Marta's Goal Versus USA - World Cup China

A goal worthy of any soccer/football league, men’s or women’s. Marta’s dribbling run against the United States. Goooooal! This Marta goal will go down in history as one of the best goals ever scored in the World Cup. What a class soccer player Marta is. The way she charges at defenders without fear.

Sadly, the US is out of the World Cup, but Brazil out played them, and may continue to out play the US in future tournaments for years to come.

The skill and quickness of the Brazilian players is at another level, much like their men’s team, the Brazilian women can cut and dart at abrupt angles, leaving defenders at a stand still a la Joga bonito, y mas bonita con las chicas.

The US plays at more direct game. Looking to hit their target players upfront where they have a size advantage with most teams. Time and time again the US team was forced to foul the Brazilians after they were beaten on the dribble.

The US player Boxx was unfairly sent off with a second yellow when her foot, inadvertently, got tangled up with a Brazilian player, a terrible call by the referee, but Boxx was going to be beaten on the play it looked like. The US always just a step too slow the whole game. An early own goal and then the red card did the Americans in, who knows what would have happened in the second half if Boxx wasn’t sent off. Would have been a battle.

Early in the game the US was lucky the Brazilians didn’t get a penalty, as one of the Brazilian players was taken down.

Who on earth knows why the American coach, Greg Ryan, decided to start Scurry rather than Hope Solo, a keeper change is too big of a change to make in a World Cup semi-final. Think it just puts the team on their heels at the start, adjusting to a new keeper, but maybe amongst the team that is the change they wanted. But the own goal was an odd moment where the defender perhaps didn’t know whether the keeper was going to come to the ball or not, either way though, the defender has to clear that ball out with her foot.

Quite a quote from Hope Solo on the keeper change:

“It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that,” she said. “There’s no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is it’s not 2004 anymore. It’s 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can’t live by big names. You can’t live in the past. It doesn’t matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold medal game in the Olympics three years ago. Now is what matters, and that’s what I think.”

The US battles hard, sports are so much about momentum, an early own goal and then a red card, the crowd cheering on Brazil, chanting Marta’s name, all of that begins to take a toll on a team I think. Why not develop a team based more on skill than size and physicality? I’m sure there are some players who have the skill of Marta growing up in the USA.

Want to post a comment on this topic, see our blog post: Marta’s Goal and KeeperGate

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