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Sports: Brazil's Ronaldinho Tromps Improving US Football
Posted September 18, 2007 9:39 AM
Guys, it's time to talk football. Not the kind that the Canadians tried to remake or the European Football League, which is actually somewhat decent. No, we're talking about the football these great states call soccer, a sport played and loved by those all around the world. However, out of all the worlds teams, it is the number one ranked Brazil that displays the level of skill and excellence to truly place them there and even then, Ronaldinho, their star player, is still something more.
A two-time winner of the FIFA player of the year award, and likely selection for this years award, he is a force to be reckoned with. The US learned this fact the hard way yesterday after a close, but definitely solid 4-2 win by Brazil. It was close in the sense that it was a dead-ball game that won it for Brazil. Even Carlos Bocanegra was disappointed by the penalties saying, "we’re usually pretty good with those. You don’t really think about Brazil beating you on those." And even before the penalties came into play, it was still the US making mistakes, excluding the first goal of the game by Carlos Bocanegra. The goal that wasn't so redeeming, courtesy of Oguchi Onyewu, was scored after a shot by Kaka was deflected by US goal keeper Tim Howard, only to bounce off Onyewu's chest and tie up the first half. The second half was where the US mistakes opened up again and Ronaldinho shined. Brazil's Ferreira Lucio scored to put them in the lead 2-1. A mark of the US football team's improvement, they were able to fight back and tie it up again. After that is just a mark to Ronaldinho and the rest of Brazil. On a penalty kick twenty yards out, Ronaldinho placed a sharp arcing shot down into the bottom left corner, just under the hands of Tim Howard. His insight of the game and his ability to act on it were apparent on when asked about the goal, responding, "I purposely picked the left side of the post because I knew there were two Brazilians players at the end of the wall, and I knew the goalkeeper would not be able to see the ball." In the last minutes of the game, a shot and score from Brazil sealed the game for good. A modest summary of the game by Josh Wolff says it all, "At the end of the day it’s 4-2, but the result doesn’t say enough about the play. We did better than 4-2. I’ll give them credit. They took the chances well and it would have been nice to keep it more even on the score line."
That won't be happening anytime soon with Ronaldinho at the head of the world's best team. Go ahead and take a look at his majesty and, if you decide you want to give it a shot yourself, check out FIFA Soccer 07.
Tags: US_Football, Brazil_Football, US_vs_Brazil, FIFA, Ronaldinho,
