Video of the Week: Individual brilliance in Russia

Rarely does a game showcase three goals of extraordinary individual skill, but it happened today in Moscow, in the 2-1 game between CSKA and Besiktas. Alan Dzagoev and Milos Krasic scored for CSKA, before Ekrem Dag struck a last-minute goal for Besiktas.

These encounters rarely get shown to American and English audiences, because these teams aren't considered very glamorous. It's truly a shame, because the Russian and Turkish styles are so intriguing and distinct from the rest of Europe. Hopefully these three goals will give you some sense of that.

Death, taxes, and sensationalist media

To be honest, I hadn't planned on writing this week, because I've been quite busy lately. Of course, that changed once the Guardian published this story in the wake of the Manchester derby, about Manchester United receiving more stoppage time "when they need it". I'm sure you've guessed, I'm indignant about this deliberately lazy and sensationalist piece of journalism.

I'll start with the misleading accusation that United benefitted from "the referee... allow(ing) almost seven minutes, even though the fourth official had signalled a minimum of four" against Manchester City. In reality, those who read my Twitter feed, or more respectable coverage like that of the BBC, saw the very simple calculation. The official gave 4 minutes minimum stoppage, plus 1 added minute for Bellamy's goal celebration in stoppage, plus 30 seconds for United's substitution in stoppage, all of which equals 5.5 minutes. Michael Owen scored at 95:27, within the appropriate amount. The rest of the "seven minutes" resulted from Owen's extended celebration.

As for the report of United getting additional time when they're not winning, it's a true but totally incomplete statistic. Notice anything missing from the Guardian's story? The article provides overall stoppage time figures for the other 'Big Four' teams, but only to cleverly disguise its complete lack of the "winning/not winning" differential for those teams. In other words, despite conducting a thorough "study", the Guardian is conveniently omitting the fact that in all likelihood, this phenomenon happens for every Big Four team.

Without such an anti-United conspiracy theory, the question remains: why do the better teams get more time? Though we can only speculate, we should remember that stoppage time isn't decided in a vacuum, but rather by the events on the field. For instance, the best teams in England play fluid football, with very infrequent fouls.

If these teams play quickly like this, of course there'd be less stoppage time when they're winning. On the other hand, if other teams resort to slow them down with hard tackles and such, then there will be more stoppage time when they're losing. The fact that physical Chelsea leads the 'Big Four' in stoppage time at home supports this theory.

As I said, I'm only speculating, so I'm not claiming to understand the total cause behind the stoppage time disparity. My point is, I noticed the issue's complexity from looking at the basic facts in my free time, so clearly the experts at the Guardian could too. Instead, the Guardian smelled a sensationalist accusation to be printed, and they proceeded to select spotty and misleading evidence in an attempt to legitimize it, while ignoring facts that clearly disproved their potential scoop. They've created an unneeded commotion, not to mention distracted attention from possibly the greatest ever Manchester derby, and I've lost a tremendous amount of respect for the Guardian as a result.

It infuriates me that much soccer media is driven by "flashy stories" such an this, rather than by rational thought and analysis. One of the reasons I write this blog is because I disapprove of this type of laziness and sensationalism, and I think we should strive for a higher quality of talent. In the meantime, we'll have to trust the public to know the difference.

Video of the Week: Messi and Barcelona seem unstoppable

In this week's (very late) video, Lionel Messi goes on one of his mesmerizing signature runs before lacing the ball beautifully into the top corner.

In contrast to big-spending but defensively challenged Real Madrid, Barcelona is steamrolling every opponent without letting up any easy goals. At the moment, they have to be the clear favorites in La Liga.

(Also, apologies for the lack of new material lately, midterms have been crazy the last two weeks. I have a piece going up soon that's been in the works for awhile, so stay tuned.)

Video of the Week: Amazing free-kick in WCQ

This week in World Cup Qualifying, Bosnian midfielder Sejad Salihovic scored a fantastic dipping free-kick to level matters against Group 5 rivals Turkey.

This crucial goal kept Bosnia-Herzegovina comfortably in second place behind already-qualified Spain. Barring a total meltdown, they'll soon clinch the group's playoff spot.

For anyone that's interested, this goal by Samuel Eto'o came in a close second.

As the World Cup nears, the U.S. has to start treating every game seriously.

The World Cup is finally starting to come into focus on nearly every continent. England and Spain have looked dominant throughout European qualifying, but teams like Serbia and Slovakia are now poised to lock down their spots as well. Brazil and Paraguay have dominated most of South American qualifying yet again, with Chile right behind them. The Asian spots were decided before the summer, and the Ivory Coast and Ghana are virtually secure in the African groups. Struggling holdouts like France and Argentina join roaring comebacks from Portugal and Cameroon in providing some 11th hour suspense, but we're finally getting a sense from the qualified teams that yes, South Africa 2010 is very, very close.

Even the CONCACAF hexagonal has somehow sorted itself out, despite looking totally knotted after Saturday. The region has essentially been a tight four-team contest since El Salvador and Trinidad & Tobago starting dropping points, but Costa Rica settled the question of who would resort to the playoff with South America when they decided to remake Space Jam. Given that Costa Rican disaster, Honduras is content beating up on the teams below them to stay in 3rd, and Mexico's stunning turn in form since the summer has locked their place in as well.

All of which leaves the U.S., king of the CONCACAF castle and almost certainly headed for South Africa. In getting 6 points this weekend, the U.S. did a credible job in separate themselves from the other contenders. You would think, then, that almost securing a berth with these two wins would provide some relief, but the past week showed that we're nowhere close to being prepared mentally for the World Cup.

