Convey out for the season

 
Yay knee injuries!

Reading and the USMNT’s Bobby Convey has been sidelined for the rest of the year thanks to the knee injury he sustained during the World Cup. He had surgery on it in December, but it seems that he’s still having trouble with it. During the USA-Mexico game Bruce Arena, et al. wouldn’t shut up about how he just wasn’t up to snuff. What with a knee injury and all, that now makes a little more sense, though his selection by interim coach Bob Bradley doesn’t (sorry, couldn’t resist the interim stab).

This shouldn’t hurt Reading too much as Convey really hasn’t been able to contribute much of anything throughout the last few months and yet the club is still 6th in the Premiership. I wouldn’t have bet on that being the case in September, especially without Convey, who is slightly underrated in my opinion. Bradley, of course, knows that he’s good and thus his inclusion in the full NT and hopefully he takes this as a cue to leave Convey out of the side until the last possible moment before the Copa America.

Convey should stay on the sidelines until he is 100% healthy and able to make a full comeback rather than staggering around the pitch and causing issues for his own team with his lack of speed and touch. The Copa America is a tough challenge and it’s not going to get any easier if Convey isn’t up to his full strength. After all, the US is in the toughest group of the three and will have to really show up if they want to have any hope of advancing to the knockout stages.

Valencia 2 – 1 Barcelona

I missed the first half due to some familial obligations. It wasn’t a bad game (or, really, second half), but it wasn’t that great either. Before I get to the live blog I wrote up during the game, here’s a quick “box score”.

Possession: 29% Valencia – Barcelona 71%

Shots on goal: 3 Valencia – Barcelona 3

Yellow cards: 3 Valencia – Barcelona 5

Red Cards: 1 Valencia – 1 Barcelona

So you know it was a contentious game. Deco and Albelda were sent off during in the 62nd minute for rash challenges, though I don’t think Deco deserved it.

Here’s the live blog, after the jump. I’ll post a discussion of it later.

Barcelona Preview: 24 Days of Glory

First, before anything, according to Spanish paper AS, Frank Rijkaard has announced he’s quitting Barcelona (Spanish) for personal reasons. Barceonla-based and –biased Sport reports that Rijkaard will decide by March 30 (Spanish). If the rumors are true and not just another Madridista attempt at causing extra issues in a contentious week for Barcelona, it’s terrible news. Rijkaard is a fantastic coach and has led Barcelona out of the doldrums. That said, I can understand if he wants to get out of the shitstorm that accompanies being Barça’s coach.

Now to the previews:

What could have been, but wasn’t, could be again in many ways for the blaugrana. They travel to the Mestalla to take on 4^th place Valencia on Sunday (1pmET) and then host Liverpool for the first leg of the first round of the Champions League knockout stages on Tuesday (2:45pmET on ESPN2). After that it’s another home game, this time against relegation battlers Athletic Bilbao. After that the torrid pace continues with Barça traveling to Zaragoza for their Copa del Rey second leg encounter (Zaragoza lead 0-1 after the first leg in Barcelona), which is followed up by trips to Sevilla (March 4) in La Liga then Liverpool for the return leg of the CL match (March 6), and then it all comes to a thrilling climax (one hopes) with Real Madrid visiting Barça for the second half of El Clasico on March 11. Wow! Fantastic, really, but also somewhat scary with the team looking a little out of sorts (discussed below, after the jump).

Obviously the domestic implications are not as serious as those in Europe in the short term, but it’s still going to be cracking couple of weekends in a row in La Liga despite the teams maybe looking ahead a little to their European matches in midweek.

Here’s a quick table of who plays who in La Liga up until the March 11 Clasico (table positions are in parentheses before each team):

February 17/18 should be the best of the weekends, but there’s only a little letdown on the 26^th since there’s the Madrid derby to watch. The Spanish teams in the CL are all facing tough tests midweek (Valencia-InterMilan; Real Madrid-Bayern Munic), but only Barcelona are still in the Copa del Rey.

Much more after the jump.

 

Up the Villa!

This is my post from my continued series at The Disappointment Zone:

Aston Villa is currently on a brief holiday (until March 3 when they take on Fulham), so perhaps it’s time to put together a short statistical look at Villa’s potential:

If you look at the Actim Index Top 100 there are some obvious trends that make perfect sense, especially if you accept Actim’s thought that the stats “have been statistically proven to measure a player’s effectiveness in winning matches.” In case you don’t have time to click that link here’s basically all it says, “Actim is the brand name for the official data of the FA Premier League, The Football League and the Scottish Premier League.” Anyway:

* ManU has 4 players in the top 10 and all 11 of players in the top 41, Michael Carrick being the lowest.

