By now you have heard or witnessed Spain win their first world cup, if you watched the game there is one question that comes to mind.  What could the Netherlands have done that they did not do?  I do not think there’s anything else they could have done besides playing less aggressively, not committing many fouls racking up yellow cards.  They also had a player sent off for Yellow Card accumulation at a critical point in the game.

It was always going to be Spain who dominated possession, which has been a constant in this tournament. There was not much the Dutch could do to change that because Spain always dominates possession.  They came into this tournament playing a style they called pragmatic: less possession, more defensive, and more frontal in attack when they gain possession.

I was a bit unsure of how that would play out on the Pitch, and the Dutch cannot argue that it was pragmatism, as opposed to Total Football, that took them far in this tournament.  At the very least, fans did not have to endure psychological torture from constant attacks from their opponents, since it is they that are usually dominant in possession and attack.

In a bit of role reversal Spain played a version of the Dutch’s Total Football.  The Dutch team has nothing to hang their heads about.  They certainly gave it their all. The only detracting factor from their effort was the ugly, aggressive way they played, although I thought the referee was too quick in some instances to award free kicks to Spain, and perhaps not as willing to humor the Dutch.

The Dutch used pressure marking as I thought they should. They defended high as was appropriate, and they got two good opportunities to put the game away, but they didn’t.  In the end, that proved the difference. Spain got a good opportunity and put it away.  I expect Spain to dominate football for another two years. They should still be a force to reckon with in the next European Championship.

But as with all good things, their football will start to decline at some point.  It happens to everyone, in every sport where there is some semblance of balance. But they should at least be grateful that they won the greatest of prizes during what may come to be referred to as the golden age of their football.  As for the Dutch, I expect them to go back to their Total Football minus the bickering, which they managed to put away this time.

It seems self-evident and commonsensical that the more control you have of the game, the more likely you are to win.  That is what Total Football does, being strong in just one area of the game is not going to be enough to win a World Cup.  Spain won because of the to football principle, and their overall control of the game is what eventually led to the opportunity to score.

The world cup is winding down, we are down to the “final four” (now final three) that will decide who the World Champion will be.  The four teams left are Spain, Uruguay, Germany, and the Netherlands.  I like many Americans only took a partial interest in the World cup in the past, and mostly followed the United States team and games.

I took a different approach this year though though, I have several friends who were born in foreign countries and soccer is their favorite sport.  I decided to sit down, and watch as many games as I could in order to see why they loved the sport so much, as compared to the feeling in the United States.  As I watched more and more games I started to get into the sport more and more, it went from oh this is boring to being on the edge of my seat on every single challenge.

After watching about 15+ matches of the 2010 World Cup, I can now see why the sport does not appeal to Americans so easily.  The most popular sports in America are generally ones where there is an abundance of scoring, and very strong individual stars that can make or break a team.  Football, Basketball, and even baseball to a lesser extent have enough scoring where there is constant action, and you do not have to think about it to be entertained.

The individual star power in popular American sports is strong, and the expectations are easily defined in those sports.  If Peyton Manning has a great game it is easy to claim him the hero, if he throws 4 interceptions it is very easy to coin him as the goat.  The expectations heaped on the best players in American sports are tremendous, and most of the time if they do not play well their team does not win.

Soccer is a little bit different, I only knew really of one top level soccer player before the world cup.  That was Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal, only because of the many women I run into that want to father his children.  I knew who most of the players on the United States team were, but most of them are not considered big time “stars” on the international level.  As I watched more I started to learn players like Wayne Rooney, Kaka, and Lionel Messi just to name a few.

The funny thing is all of those players I named did not score a goal in the World Cup, but all of their teams made it to the elimination round.  Soccer is one of those sports where your best player does not score every single game, but there are things that player does on the field that setup scoring chances for other people.  That is very similar to dominant Wide Receivers in football drawing a double team, or someone being pitched around in baseball to get to a weaker batter.

