international matches, gave one to Mexico on what I believe to have been a dive by Dos Santos. 

Campbell has officiated two matches with Mexico.  And he’s awarded them two penalty kicks.  In 34 matches (including the 2 with Mexico), he’s issued 4.  In 2 Mexico matches, he’s awarded Mexico 2.  Now, the penalty awarded in the quarter-final match with Haiti was deserved — it appeared to be a handball — but as a U.S. site, we’re on the lookout for favoritism to our rivals.  And 50% of your penalty kicks awarded to one squad?  Both of which came in the elimination rounds of a tournament?  Both while the score is 0-0?  It could be coincidence, but Dos Santos is a great footballer and average actor.  Buying into Dos Santos’ dive doesn’t help.  Nor does yellow carding a Heaps foul that gets lots of ball and not carding a sliding tackle from behind on an American.  Consistency, Mr. Campbell, is the key.

We avoided adding Campbell to the list earlier:  he showed bias against the U.S., but never made game-changing decisions.  As U.S. fans, we can tolerate being called more often for fouls and getting single yellow cards that never mature into YACs.  But when you start affecting the outcome of the match, you find the end of our seemingly infinite patience.

It gives me no pride whatsover to make this award.  But it must be done:

For your inability to call important matches consistently or to discern dives from fouls, Courtney Campbell, pride of Jamaican football, welcome to the list.

I wish that I were writing an apology to the U.S. team right now. Sorry- and I-was-so-wrong-for-doubting the ‘B/C’ squad. But let’s face it: we all knew the end result. People were optimistic that it would be close, but any objective observer knew how it would end.

The Mexican fans’ cheers for the U.S. over Honduras were as clear a sign as any that Mexico needed to beat the U.S., in a tournament, and on U.S. soil. What better way to announce that things were different under Aguirre? To restore sagging confidence in a national squad?

The U.S. tried early to win, but quickly fell into Bradlee’s favorite “bucket” where they just sat back and watched their opponent.  (Note:  we’re going with the Alan Smithee-esque spelling until Bob earns his ‘y’ back).  I’d call it old habit, but these are new players.  So let’s call it coaching.  Though is it really coaching?  Can you imagine Bob Bradlee’s speech at the half?  Here’s how I see it going:

Gentlemen.  I told you that I believed in you and you repaid that faith.  Although we didn’t have a shot on goal, we’re outshooting a good Mexican squad 5-1.  After some shakiness early, you guys fought back and took over the match.  Now, here’s my plan:  let’s play hard for 10 minutes and then . . . wait for it . . . we’re going to sit back into a bucket and see how Mexico reacts.  Got that?  They haven’t shown the ability to get shots off yet.  I figure by the 53rd minute we’ll be up 7-1 on shots.  So let’s quit taking shots and see what happens.  Seriously.  No shots after the 53rd minute.  Let’s just see what Mexico does.  Alright men, now let’s go out there and not lose a championship!!!

I’m not saying that Bob Bradlee should be fired.    But U.S. Soccer needs to make it clear to Bob that championships are important.  And that beating Mexico is important.  U.S. fans can take losses to Costa Rica but we ask that we not lose to Mexico.

Bradlee doesn’t seem to understand either.  He had a choice between a realistic shot of winning (by bringing in regulars) or a prayer.  And, being Sunday, he went with a prayer.  And why?  Because Bob Bradlee didn’t want to suggest that he felt insecure about his roster? Because he wanted guys who may never play important matches with the MNT’s A squad to get more experience?

And I know that some are going to blame U.S. fans for permitting the Final to be effectively a home match for Mexico.  And maybe I’m to blame:  I live within 2 hours of East Rutherford and could’ve attended.  I even looked into tickets.  But it seemed to me that the U.S. was not taking the match as seriously as Mexico was.  And I had no interest in watching a motivated Mexican squad beat an apathetic U.S. (the players on the field weren’t apathetic, but the organization was.)

We watched our team make the Confederations Cup Final in South Africa and excitement about U.S. soccer was high. Instead of giving us a chance to see our heroes home and playing once again in a Final, Bob brings in a squad that generated minimal excitement among U.S. fans.  So what could have been a homecoming tour to build upon our success in South Africa, became a who’s who of players on the cusp.

I know the ultimate goal is the World Cup.  And that our guys need face time with their clubs to be in the best shape for the World Cup.  But remember that World Cup seeding is decided well before the tournament (December).  And if you’re FIFA, would you seed the U.S. as one of the top 7 teams (the host gets the 8th seed.)  Maybe the U.S. doesn’t get it anyway, but we’re ranked 12th.  And we’re only 108 points out of the top 7.  I’m not saying that we make it, but we at least have a resume to show FIFA.  Instead, we’ve got a history of giving up important matches in the second half.  That’ll impress FIFA.

In short, the U.S. has given away what will probably be its greatest mental advantage ever against its top rival.  Given away an 11-match unbeaten at home streak that any soccer club would cherish.  Maybe the U.S. would’ve lost with its seven ‘men’ but at least we would have fought for our advantage.  Instead, Bradlee has tossed it aside like a petulant child who receives a toy they didn’t want.

Can you name any other sports team that did not name the best players on its roster for a championship game against its archrival?  Any other sports team that had a dominant home-winning streak that it entrusted to a B/C squad in a match against a quality opponent?  In my mind, U.S. Soccer’s apathy toward a championship is unprecedented.  And a serious slap in the face to U.S. fans.

These are the cumulative stats for each of the four Gold Cup semifinalists.  I added together the individual match stats provided by CONCACAF to get these totals.

And the stats for the opponents of the semifinalists.

The U.S. leads all semifinalists in Goals For, Goals Against, Shots on Goal, Shots Wide (by 10), Fouls, and Yellow Cards.  The U.S. and Mexico have held their opponents to only 10 shots on goal all Gold Cup.

For the conspiracy theorists, fouls are being called – and yellow cards issued – more frequently for the U.S. than for any other team in the semifinals.  And fouls are being called against the U.S.’s opponents less frequently than they are for any other semifinalist.