†Chelsea’s highest players are ranked 1 and 2, but their lowest is Ashley Cole at 90^th.

‡Charlton’s only player is ranked 100^th.

Note that Villa has 5 players, 2 of whom (Barry and Agbonlahor) are in the top 25 (4^th and 24^th). One of the players, Ashley Young, obviously got ranked as high as he did (59) because of his performances for Watford in the first half of the season so it seems unfair not to put a 1 next to Watford and a 4 next to Villa.

Having that 5^th player obviously gives Villa an advantage over similarly ranked teams in the league table. Note that Newcastle, Blackburn, and Tottenham all have fewer players in the top 100 yet are higher in the table. Newcastle is 4 points ahead of Villa while Blackburn and Tottenham are ahead 2 points and 1 point respectively. So in the second half of the season (which as already begun), Villa should be better than they were thanks to the addition of Young, who outranks 2 of Newcastle’s 3 and 3 of Tottenham’s 4, but none of Blackburn’s 4 (3 of them are ranked 53^rd, 54^th, and 55^th while the other, Benni McCarthy, is ranked between Agbonlahor and Barry in 11^th). Basically, Villa have new potential they didn’t otherwise have, making the addition of Ashley Young somewhat crucial. It remains to be seen, of course, if Carew can crack the top 100 (my guess is no). Regardless, a top 10 finish is not only possible, it should be expected from a team that was willing to throw down $18million for a single player over January. It was, I believe, the largest transfer fee dished out in England over the January window and perhaps the largest in the world (some of the undisclosed deals could have been worth more, but that’s doubtful).

Copa America groups set

The 2007 Copa America groups have been released.

Group A: Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru

Group B: Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Mexico

Group C: Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, USA

New FIFA World Rankings are out and here are the rankings of all teams involved:

The average rank for Group A is 64.5, for Group B it’s 20, and for Group A it’s 23.

Obviously Group A is the least interesting in terms of big names and Uruguay should top that group without any serious challenge. I’m backing Venezuela to come in second simply because they’re the hosts.

Two of Group B’s teams are ranked too highly (Mexico and Ecuador), but it’s still probably the best group in terms of talent. Brazil and Mexico will be the top two teams.

Group C is going to be the best goup in terms of the actual quality of games. Paraguay, Colombia, and the USA are all underranked in the FIFA standings (technically so is Brazil) so they should play at a higher level than otherwise would be expected from the 28th, 30th, and 31st ranked teams. Argentina will top the group and I think the USA can pull out second. That’s also what I said during the WC2006, though.

Games begin June 26.

Let’s go USA!

Hijo de puta

You think it’s a typical goal celebration, but look in the background: Sanchez is becoming Enemy #1. I can’t wait till the next time we play:

Copa America schedule released

[Thanks to SMiA for pointing this story out, if not the exact article]

The USMNT is set to face an extremely tough test this summer in its first Copa America game: Argentina. No doubt there are several parties going on already for the azulceleste win, but you can never overlook a team that is in the middle of its domestic season and thus more in form than a team whose players have just finished a long season.

Still, I don’t expect us to win if we play like did in the World Cup (and we will, since Bob Bradley is mere Bruce Arena 2.0) but there is certainly hope for us in the end.

I’ll post the full schedule when it’s out later today.

The logo for the competition we’re going to win

4th Place is Champions League…right?

 

Hey, buddy, I’m better than you!

Damian at the Aston Villa Blog pointed out that the new Actim stats place Gareth Barry as the 4th best player in the Premiership as of February 7.

Just so you don’t have to search: Agbonlahor is 24th, Ashley Young is 59th (no doubt based on his performances at Watford), Olof Melberg is 62nd, and Liam Ridgewell is 95th. The stats don’t go beyond 100, but you can rest assured that Villa is pushing very hard to get more people in that upper echelon of Premiership players…

Interesting note: Villa accounts for 1/20 of the total number of players in the Premiership (one would assume) and they account for exactly 1/20 of the players in the top 100 Actim standings (5, for the math impaired). I’m not going to count them all, but I’m pretty sure that means Villa is right around average. (Chelsea have 10, ManU have 11 aka an entire team, and Wigan have 2 while West Ham and Watford have none now that Ashley Young left the latter…)

[update: a more thorough analysis of Villa's Actim stats]

Defending Eto’o

 

According to Soccer Mad in America, Eto’o was the one who decided he wouldn’t play in Sunday’s game against Racing Santander.  How can anyone say that’s a bad move? If a player says he’s not ready to play in a 2-0 game that is obviously already decided, then it’s a good thing he said he needs another couple of days of training to get back to 100%.

