zequist

First edition, or revised edition?

I will also miss seeing him play. Not from his Galaxy stint, but from his stint with San Jose Earthquakes at the start of his career. There hasn't been much to cheer about over the years as a Quakes fan, seeing as they've generally been a mismanaged, cheaply run mess, and often as not treated not just by the league but even by their own management (when Anschutz ran them) as LA's second-class cousin. But for that run of four years and two championships, he gave us NorCal folks something to be proud of, and no matter how the rest of his career played out I'm still grateful for that.

First edition, or revised edition?

Coincidentally, I was just looking at the Telegraph's fantasy statistics for last season's Everton squad a couple of hours ago. Rather than just assists, they have a category they award players fantasy points for called "key contributions," which encompasses assists but also other play that directly results in a goal - affecting goals, in other words, just like you said. By the Telegraph's numbers, these are the stats for our main wide players last season (all competitions):
 
Mirallas: 36 games, 9 goals, 13 key contributions (22 total)
Osman: 42 games, 3 goals, 10 key contributions (13 total)
Deulofeu: 27 games, 3 goals, 6 key contributions (9 total)
Pienaar: 25 games, 1 goal, 6 key contributions (7 total)
McGeady: 18 games, 0 goals, 2 key contributions (2 total)
 
Pro-rated, that puts Pienaar on pace to affect about 11 goals last season if he plays closer to 40 games. That's down a bit from his historic rate, but still not terrible. Just the year before in 2012-13, he scored 6 goals and actually led the club in key contributions (per Telegraph numbers) with 12, for a total of 18 goals affected, which meets your standard and then some. But he was also healthy enough to play in 35 games that season.

He appeared in 25 matches in all competitions last year, started in 21 of them, and went the full 90 in 7 of them.
 
Don't know how much of that was tactical and how much was fitness, but either way he must have been one of our most frequently subbed players.

First edition, or revised edition?

Coincidentally, I was just looking at the Telegraph's fantasy statistics for last season's Everton squad a couple of hours ago. Rather than just assists, they have a category they award players fantasy points for called "key contributions," which encompasses assists but also other play that directly results in a goal - affecting goals, in other words, just like you said. By the Telegraph's numbers, these are the stats for our main wide players last season (all competitions):
 
Mirallas: 36 games, 9 goals, 13 key contributions (22 total)
Osman: 42 games, 3 goals, 10 key contributions (13 total)
Deulofeu: 27 games, 3 goals, 6 key contributions (9 total)
Pienaar: 25 games, 1 goal, 6 key contributions (7 total)
McGeady: 18 games, 0 goals, 2 key contributions (2 total)
 
Pro-rated, that puts Pienaar on pace to affect about 11 goals last season if he plays closer to 40 games. That's down a bit from his historic rate, but still not terrible. Just the year before in 2012-13, he scored 6 goals and actually led the club in key contributions (per Telegraph numbers) with 12, for a total of 18 goals affected, which meets your standard and then some. But he was also healthy enough to play in 35 games that season.

First edition, or revised edition?

First edition, or revised edition?

First edition, or revised edition?

He appeared in 25 matches in all competitions last year, started in 21 of them, and went the full 90 in 7 of them.
 
Don't know how much of that was tactical and how much was fitness, but either way he must have been one of our most frequently subbed players.

He appeared in 25 matches in all competitions last year, started in 21 of them, and went the full 90 in 7 of them.
 
Don't know how much of that was tactical and how much was fitness, but either way he must have been one of our most frequently subbed players.

Thought this was an excellent blog post, examining the re-sale of Lukaku through the lens of a broader trend happening across Europe.
 
An excerpt from the post:
 
"In terms of football's traditional values, the story of Lukaku and Chelsea is a failure. The club signed one of Europe's most promising players, at some considerable cost, to be the heir to Didier Drogba, and it did not work out. But in terms of football's new reality, that does not matter at all. Chelsea will not feel any embarrassment about signing Lukaku in 2011. They will be delighted they did so.
 
This is because player development, at the world's largest clubs, is no longer about football. It is about business. It is not about honing talent. It is about making profits. It is run according to the rules of the hedge fund -- spread your risk to ensure your reward -- with a mindset borrowed from property development. Nurturing young players is not a team's primary concern, just as a developer does not refit houses to live in them. Chelsea and their peers are not crafting young players. They are flipping them."

Thought this was an excellent blog post, examining the re-sale of Lukaku through the lens of a broader trend happening across Europe.
 
