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alincoln

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Everything posted by alincoln

  1. alincoln

    USMNT 2022

    You honestly need a prime Kante or Roy Keane (e.g., the best CM of their generation) to effectively play a 4-4-2 in the modern game.
  2. alincoln

    USMNT 2022

    Contemporary possession-based soccer is predicated on 3 CMs (ask Pep Guardiola). As is Klopp's pressing system, which is actually the best fit the USMNT in Concacaf but would get us killed in the World Cup. We frequently struggle to maintain possession against CONCACAF teams with 3 CMs much less 2. Adams' passing and ball control is nowhere near good enough to play in a MF 2. Imagine Acosta there. 4-2-4/4-4-2 is also a system no one plays and international soccer with a middling coach is not the place to effectively implement an unfamiliar system with unfamiliar roles.
  3. alincoln

    USMNT 2022

    The outside midfielders in a 4-4-2 or a 4-2-4 are by definition wingers (see Ryan Giggs). Wingbacks don't play in front of fullbacks. They replace fullbacks in a 3-4-3, 3-5-2 or 5-3-2. Any team with a pulse that plays 3 CMs against a 4-4-2 is going to overrun CM. There is too much room both in front of them and behind them. That is the primary reason no one plays a 4-4-2 any more. You can still play only two CMs in a 3-4-3 because one of the CBs effectively serves as a CDM while in attack and the wingbacks can pinch in defense if the wingers track back.
  4. alincoln

    USMNT 2022

    That's really a 4-2-4 and the MF would get overrun by any team in the Octagonal
  5. Most Americans prefer the sideshow and gossip to the substance
  6. Recruiting, NIL and the coaching carousel (and conference realignment and playoff expansion) elicit interest (arguably more interest than the actual games) because they represent opportunities for changing the stale and boring status quo. Most college football fans (and Texas fans in particular) are desperate for change/evolution in the sport.
  7. Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson have won 18 of the 23 playoff games (LSU, UGA and Oregon the other 5). Absolutely riveting competition. The past decade of college football has arguably been its worst, but the future should be much improved. Players will be compensated for their efforts, the playoff will expand, and Saban will retire.
  8. Delta is definitely still around in most of the US but it should be on its way out in the next two weeks based on South Africa and UK data.
  9. That would be almost as stupid a headline. The headline should be "Risk of hospitalization of children due to Covid remains extremely low"
  10. "Children have been hospitalized at nearly twice the rate of adults in the past 4 weeks." Incredibly misleading fear porn headline. The most shocking part of the story to me is that we averaging only 2,000 hospitalized children (40 per state up from 25 per state) who have tested positive for COVID, particularly in a nation with as much childhood obesity and asthma as the US.
  11. Why won't O just mutate again within one of the hundreds of millions of people who will become infected to an even more virulent and contagious strain? Also, plenty of double vaxxed and boosted people are getting quite sick from O. The vaccine generally protects from hospitalization/death but don't assume you will just experience a runny nose, particularly if you received a Pfizer booster more than a month ago and haven't previously had covid. The vaccines will need to improve to move beyond covid.
  12. Tee Higgins is also only 22. The Bengals offense should only get better.
  13. Not with respect to omicron aside from immediate lockdowns comparable to those imposed at the beginning of covid, which won't happen. It is way too late to implement a massive vaccine/booster rollout to the unvaccinated/unboosted.
  14. The bottom line is that there is nothing we can do at this point to limit the spread of omicron throughout the world short of massive lockdowns which isn't going to happen.
  15. The vaccines are clearly less effective in preventing breakthrough omicron cases. Boosters appear to help but only 28% of the US population has received a booster. As a result, a significant majority of the US population has very limited protection against omicron. Fortunately, omicron appears to be much milder with symptoms generally akin to a standard cold or allergies (runny nose, mildly sore throat, fatigue) compared to previous variants (fever, bad sore throat, loss of sense of smell or taste). Unfortunately, most Americans will think they have a cold instead of omicron because the difference in symptoms is not understood by most of the population. The asymptomatic and carriers who think they just have a winter cold will spread this through the population like wildfire. Many states are at or approaching record case levels and those totals don't include many asymptomatic or minor cases.
  16. I'd be more interested in what percentage are obese, elderly and/or have health problems. At this point, almost all of those hospitalizations are still delta.
  17. We will never come close to fully vaccinating the U.S. much less the world.
  18. Exactly. Omicron will hit the US harder than other Western democracies because of the lower vaccination rates and higher obesity rates. The early data certainly suggests that Omicron is accompanied by less severe symptoms than previous variants (potentially significantly less severe) despite its virulence but fatties and the unvaccinated remain at high risk. For boosted individuals in relatively good shape, omicron looks like a mild cold if you even experience symptoms at all..
  19. alincoln

    EPL 2021-22

    The TAA call is actually amazingly good, particularly from Mike Dean.
  20. alincoln

    EPL 2021-22

    EPL is about to get the winter break everyone has wanted.
  21. Urban is not a complicated person. He is an incredibly arrogant and condescending asshole who occasionally experiences a moment of self-awareness and briefly modifies his behavior only to almost immediately revert to his true nature. His tenure with the Jags is unquestionably a historic failure that significantly tarnishes his legacy. I would be shocked if he doesn't return to the college ranks in the near future in an ego-driven effort to rehabilitate his record/image. The floodgates will probably open with anecdotes regarding his behavior, but the vast majority will just further underscore what a garden variety dick he is.
  22. Techne Futbol app is all you need for training at home.
  23. The Gay Tupac . . . lulz
  24. Don't give a shit if she participates but characterizing her times as legitimate for purposes of winning races or setting records in women's swimming is just denying reality.
  25. When the best thing about your league are a few new stadiums scattered across the country, your league has issues. That said, the play has gotten better and the academy system has improved dramatically. The problems remain the godawful leadership, idiotic ownership structure, unnecessarily restrictive salary cap and unconscionably dumb regular season and playoff system. Hopefully, the goal is ultimately to split the league into two 16-team leagues with promotion and relegation between those leagues and a champion determined by league results instead of the insanely pathetic current playoff system. As it stands, MLS as an actual competition is basically meaningless. The regular season is merely a playoff qualifier and the playoffs are a one-off crapshoot. Only one 1-seed from either conference has made it to the final over the last 10 seasons (Toronto in 2017). It will remain a Mickey Mouse league more than deserving of derision until it has a true league champion and some promotion/relegation. BTW, aggy isn't known for bitching. They are known for happily gobbling down the shit sandwiches they are fed on an annual basis. Fuck that.
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