The part that I believe is frustrating for most Americans is it is nearly impossible for a star player in soccer to win the game on his own.  Kaka is not going to get the ball from his goalie dribble it downfield past 10 defenders and kick it into the goal; it just isn’t going to happen.  Americans are used to the star athletes being able to take matters into their own hands if the rest of the schmucks around them are not showing up to play.  This is very difficult to do in soccer; you need a lot of pieces around players in order to be successful.

If you took Cristiano Ronaldo and stuck him on a team of stiffs then that team would be horrible, there is no way he could score enough goals by himself to make the team competitive.  But with Basketball you can put Lebron James on a team with a bunch of scrubs, and that team would actually be competitive at least some of the time.

I am by no means an expert on soccer, but after sitting down and giving the game a chance you start to pick up on the little nuances of the game.  If you look at how ESPN marketed the World Cup it was the same as we do with our sports, they put the biggest stars in the commercials and ultimately when those players did not do much it seemed a little off.  Then look at it Germany, The Netherlands, and Uruguay did not have one single player in any of those commercials, yet those teams are in the final four.

Ultimately Americans will fall out of love with soccer once the world cup ends, but I have gained a new appreciation for the sport.  The excitement lies in the lack of scoring rather than the abundance of scoring we are all used to, and when I found myself jumping at the shots on goal that almost went in I realized why 1.8 billion people around t he world love the sport.

The United States soccer team was eliminated by Ghana on Saturday, and although everyone is a bit disappointed at the result.  If an objective look was taken at everything, it is very easy to see that the United States was destined to lose that game.  To many early goals given up, and too many historic late game comebacks did them in when it really counted.

Despite the exit on Saturday, it was a great showing for the team, and if U.S. Soccer can learn from this then this team may go farther in the next world cup.  Here are four things the U.S. Soccer team can take from South Africa, to improve their chances in the next World Cup.

The U.S. still lacks a star striker

The biggest hole of them all, the lack of quality strikers, still needs to be addressed by the establishment. No one playing striker has scored a World Cup for the United States since 2002. Teams without a world class frontrunner can and do tiptoe into the elimination rounds, but they’ll rarely be a threat to move beyond quarterfinal stage.

Jozy Altidore and Robbie Findley are young players, and may yet grow into elite strikers over the next four years.  But the U.S. Soccer team cannot just sit by and hope that happens, they need to continue seeking and developing world class strikers going forward.

Landon Donovan showed up big

The United States doesn’t make the second round in South Africa without Donovan. His ideas and speed of play weren’t consistently tip-top, but they were always lurking. And truly, the United States’ attack was frequently an empty calorie exercise otherwise. His two magic moments alone, the critical goals against Slovenia and Algeria (never mind keeping his nerve on Saturday’s penalty kick), should be enough to quash any lingering anti-Donovan sentiment.

He’s now the country’s all-time leader in scoring, World Cup scoring and World Cup appearances. And he’s probably got one more tournament to go.  Donovan is the team leader, and if the United States is to do anything significant in 2014 then he will have to be an integral part of the team.

The U.S. talent pool continues to grow

There is talent in the waiting. The likes of big L.A. Galaxy center back Omar Gonzalez and fresh, young attackers like Andy Najar will be Donovan’s support cast going forward. Otherwise, Edu, Feilhaber, Findley, Holden, Jose Torres, Jozy Altidore, Jonathan Bornstein, Michael Bradley, Brad Guzan and Jonathan Spector will still be under 30 as teams land in Brazil in the summer of 2014.

So will Robbie Rogers, Sacha Kljestan, Chad Marshall and others who were paddling around in the shallow end of the player pool during qualifying. There are promising young players that we know about who may be key parts on this team by the time the next World Cup arrives in 2014.

The U.S. found it’s Heart

The team found a way to be in every game, and come back and win or tie most of them.   Even against Ghana the team brought the game to a draw in regulation time.  What doomed the U.S. team is not heart and mettle at the end of the game, but getting off to a good start and having a sustained effort for 90 minutes from the start of the match.

