Shadow Scholar Syndicate: FWM/CA/N 2019--Day Twenty-Five Recap

Your “Syndicate Hangover” is proudly presented by “Perrier”

Your friendly bookie remains more of a San Pellegrino man, but we’ll accord the hosts some respect for their second-rate club soda. Along with La Croix, it’s an acceptable option when the only other alternative happens to be Seltzer Water.

Day 25: Recap

Bookie’s Stats—

Spread: 45-55

Straight up: 60-26-14

So many great games at the AFCON today; more than adequate compensation for those three goalless draws over the weekend. Bookie’s selected favorites, the Senegalese, are back on track. The foxes and Atlas Lions also put on a good show. The team that I was most pleased to see execute today had to be Les Elephants.

Was getting a bit concerned for them, but they’re back with four goals from different players.

A Syndicate Classic—“The 2010 Paradigm Shift”

Semi-final Lines are set to drop for both the FWM and Copa America tonight. We’ve good news for two groups of long-suffering football fans. Looks to be a great day for America and Argentina. For those interested, we’re headed back a few years to a tournament in which the USMNT got royally screwed.

Everyone remember the ghost foul on the disallowed Maurice Edu goal against Slovenia in the Group Stage? It very nearly cost the U.S. the tournament. Donovan and the boys fought back hard to top the group in dramatic fashion. Then came this match. When Ghana eliminated the U.S. in the 2006 World Cup on a controversial penalty, it wasn’t wholly unfair as Clint Dempsey’s goal in that fixture was slightly offside.

This one was different. Your friendly bookie wasn’t the biggest U.S. football supporter back then. Not that he actively rooted for the U.S. to lose or anything, but, like many, I incorrectly assumed the vast majority of Americans weren’t really worldly and knew very little about football.

What a dumb shit I was. I eventually came around and now even follow the U.S. team and actively root for them to succeed (when they’re not playing Germany, of course). I came to realize that the players can play, the fans are knowledgeable, and the sport has a great future in the USA.

This match was a big turning point. There’s still plenty of haughtiness in the retroactive notes—added in 2012—but the idiot’s actually coming around. Trust me.

From WM 2010—Round of Sixteen

USA vs. Ghana

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THE LINE: USA + 2 Goals

Editor’s retroactive notes:

RESULT: Ghana 2, USA 1. (120 a.e.t) Okay, American enthusiasts. For the third consecutive game in this tournament, you got hosed to a certain extent. Let’s go over it in detail so that you may refresh yourselves as to precisely how you were hard done by. Over Twenty million Americans tuned in to watch this historic match. Chances are you were one of them. We still need to get the facts straight after your cup of knowledge has long since been refilled by NFL Free Agency acquisitions and bong resin.

The Ghanaians played this one ultra-conservatively, deploying a 4-5-1 in hopes of shutting down the surging Donovan and Dempsey. After Gomez’s lukewarm outing, Bradley restored Findley to his place alongside Altidore. He also brought back Ricardo Clark and had Bornstein and Cherundolo swap sides. None of the moves panned out. Before exiting with an injury in the 31^st, Ricardo Clark was solely responsible for the first goal after a silly turnover in midfield. Former German bad boy Kevin Prince Boateng latched on to the rookie mistake and dribbled all the way inside the 18, beating Tim Howard for a fifth minute opening goal.

Bradley could seemingly do no right. His substitution of Maurice Edu for the wounded Clark appeared to have been the logical choice. Yet, he might have done better to bring in Beasley, a more experienced natural center midfielder who had played opposite Boateng in the Premiership. He swapped out Findley for Feilhaber at the half, reorganizing into a 5-4-1 that might be more successful exploiting Black Star lateral ability. Again, it was the switch most any of us would have made. Feilhaber had an off game however, twice failing to furnish a decent finish twenty minutes into the restart.

In the interest of being as magnanimous as possible, Kingson had another monster of a game. His two saves of Feilhaber were above average. He also did well to challenge Altidore in the 68^th, deny him again in the 72^nd, and cut down Michael Bradley in the 76^th. The two Mensahs also performed their duties clinically, squeezing out Altidore in the 81^st and Donovan in the 89^th.

Mensah also fouled Altidore unabashedly from the back earlier in the match and American football tackled Clint Dempsey in the 61^st. A penalty was rightly awarded, which Donovan converted. Normal time ended with the two sides drawn. An additional half hour would be needed to separate the sides.

Running for 120 minutes is unimaginably difficult. Even in my prime, I could manage perhaps 70 on my best day. It is such that teams often stall for time in the overage period, and the match comes down to penalties more often than not. That’s still no excuse for the poor sportsmanship exhibited by the Black Stars after they regained the lead. The dynastic Andre Ayew threaded in a gorgeous ball for Asamoah Gyan in the 93^rd. The Rennes striker used a brilliant first touch to leave Bocanegra and Demerit in the dust and beat Howard.

Now comes the part where you were been hard done by. Uncle Sam was clearly exhausted and they could manage no almost offensive efforts in the first period of overtime. However, around the 113^th they found their second wind and engineered three decent balls forward. The momentum was shifting. In order to interrupt the flow, Rajevac called for the substitution of Inkoom, at that time at the far side of the sideline.

Inkoom took his sweet ass time getting off the pitch, even pausing to exchange a few words with his replacement Shelley Muntari. The waltzing gait and faux inspirational address burned almost two minutes. So now then. Could this additional two minutes have made a difference? We’ll never truly know, but the likely answer is no. The U.S. was fatigued and prostrate, out of substitutions and out of ideas. One still never likes to see a team so blatantly milk the clock. It’s cheap and totally unnecessary.

Just like that another U.S. WM campaign came to a close. Two wrongly disallowed goals and a bit of chicanery. Be not bitter if you find it feasible. Robert Greene gave you a bit of luck. Despite the two disallowed goals, you still finished atop your group…atop of your former colonial brethren. You faced the weaker opponent in the Round of 16 and have only yourself to blame for the defensive lapses. Is football inherently equitable? Certainly not. Is life? Whoever the hell you are, you know the answer to that question. You’ll be back. Be full of enthusiasm and not paranoia.

“Riffs of the Day”—Day Twenty-Five

Reader: CONMEBOL has it right. Let’s just go straight to penalties after 90 minutes until the Semis.

Vicey: Either that, or just get rid of the added fourth sub. A savvy observation from 56-M. These spiritless extra times where everyone is wandering around phlegmatically just aren’t doing it for me anymore.

Reader: Columbia won the Copa America in 2001. You know that, Vicey.

Vicey: Yes, 171-M. It does count and I shouldn’t have omitted it. No excuses. For anyone curious, that was a very controversial tournament. Columbia hosted in spite of CONMEBOL’s attempts to cancel the tournament out of security concerns. The two best teams at the time—Argentina and Canada—withdrew their squads. Big time asterisk next to that one for some, but Los Cafeteros did win.

Reader: What’s the difference between the South African and Tanzanian national anthems?

Vicey: None. It’s Enoch Sontonga’s “God Bless Africa”. One’s sung in English, the other in Kiswahili. Was secretly hoping these two countries would meet in this tournament, but I guess we’ll have to wait.

Reader: There sure seem to be a lot of fat dude fans in Africa.

Vicey: Not everyone in Africa is starving, 150-M. Plenty of them engage in as little physical activity as you. There’s television. There’s bread. Add time and you have a recipe for obesity.

DAY TWENTY-SIX—PREVIEW

Lines debuting right after this post. For those who just can’t wait…

USA vs. England

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