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Yes, incredible performance. Also incredible finish at Green's goal, so very difficult and beautiful.
I liked how USA played, they were bold against an undoubtedly superior opponent. Would have been such a shock if they scored that goal at the end of normal time.
Fair elimination though, with 38 vs 14 shots ( 27 vs 9 on target ) it would have been a real shame if Belgium did not advance, sorry guys.

This is a good point to post a wild sequence of things i would like to happen. I have been thinking it ever since USA hosted WC back in 1994 but it is becoming more realistic(uh-oh) now:
I want USA to go better, make a great course at some major tournament like WC. That would maybe raise the domestic 'marketing value' of the sport. It would bring some more funds and attention etc etc, more good players, better MLS etc. After some iterations, we could see USA's sports industry focus at football ( fuck you handegg ) and finally reach a point that we would see a USA  lineup with 11 NFL level athletes in there. That i would love to see, for the beauty and diversity of the game! Anybody feels/digs that??? 

this is the dream. i love handegg, it has its own beauty and thrills and my most favorite of all teams happens to play it (go blue). but i also want us to be better at soccer. and this is something we say every four years, since 1994 and even before: everyone's so excited, all these kids are going to want to be clint dempsey or tim howard now. and the thing is, hundreds of thousands of kids here grow up playing soccer. i played it as a kid. but if they stick with it their talent is squandered or, as you said, they decide to play our football or baseball or basketball. it's an article of faith with a lot of sports fans here that allen iverson would have been an unstoppable monster as an attacking midfielder or forward.

a few things need to happen beyond that for us to become elite:
1. more kids need to become like dempsey and jozy altidore, who grew up playing every waking moment with much older and more skilled people.
2. we need to either shift toward a euro style of talent development (i.e., ajax or barca-style academies) or start to have many more parents allow their kids to move to holland when they're 12. the US has basically IMG academy and that's it. it's not enough. this is one of the major hopes for klinsmann, that even if he leaves in four years he'll have really helped reshape the youth talent development of US soccer.
3. our soccer players need to stop playing in college. it's a humongous waste of time for anyone with pro potential, but a lot of our players spent extremely important formative years (18-22) being limited to 20 hours a week of practice and games, and that with inferior teammates and against inferior competition. this limits our basketball players, too, but we have such a massive talent gap still with the rest of the world that we get away with it. and it's not as bad in basketball because the players with truly elite potential only waste one or two years this way. in soccer not many come out early; the potential rewards aren't as great and the thinking goes that you're better off "having the [university] degree to fall back on."

such trubble. so pain. wow.

fuck.

USA.

oh, and FUCK TINTIN.

i actually have been been doing lots of layups. if you can believe it, my SLRVJ used to be much, much worse.

poor algeria, played their hearts out and gave the germans a real run until the very end. and poor africa. that's it, fellas, better luck in russia.

1. just take my word for it.
2. if you care about improving bench, then you should bench. DB benching and actual benching are not the same exercise. so yes, i'd bench both days. just do 3x5 both days. start light and add weight every workout until you can't anymore, then add once a week. ride newbie gains as long as you can and only get complicated when you need to.
3. haha, it's not a bad idea to have a lower body pulling exercise like DLs but i don't think it's necessary given your goals. put everything you've got into those squats and let the assistance work be assistance work.

oh well.

god those feb dunks were so sexy by comparison. could have hit a lob that day, i'm sure of it.