By globalgridiron
I am in Tokyo for the World Cup and have seen every game thus far. I want to let you know Japan has a much better shot at winning on Sunday than people think. They run a 4 wide, shotgun offense and are coached extremely well. Despite their lack of size they are able to penetrate the backfield on defense and open holes on offense due to their complex blocking schemes. In fact, Sweden's offensive and defensive lines are much bigger than the US and the size of the players didn't effect Japan one bit.
If it doesn't rain (currently there is a typhoon off the coast of Japan that is supposed to hit on Sunday) Japan will be in the game, if not winning, in the 4th quarter. If it rains as expected, USA may have the advantage because the Japanese passing offense will be ineffective. However, Team USA didn't take care of the football against Germany and the Japanese defensive players are ballhawks. This game could go either way.
If Japan wins their will be people in the United States that think it is a joke because we didn't send Ray Lewis, LaDanian Tomlinson, and Peyton Manning. Let us not forget that it took football in the United States close to 50 years to really become popular and another 25 before it became the game we know today. The USA team is a solid team with many guys either trying out for NFL teams or turning down Arena League tryouts so they could participate in this event. We are not sending our best but it's certainly not a ragtag group of guys.
The growth in development of football in many countries is very strong and will only continue to be stronger in the years to come. IFAF is currently doing some great things despite the many challenges that it faces. Growing a sport in the modern day is much different than the way sports were grown almost a century ago and they are doing a tremendous job of recognizing this. When football is in the Olympics in the next 20 years we will all realize how quickly the game is growing around the world.
My prediction: If there are heavy rains, USA 18-13...If it doesn't rain that heavily, Japan 27-24!!!
Friday, July 13, 2007
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17 comments:
globalgridiron,
Thanks for the contribution. I hope that you don't mind that I posted it for everyone to see.
If you have any game footage or photos from the event, please let me know.
Gerry
will someone broadcast the game? email dalen52@yahoo.com
They don't allow pictures to be taken at the games unless you are media. I am confident all of the games will be available online after the tournament but unfortunately not live. I will talk to some people today and find out.
Found a few YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFKU1o8S5Sw highlights of France/Sweden game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYyOPOtxioQ video from the stands of a Japan game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M72ccj4zkd0 video of typhoon soaked field
I wonder if they will have to reschedule the final due to weather?
Anonymous, for the record, I'm from the US. If size was the only factor Japan would have lost to the biggest team here, Sweden. Football is all about your style of play. If Japan was trying to run the I-formation and pound it inside, size would matter. But they run a shotgun, 4-wide and spread the field out.
They knew coming into this thing they needed to be smarter than other teams and so far they have done that. They are the better coached team, largely because they have been preparing since March and the US has only been preparing for 3 weeks.
We'll know in 6 hours...
globalgridiron
I respect your opinion, as I showed by posting it on my site. Size does matter, but it's not the end all be all. That said, I think you're going to be surprised in a few hours, regardless that you've seen the games and I haven't. I know that Mackovic isn't Ara Parseghian, or even Lou Holtz (I'm an ND alum). What I do know is that America's brand of football is more polished than the Japanese product, and assuming we utilize our size and superior coaching on the offensive line, we should move the ball at will against the smaller Japanese front. In the same vein, if the man who helped construct the Black Shirt Nebraska secondary has any idea how to coach defensive linemen, we'll be in the Japanese backfield all day.
USA 24 - Japan 10.
Don't take this the wrong way. I'm very happy you contributed to the site, and maybe I'm wrong for being too confident in the US team, but I don't see this going to the Japanese. I think we're going to beat them by 2 scores.
We'll find out really soon. Thanks for writing in.
"What I do know is that America's brand of football is more polished than the Japanese product"
I am as patriotic as the next guy, but if you saw these 2 teams without the country names printed on the jersey you would 100% say the team wearing red is more polished.
Your statement above is true, but it is a general statement and doesn't take into account the 2 teams actually playing in the game. Japan is as technically sound as they come. They knew the stakes of this tournament before the USA team was even selected.
After the Korea upset yesterday I had 3 words to describe what I had just saw, "Any Given Sunday". If there is anything we know about the Japanese is they are very proud people.
I have to head to the stadium. I guess we will know in a few hours and I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong but I don't see USA holding Japan to 10 points.
I just want to say one more thing. This game is the start of something big. The 2011 World Cup will garner much more attention than this one has but today will be historic and open the eyes of many people in the US. I just hope espn.com and other large sports websites write a story about this "upset".
I doubt this will get ANY coverage at all in the mainstream press it hasn't so far.
The easy thing for any casual observer is to write off the quality of the US squad. There are probably hundreds of players better at every position than the guys on the US team. I doubt a loss will be any kind of blow to USA football just for that fact.
I do hope that 2011 WC is a much much bigger deal but somehow I doubt it unless there was a sudden barage of Japanese players in the NFL or something.
In truth American Somoa is probably the 2nd best team in the world if they were to put a team together with Canada coming in 3rd. Japan would probably be 4th with Mexico very close behind.
USA wins 23-20 in OT...closer than what most people thought.
I have a few things to say...
1. The 2011 World Cup will be a much bigger deal, regardless of an influx of international players into the NFL or not.
2. American Somoa would be scary!
3. The Championship was an amazing game. Japan had a chance to win it in the first overtime after holding the US to a FG but they were unable to put it into the endzone. Team USA stopped Japan in the 2nd overtime and then USA kicked a FG. The stadium was going nuts for most of the game.
4. The NFL has bought the rights to Team USA games and will air them on NFL Network sometime in the next 3 weeks.
globalgridiron,
Looks like we were both right, and we were both wrong. Either way, I don't think we could have had a better finishing contest for this tournament.
I question Mackovic on a few of the things he did in this competition, but questioning him is not something new.
Thanks for your insight again. Looks like I underestimated the Japanese a little bit, but fortunately, the American team didn't.
Very true, the best game of the tournament was saved for the championship. I'm happy the US was able to pull it out in the end. Thank you for hosting this blog, I look forward to 2011!
any idea where they plan to play the 2011 World Cup???
It's undecided but the U.S. is the leading candidate, as long as USA Football puts in a bid...
size did matter!
size did matter!
size did matter!
USA!
USA!
USA!
Globalgridiron,
So what kind of offense would you compare Japan too? What are the variations of the sets? What plays do they like to run?
They sound a lot like Texas Tech's offense.
I actually went to my local grocery store to watch this as my DIrect TV was not installed yet. That was a great game.
My question to those here, does anyone know if there are any official game posters or products to buy? I couldn't find any online. I really want to get a helmet for my sports case.
If someone can put me in contact that would be great. Please leave a contact in the blog.
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