This is a fine argument, but you can’t have it both ways. Billy (and all of the USWNT doubters, for that matter) incessantly claim Japan’s “dominant tactics” of lousy defense, hoofing, and praying beat the USWNT in 2011.

This is good Kinja, but I would add that the US is already showing the direction of its evolution when it benches Wambach and Rapinoe. Against China, they looked like the dangerous side that dominated France in the Algarve Cup Final (which not coincidentally also struggled with finishing.) Also like the US-China game,…

Just say, “I didn’t watch the US game” and move on, Billy, if you can’t find something to write about the home team when they played three new starters, pressed high, played the whole game in the Chinese half, and stifled any counterattack. More importantly, Abby Wambach sat on the bench, Carli Lloyd looked…

...Games writer struggles to understand rational actors’ behavior in real-world prisoner’s dilemma...

So does Ridnour just have a ridiculously favorable expiring contract or something?

Oh come on, the Red Sox comparison was sitting there FOR EIGHTY-SIX YEARS and they fucking own the team!

That isn’t why Atlanta moved.

This is rich, given the thorough knobslobbing you gave that piece of shit Fallout Shelter.

Right, like the Olympics?

He’s also deceptively fast and, more importantly, quick. He’s a classic target man.

In a way, the USWNT is the answer to the common lament among some fans that if only LeBron James and Russell Westbrook and Maurice Jones-Drew played soccer instead of basketball or football, then our men’s would obviously be the best. It’s true that we’d undoubtedly be better with access to our entire athletic talent…

Yea, but in one situation, at least my mother never has to know.

The problem with the Oedipus question is that whatever you choose, there’s no coming back. The brain in that body will know which one you chose, even if the Freaky Friday act ends. Some things can’t be undone/seen/felt/fucked. You’re pretty much going to have to replace that person permanently... and I’d rather find a…

I had a scrantron test in high school. It was a solid 40-50 questions, and I realized a few questions from the end that I had screwed up my scantron on like the 5th question and was off by one the entire way. The SOP in high school was to turn the question sheet with your answers marked along with the scantron sheet,…

Alternatively: She’s a fucking head case and always has been.

Why do you want Lloyd anywhere but the bench, though? Next to Wambach, she’s been the worst player on the pitch for us.

It’s a decaying simulacrum of the way I see other people living—seemingly carefree and unburdened

Hey, what did Lana Del Rey every do to you, Rob?

Group games will be worse. Meaningful games (QF, probably R16) will not. With the specific exceptions I noted, most of the group stage will be unwatchable and meaningless, just like this one.

But is Colombia advancing somehow more surprising than Thailand? Neither team really had any expectations, or any chance in the R16. There’s no one missing from the R16, there won’t be any 3-seeds advancing, and only the weakest 1-seed will lose (to arguably the strongest 2-seed.) I suppose there’s a chance that…