bullets13

if it didn't make so much sense, i would belittle them.

Hull, no question. but seriously, Chelsea looked unstoppable today (even though Drogba and Schevchenko were hurt), pounding Portsmouth 4-0, and Man U and Arsenal were not that impressive. Liverpool will be good, but i see them as 3rd or 4th. I'm going to say that Chelsea wins, not based on this one game, but on the fact that Man U will be without Ronaldo until October. If they can avoid digging themselves into too deep a hole while he's gone, they'll certainly be in the running at the end of the year.

there's no swimming or olympics forum. the subject said it was off-topic. this is the second post you've made in this thread. find another thread if you hate this one so much.

this is a good result for the hawks...

I made a league on on espn.com because it wouldn't let me join a random league. league name: SETX sports password: soccer hurry up and join, the games start tomorrow.

ha.

how's that?

this is going to probably hurt a little bit. if HJ can come up with a decent showing, however, it will be a nice confidence boost going into week 0.

PNG 30 BH 10

yes

not in this division. not only do they have to catch two great teams in the cubs and brewers, but they also have to catch a very good St. Louis team. besides catching these teams, they also have to play them. often. if they were in the west, they'd be tied for first right now, and if they were in the east, they'd still have an outside chance. as it is, they've dug themself much too deep a hole to crawl out of this year, and don't have the consistency with their pitching staff to keep winning as they've done the past few weeks.

you're right, davies did hit the bar at the end. I wasn't real pleased with the choices that Novak made. when you're down a man, your best chance is to use speed to get a breakaway. instead, he takes jozy out and leaves McBride in. Also, he waited until the very end of the game to put in Davies, who with his speed drew a PK and a free kick that led to the shot that hit the crossbar. It seemed like Novak didn't really try that hard to tie the game up until he realized it was the only way they were going to advance. I don't understand why they didn't try to get the equalizer earlier on, when they knew there was a possibilty that a loss would knock them out.

I have a ton of respect for Lumberton, and the turnaround they made last year, but Dayton is the better team. Lumberton had a great team last year, and managed to beat Dayton, but had they played 10 times, I bet Dayton would've won 7 or 8 of them. This year, Lumberton will be good, but there very well could be a slight dropoff from last year's team. I expect Dayton's team to be as strong or stronger than last year's team. Dayton wins this matchup.

i want to vomit. Michael Orozco is an idiot. He got a straight red in the 3rd minute for what was closer to a nudge than an elbow. I won't say it should not have been a red, but i think it was light enough, especially considering the situation, to warrant only a yellow (although the Nigerian player went down like he'd been hit by a truck). Regardless, what the hell was he thinking? Combining this with his unimpressive play throughout the tourney, i'll be happy if i never see him in a US jersey again. The US looked fantastic, despite being a man down. They were on their heels in the first half, and gave up a goal due to a tremendous individual effort leading to a cross and easy tap-in. In the second half, they were the better team throughout, having two chances that probably should've been finished to tie the game at one early on in the second. By the 75th minute, the US was playing on dead legs, and gave up a nice goal when Parkhurst basically just fell over when the Nigerian player made a simple cut, and subsequently curved the ball into the corner inside the back post. The US earned a PK in the 89th minute and converted, making the score 2-1. They subsequently earned a freekick just outside the box, which was headed goalward by Fehlheber (i think) and smashed off the crossbar. Had it gone in, it would've marked one of the greatest comebacks in Olympic soccer history. This is very unfortunate for the US, who certainly played well enough to win the group. If not for a freekick goal by the Netherlands in the 93rd minute against them the game before, they would've taken three points from that match and won the group. As it was, they came into today's game needing a tie or a Netherlands loss/tie to advance. Obviously, playing a man down for THE ENTIRE GAME made a tie pretty difficult for the States, but they damn near pulled it off. To make matters worse, the Netherlands beat Japan 1-0 on a terrible PK call in the 74th minute, meaning a US team very deserving of a quarterfinal berth is instead packing their bags. The good news for the US is that we've got some fantastic young players who are capable of breaking into the full side in the near future. I was very impressed with Marvelle Wynn, Sascha Kliestjan, and Stuart Holden. Throw Freddy into the mix, and some of our USMNT midfielders better start watching their backs. Guzan was also fantastic, and should be the heir apparent when Howard calls it quits (unless he surpasses him).