Saturday's game against El Salvador highlighted a notable flaw in the team's psyche, that poor refereeing decisions always throw us out of rhythm. No doubt, Jose Pinéda did a terrible job with the game: he afforded us almost no protection while whistling them for every small foul, and he also rescinded a fantastic 59' goal by Jozy Altidore for no discernible reason. However, like against Italy in the Confederations Cup, the U.S. just pouted in protestation, rather than rise to the occasion and defeat all 12 men. Strong teams should be able to fight through such adversity, and we're just not there yet.

More worrying was the total lack of sharp play shown at the beginnings of the last three American wins. A total lack of passing and movement characterized the U.S.' starts against Honduras and El Salvador, and in both cases, only an early goal by the opposition took us out of our daze and into Confederations Cup form. Against Trinidad & Tobago however, the opposition just wasn't playing well enough to score, so the team just never woke up. Not even Cornell Glen's chip off the bar did the trick, and truthfully, Ricardo Clark's out-of-nowhere screamer

bailed us out from an embarassing draw. Such a result would have dropped us into dangerous territory in the table, yet the team was inexplicably content to play sub-par soccer, as long as they weren't behind.

Alexi Lalas' postgame consensus was "Who cares if it wasn't convincing, we got 3 points", but this all-too-common outlook totally evades the fact that the current U.S. team is dangerously inconsistent at motivating itself. More specifically, too many players like Clint Dempsey come out firing against "big game" teams like Mexico, Spain, and Brazil, but wait for a reason to snap into world-class form against "lesser" nations like T&T. If you're wondering why that's a dangerous mentality, June's game against Costa Rica should clue you in: we underestimated our opponents, and got promptly overrun. Results like that will get us eliminated from the World Cup.

As much as I love both Dempsey and the U.S. team, this underlying malaise is inexcusable. If the objective is to win, and the game starts even at 0-0, the job is set out in front of you. In other words, nobody deserves a win until they earn it, even against "lesser" teams. The team needs to start treating every game like it's crucial, or we'll soon be left to rue missed opportunities at the worst possible times.

Video of the Week: Kakha Kaladze scores twice... on his own team.

Italy were fortunate to have a double agent playing for Georgia in this week's Video, as Georgian captain Kakha Kaladze scored two own goals to hand Italy a 2-0 victory in World Cup qualifying.

In all seriousness, you have to feel bad for the man. He's just come back from 7 months of knee repair hell, he steps onto the field against players he knows quite well (since he plays for AC Milan), and this happens to him. Terribly unfortunate.

(And apologies for the weird language in the video. Best I could find.)

"My game is more beautiful than yours."

I may be overstating the situation, but Saturday's match between Arsenal and Manchester United had no redeeming value whatsoever. If you saw it, you know what I mean: none of the slick passing both teams are known for, no rhythm, and not even one goal scored without someone else's help. (I'll always maintain that Ben Foster got a hand to Andrei Arshavin's rocket, and should have kept it out.) This wasn't the Arsenal-United semifinal game of last year's Champions League, this was Chelsea-Barcelona.

You can blame most of that on the referee. As every Arsenal fan has pointed out in the last couple days, Mike Dean did a poor job of holding both teams to the same standards of physicality. The disparity in cards was the clearest indication of that, since Arsenal were shown twice as many yellows, despite being whistled for 6 less fouls. The penalty calls were horribly inconsistent as well, as Wayne Rooney received a borderline whistle, even though Arshavin was denied an automatic one earlier. Players usually seek early indications of the referee's standards on such things, but Dean left them in the dark all day.

Until today, I was simply thankful for the 3 points, and otherwise wrote the game off as a poorly officiated performance, as well as an unfortunate missed opportunity for an entertaining match. That, however, was before Arsene Wenger opened his mouth on Monday morning. In a calm press conference, Wenger made unprovoked comments that show the naivety and delusion of "The Professor".

My main reaction to the press conference: who is Arsene to decide what is "anti-football"? Whether or not the strategy was intentional, teams are certainly allowed to use strength to throw their opponents off their rhythm, as long as they aren't fouling players. The referee is the one to control a game's physicality, not the players, but in this case Mike Dean didn't reign it in. Shouldn't that anger be directed at Dean instead of Sir Alex?

No, I think the problem is deeper than that: Wenger has always been unable to admit that his team, or his players, have flaws. Arsenal hasn't succeeded against more physical squads, so he complains every time an opponent doesn't play "beautiful", rather than recognize that they're just tactically exploiting Arsenal's greatest weakness. Wenger is known to amend his perceptions to support his team, and this is just one more attempt to blame somebody else for the fact that his team has a flaw. The differences over time in his stance on diving supports this also. (See: his defense of Eduardo's ridiculous dive.)

I'm inevitably going to get under people's skin here, but this is why I can't stand when Arsenal fans tell me, "We're the best team to root for, because we play the purest football." Yeah, that's probably true, but games aren't won on style points; in the real world, a degree of practicality is necessary. A club might sometimes have to spend money, big money, on experienced imports, because an XI entirely from the academy is often too single-minded and easy to stop. A team might have to play stifling tactical defense, if strength is their only advantage towards winning 3 points. And the result of mixing this practicality with beauty can still be, well, this. Teams shouldn't abandon academies, or only play 5-4-1: the world needs purist beauty in the game. It's just that such purism alone is too easily ruined.

Arsene Wenger has long cemented his status as a genius, a romantic and an idealist who embodies why many people watch the beautiful game. I will always respect him for those qualities. But until he accepts that it's his team that has flaws, rather than the system it plays in, he'll also be forced to accept that being an idealist doesn't necessarily earn you anything.