An excerpt from the post:
 
"In terms of football's traditional values, the story of Lukaku and Chelsea is a failure. The club signed one of Europe's most promising players, at some considerable cost, to be the heir to Didier Drogba, and it did not work out. But in terms of football's new reality, that does not matter at all. Chelsea will not feel any embarrassment about signing Lukaku in 2011. They will be delighted they did so.
 
This is because player development, at the world's largest clubs, is no longer about football. It is about business. It is not about honing talent. It is about making profits. It is run according to the rules of the hedge fund -- spread your risk to ensure your reward -- with a mindset borrowed from property development. Nurturing young players is not a team's primary concern, just as a developer does not refit houses to live in them. Chelsea and their peers are not crafting young players. They are flipping them."

Thought this was an excellent blog post, examining the re-sale of Lukaku through the lens of a broader trend happening across Europe.
 
An excerpt from the post:
 
"In terms of football's traditional values, the story of Lukaku and Chelsea is a failure. The club signed one of Europe's most promising players, at some considerable cost, to be the heir to Didier Drogba, and it did not work out. But in terms of football's new reality, that does not matter at all. Chelsea will not feel any embarrassment about signing Lukaku in 2011. They will be delighted they did so.
 
This is because player development, at the world's largest clubs, is no longer about football. It is about business. It is not about honing talent. It is about making profits. It is run according to the rules of the hedge fund -- spread your risk to ensure your reward -- with a mindset borrowed from property development. Nurturing young players is not a team's primary concern, just as a developer does not refit houses to live in them. Chelsea and their peers are not crafting young players. They are flipping them."

It's not the formation that matters, so much as the tactics that you play out of that formation. I don't care so much if RM wants to use three center backs, but I would want to know how he intends to use them to gain/retain possession and generate attacks. The Dutch and the Costa Ricans both played 3-man back lines with two wing backs for the majority of the World Cup (and you can bet Roberto was watching both teams closely and taking notes), but they used them in different ways. The Costa Rican back three focused more on springing offside traps, and they were ridiculously good at that, while the Dutch back three were focused more on winning the ball and launching counterattacks.
 
The key to any solid back line, though, is having guys who are used to playing together and communicating with each other and knowing where to go. The TV commentators talked about that over and over again with the Costa Rican defenders and how they were all perfectly in sync with the timing of their step-ups. I don't doubt we could play a three-man back line much more effectively than last year, especially if it's worked on from the start of training camp, but there would have to be a full-on commitment to it, not just some half-assed dabbling. If you're shuffling guys on and off the back line and they're constantly changing positions and combinations and shuffling formations around, then your defense is going to have problems no matter if you have two, three, or six center backs on the field. All it takes to bust a defense wide open is that one back who's too slow to step up on the last attacker or gets pulled out of position without a teammate ready to cover for him.

It's not the formation that matters, so much as the tactics that you play out of that formation. I don't care so much if RM wants to use three center backs, but I would want to know how he intends to use them to gain/retain possession and generate attacks. The Dutch and the Costa Ricans both played 3-man back lines with two wing backs for the majority of the World Cup (and you can bet Roberto was watching both teams closely and taking notes), but they used them in different ways. The Costa Rican back three focused more on springing offside traps, and they were ridiculously good at that, while the Dutch back three were focused more on winning the ball and launching counterattacks.
 
The key to any solid back line, though, is having guys who are used to playing together and communicating with each other and knowing where to go. The TV commentators talked about that over and over again with the Costa Rican defenders and how they were all perfectly in sync with the timing of their step-ups. I don't doubt we could play a three-man back line much more effectively than last year, especially if it's worked on from the start of training camp, but there would have to be a full-on commitment to it, not just some half-assed dabbling. If you're shuffling guys on and off the back line and they're constantly changing positions and combinations and shuffling formations around, then your defense is going to have problems no matter if you have two, three, or six center backs on the field. All it takes to bust a defense wide open is that one back who's too slow to step up on the last attacker or gets pulled out of position without a teammate ready to cover for him.

It's not the formation that matters, so much as the tactics that you play out of that formation. I don't care so much if RM wants to use three center backs, but I would want to know how he intends to use them to gain/retain possession and generate attacks. The Dutch and the Costa Ricans both played 3-man back lines with two wing backs for the majority of the World Cup (and you can bet Roberto was watching both teams closely and taking notes), but they used them in different ways. The Costa Rican back three focused more on springing offside traps, and they were ridiculously good at that, while the Dutch back three were focused more on winning the ball and launching counterattacks.
 
