Dice K and US Futbol

Once again I'm venturing off into another tangent but this most be exposed. And what I'm talking about is the wonderful Red Sox pitcher known as Dice-K. Like I said when he came into the league, he is overhyped and would only be effective for a couple of years. He is basically Hideo Nomo. Just a flash in the pan.

Pitchers like Dice-K and Hideo are very similar because they are something that the majors hasn't seen before. The novelty of their crazy windup and "great" pitches wears away after a couple of seasons. Major League hitters are too good and technology is too great for these flash in the pan type pitchers to be effective. The game is about making adjustments and after seeing this great "gyroball" that Dice-K throws hitters are pounching all over him. He is 0-5 right now and on the DL. My guess is that he will never have the effectiveness that he had his first year in majors. So much for Scott Boras getting Steven Strasburg "Dice-K" money.

Now I'm going back to US Soccer. After badmouthing the system and the players, they come back and beat the Egyptians 3-0 in the last game of pool play of the Confederations Cup. Now onto the best part, they advanced to play the #1 ranked team in the world, Spain, on Monday in the semifinals because the soccer crazy Brazilians beat up the Italians, 3-0. Goal differential was the difference.

Bob Bradley made his best decision in a year and sat Demarcus Beasley. The US came out and dominated the possession game and controlled the tempo throughout. It was nice to see them play with passion and act like they wanted to be there today. The Epyptians played like they didn't know what hit 'em. It was a totally contrast from the Brazil and Italy games. It didn't look like we wanted to be there during those game. We made great runs throughout the game and didn't seem to take as many unwarranted chances.

Next step versus Spain is to control tempo and make timely runs when we can. There is no reason to try and push tempo when we aren't nearly as talented. We should attempt a Princeton style (basketball lingo) offense in order to dominate the time of possession and take away Spain's attacking. Our best defense will be our offense. It's a very simple strategy and isn't necessarily easy to execute but it will probably be our only chance.

Great day for sports tomorrow. The start of best of 3 Finals of the College World Series and the "final" round of the US Open at Bethpage Black.