The performance by U.S. Soccer at the world cup has proven just how much resilience this team has, and how valuable a never say quit attitude can be.  If they can just find a way to not have to rely on that resilience and ability to come back in the end, then they can make a serious run in four years.

The big game is almost here the USA Soccer will face off against England in the first game of Group C at the FIFA World Cup, as both sides start their 2010 World Cup Campaigns action on the second day of the tournament.  I am not a big soccer fan as I have too much on my sports plate to add another one, but I cannot say that I am not excited about this game.  I did some research into soccer and the history between the U.S. and England, which helped me get into the game a bit more.

Fabio Capello’s side have endured a fairly rocky build-up with two unconvincing friendly victories and an injury to captain Rio Ferdinand, but they will hope for better luck against the side he faced in only his third game as England manager back in 2008.

The US team is currently ranked 14th in the Fifa World Rankings, six places behind England, and will be looking to repeat their superb form in South Africa.  Last Summer during the Confederations Cup the U. S. team finished as runners-up after giving Brazil a huge scare in the final.

The two nations have met on nine previous occasions, and even though England holds the upper hand with seven wins to two, the USA does boast the most impressive victory in what was the sides’ only past encounter at the FIFA World Cup.  The clash at the 1950 World Cup, the fourth edition of the tournament and the first which England had entered, was the first ever between the two nations.

England created a host of chances but failed to take any of them and paid the ultimate price on 38 minutes when Joe Gaetjens glanced home a header to give the USA a surprising lead, one which they held until the final whistle to earn them victory in what has come to be named the “Miracle on Grass.”

The nations met again less than three years later as England embarked on an end-of-season tour.  The friendly match was played in New York and England ran out 6-3 winners with Tom Finney and Nat Lofthouse both hitting two goals each.  The teams seem to play a lot of friendly matches, as I had to get familiar with the term when researching this.

The next two meetings saw even greater margins of victory for the Three Lions—an 8-1 win in Los Angeles saw Bobby Charlton net three goals, but even that was outdone in 1964 when England triumphed 10-0 in New York, with both Roger Hunt and Fred Pickering bagging hat-tricks.

England did not face the USA again for almost two decades before they returned in the summer of 1985 for a friendly. Bobby Robson’s side ran out 5-0 winners with Gary Lineker grabbing two goals.  Graham Taylor was the next to lead an England side out on American soil in Boston in June 1993 as part of the U.S. Cup, a warm-up competition for the FIFA World Cup that was being held in the U.S. the next summer.

Goals from Thomas Dooley and Alexi Lalas gave the U.S. a comfortable 2-0 win over Taylor’s side who would finish bottom of the four-team tournament and who would not return for the World Cup the following year after failing to qualify.  1994 saw the first meeting to be hosted in England as Terry Venables’ side welcomed the USA to Wembley. Two first-half strikes from Alan Shearer gave the home side the win.

The goals would famously be Shearer’s last for his country before he endured a 12-game scoring drought before he snapped out of it in style by winning the Golden Boot at Euro ’96.   Another decade passed before the sides clashed again, this time with Sven Goran Eriksson in charge of the Three Lions side as they faced the USA in a friendly in Chicago.

An experimental England side won 2-1 thanks to two goals from debutant Kieran Richardson, with Clint Dempsey pulling one back late on for the hosts. Zat Knight and Luke Young also made their debuts for England that day.  The most recent clash was in May 2008 when England, now under Fabio Capello, earned a 2-0 victory in a friendly at Wembley thanks to goals from John Terry and Steven Gerrard.

The history was interesting considering I am far from an expert on the sport and the subject, and the fact that the teams have played so little over the decades is the norm for soccer I assume.  With all of that being said there will be great anticipation for the match on Saturday, and both sides want to get off to a great start and have a bit of the bragging rights to go with it.