He only played for five minutes last week, and with no playing time today, how ready can he really be for Liverpool?

Understandable for AC to ask that question, but in Eto’o’s defense, what would 5 minutes do to help him? I know that there is no substitute for match experience, but he’ll get more minutes in the next game (at Valencia on Sunday 2/18) unless it is a tight match. It’s doubtful he’ll play many minutes against Liverpool (Wednesday 2/21) regardless of how much time he could have had today or will get on Sunday. Messi will play against Liverpool, barring any injuries set backs (cross all fingers and toes please!), but Eto’o I think will be held out because it’s too important a game to risk using him.

Just a thought…

Reading 2 – Aston Villa 0

Not much to say about Villa’s loss at Reading…Despite holding the majority of possession (58%), Villa couldn’t capitalize and ended up on the short end of the scoreline. Is this team capable of making a top 10 finish? At this point, I’d say no, but if they can convert 7 shots on goal into a couple of goals, they’ll be well enough out of relegation to focus on building up the team over the offseason.

Soccernet’s take.

BBC’s take.

In related news, Randy Lerner has apparently never heard of Manchester United:

“It baffles me. If someone could tell me how to make a profit from a football club, I’d like to know!”

Perhaps this is why the Browns aren’t doing so hot.

Barcelona 2 – Santander 0

Saviola starts instead of Eto’o which is a good call. Messi also begins on the bench, but who isn’t waiting for them both to get on the field? I dreamed of an absolute golazo from Deco last night and that’s either telling of his abilities or my lack of a life that I’m dreaming about football.

Regardless, I missed the first 20 minutes of the game thanks to a sketchy Internet connection, but here are the live thoughts of For Club and Country from the last 70 minutes. Score 0-0 when I joined up.  [Highlights available here, thanks  to  101 Great Goals]

Let there be light…

This is a new site, a sister site of sorts of SoccerSpot, dedicated to 3 particular teams:

1. US Men’s National Team (USMNT): I am an American and soccer is as American as shwarmas. And I love shwarmas.
2. Aston Villa: Cleveland is the best thing ever and now that Randy Lerner is dedicating his life to making Villa the greatest thing on earth, I have learned a new phrase: Up the Villa!
3. Barcelona: the blaugrana were my introduction to futbol so I will always have a rather large place in my otherwise cold heart for them. I guess part of it is that I was brainwashed by some lovely people to believe in Catalunya and all that regionalism stands for.

The point of all this is to follow these teams without sounding like their respective official sites. Match predictions should appear the day before matches and some discussion of all the games I can catch (few because I don’t have FSC, Setanta, or GolTV; internet sites is where it’s at!). I’ll also try to update lists of players on the current rosters playing in competitive international matches (as in, non-friendly matches unless it’s USA-Mexico).

For this weekend we have

Reading – Aston Villa (Saturday 7:45 EST)

Barcelona – Racing Santander (Sunday 1pm EST)

I’m going to miss the Villa game since it’s at 7:45am my time, but I should be able to catch the Barcelona game online.

My predictions:

Reading 1 – 2 Villa: Villa are coming off a 1-0 win at home against West Ham and should be able to continue scoring goals and, hopefully, being stingy at the back. Really, in 2007 they have been playing pretty decently, even in the 3-1 loss at Newcastle. They had a tough run of games in early January against Chelsea and ManU twice and managed a point against the champions (both times, actually), which means if they can turn in an up-tempo performance against Reading they can win.

Barcelona 3 – 1 Santander: Eto’o, Messi, and Ronaldinho? That sounds too good to be true and we’ll have to wait until matchtime to learn if they’re really going to start all together. I personally hope that Saviola gets the start and the majority of the central striker minutes, but Rijkaard has my faith and while I assume he won’t start all 3 together, they might see substantial minutes, especially if it gets out of hand early. The questions are, really, in defense since I have complete confidence in the forward line (despite 0 goals in the last 2 games).