this weekend we killed the specs early wading on the bayside, and afterwards i helped my little cousins fill a cooler with croaker at rollover. there were some guys fishing the rocks below the bridge there, and they hooked up a lot, but lost most of their fish and lures due to hangups.

obviously, due to simple math, the bigger schools with more players will have more kids using steroids. also, at the smaller schools, it would be harder for a player to use steroids without someone finding out. I played for a 3A school and graduated in 2001, and i didn't know of any of my teammates who used. obviously, there had to have been a few, but it certainly wasn't a widespread problem. i did hear about several baseball players using steroids, but as i didn't play baseball, i don't know that to be a fact.

He never sleeps. I think he has a surrogate or clone. actually, he's siamese twins, although they do a pretty good job of editing that out of the picture during newscasts.

WB, but by less than most people think. i think later in the year, when WB has a chance to get clicking, they would probably win by more, but at the beginning of the year, Ozen's atheleticism will keep them close in what will likely be a messy performance for both groups after the long layoff between meaningful games.

I think Lumberton loses 3 games this year, but HF isn't one of them.

I'd prefer to see the 3A teams grouped with the small schools rather than the large.

during the Olympics, each country is allowed only three players over the age of 23. Since World Cup qualifying is going on right now, he was a logical choice, as players like Donovan, Dempsey, etc are already busy. He doesn't really play for the full team anymore, but he's still a very talented and experienced player. I think he was a good choice.

extremely good news for the US is that in the other game of their group, Netherlands vs. Nigeria, was a scoreless draw. This means we're alone in first right now.

they played at 4 am this morning on msnbc. it looks like the next they play will be Sunday morning at 6:45 am. No word on the station it will be on.

The US squeaked out an extremely important win against Japan, but they were pretty fortunate to do so. The US had more control in the midfield, but Japan exploited them on the flanks. There were two soft fouls in the box, either one of which could've resulted in a PK for Japan, but neither was called. Japan also had many more chances in and around the box, and if they had been putting them on goal, Guzan could've been a world of hurt. Also, the last 30 minutes or so, every long ball sent towards the US' back third was won and flicked on by Japan, resulting in several chances. I won't say that the US was dominated, but Japan deserved at least a draw. POSITIVES: The US controlled the ball well in the midfield, and most of the game their pressure there resulted in many Japan turnovers. Wynn looked really good throughout the game, making several key plays. McBride drew a ton of fouls and controlled the air on long balls. Holden, Kliejstan, and Bradley all played very well. Jozy came in and made an immediate impact, being about 6 inches away on two seperate occasions from creating one-on-one chances. Edu played well most of the game, although he could've cost the US the game on two different borderline fouls in the box. They found a way to win! NEGATIVES: Orozco played poorly. He got burned down the flank the entire game, and when the ball came to his feet, he did not distribute well. Surely there are better options there, unless he really had an off-game. Adu might have been a little hampered by the ref, but he held the ball too long, often waiting until he had 2 or 3 defenders on him before he tried to get rid of the ball. Also, when the calls did not go his way, he took himself out of the game, and picked up a stupid yellow card to boot. The US was eaten up on the wings, especially on Orozco's side. Against a team with better forwards, they WILL concede goals off of crosses unless they shore things up. The US continues to struggle to create chances in the offensive third. They did finish their one great chance, but that was their only great chance, with the only other opportunities coming from shots well outside the box. The US needs to push up and win 50/50 long balls coming into their defensive third. Again, if they play a team with better forwards, this will be exploited. Your thoughts?

five games with the dodgers, five multi-hit games... 12/20 in these five games, with 3 HR's, 7 rbis, 6 runs. where was this in boston? Good thing i don't like him (or the red sox), or this might upset me.