The key to any solid back line, though, is having guys who are used to playing together and communicating with each other and knowing where to go. The TV commentators talked about that over and over again with the Costa Rican defenders and how they were all perfectly in sync with the timing of their step-ups. I don't doubt we could play a three-man back line much more effectively than last year, especially if it's worked on from the start of training camp, but there would have to be a full-on commitment to it, not just some half-assed dabbling. If you're shuffling guys on and off the back line and they're constantly changing positions and combinations and shuffling formations around, then your defense is going to have problems no matter if you have two, three, or six center backs on the field. All it takes to bust a defense wide open is that one back who's too slow to step up on the last attacker or gets pulled out of position without a teammate ready to cover for him.

It's not the formation that matters, so much as the tactics that you play out of that formation. I don't care so much if RM wants to use three center backs, but I would want to know how he intends to use them to gain/retain possession and generate attacks. The Dutch and the Costa Ricans both played 3-man back lines with two wing backs for the majority of the World Cup (and you can bet Roberto was watching both teams closely and taking notes), but they used them in different ways. The Costa Rican back three focused more on springing offside traps, and they were ridiculously good at that, while the Dutch back three were focused more on winning the ball and launching counterattacks.
 
The key to any solid back line, though, is having guys who are used to playing together and communicating with each other and knowing where to go. The TV commentators talked about that over and over again with the Costa Rican defenders and how they were all perfectly in sync with the timing of their step-ups. I don't doubt we could play a three-man back line much more effectively than last year, especially if it's worked on from the start of training camp, but there would have to be a full-on commitment to it, not just some half-assed dabbling. If you're shuffling guys on and off the back line and they're constantly changing positions and combinations and shuffling formations around, then your defense is going to have problems no matter if you have two, three, or six center backs on the field. All it takes to bust a defense wide open is that one back who's too slow to step up on the last attacker or gets pulled out of position without a teammate ready to cover for him.

And now you know how I feel every time a cricket or snooker question comes around!
 
Anyway, since there haven't been any more takers, here's the answer to my question:
 
A fake free throw attempt is a rules violation by the shooter. If the free throw shooter commits a violation before or simultaneous to any violations by the opposing team, only the shooter's violation is charged - violations that occurred after it are ignored. So the lane violation and the goaltending are both irrelevant.
 
The free throw attempt is lost because of the violation - no re-take - and when there's a fake free throw violation on the shooter's second attempt the defending team gets the ball on the sideline, even with the free throw line.

And now you know how I feel every time a cricket or snooker question comes around!
 
Anyway, since there haven't been any more takers, here's the answer to my question:
 
A fake free throw attempt is a rules violation by the shooter. If the free throw shooter commits a violation before or simultaneous to any violations by the opposing team, only the shooter's violation is charged - violations that occurred after it are ignored. So the lane violation and the goaltending are both irrelevant.
 
The free throw attempt is lost because of the violation - no re-take - and when there's a fake free throw violation on the shooter's second attempt the defending team gets the ball on the sideline, even with the free throw line.

And may Liverpool spend the profits as wisely as Tottenham spent their profits from Bale!

And may Liverpool spend the profits as wisely as Tottenham spent their profits from Bale!

US epitaph, from American soccer writer Elliott Almond:
 
"It survived the Group of Death and had a chance, albeit slim, to advance to the quarterfinals. But here’s the bottom line:
Gritty as they were … as well coached as they were … the fightin’ Klinsmanns were outplayed by a substantial margin by Ghana, Germany and Belgium (for 90+ minutes).
The USMNT simply wasn’t good enough in the midfield. Whether that’s because Michael Bradley played poorly, or because Michael Bradley was playing out of position and played poorly, or because there is only one world class player on the roster — Howard — it doesn’t really matter.
What matters now is finding answers in the midfield before the summer of 2018."
 
I fully agree with this assessment. The continual inability to obtain and sustain possession outside of the Portugal game was a real killer.

Of all the games for Lukaku to show up in this WC, it had to be this one. TV commentators were giving Wilmots credit for pissing him off by benching him to start the game. Roberto, take notes if he's back again next year....
 
Oh well, still proud of the effort at least, but it would've been so nice to tot up another USA QF appearance, and the chances were there. If those Bundesliga-based players like Green and Johnson keep developing, there's some real potential there.