I posted the following on an Off Topic Conversation in my homeland of Battle Red Blog

Is I’d love to see the USA team get some of that level of control of the ball that North Korea had. (Ideally, I’d love the control that Brasil had).

Passing
Here’s what I mean. When you watch a team pass the ball. What I HATE to see is this wild, reckless, kicking the ball 3/4 of the way down-field in hopes that one of your team mates gets it. When the Brazilians kicked the ball 1/2 way or 3/4 of the way down-field there was someone from their team who actually got it 95% of the time. Team USA will have to get that level of control to become a contender in my opinion.

The North Koreans and Brazilians were both really good at passing the ball. What was magical about the Brazilians was that they weren’t afraid to be in the midst of 5 N Korean defenders. They knew they could pass the ball amidst the defenders and even if a Korean defender kicked the ball away they kicked it to one of their Korean team mates not just wildly kicking the ball down-field. THAT’S what I was realizing was part of what I consider well played soccer.

Dribbling
There’s still a level of skill that you might have noticed that BOTH the Brazilians and North Koreans had. They were right with the ball. They weren’t kicking the ball ahead and chasing it down. Their dribbling was controlled which allowed them to change direction on a dime. THIS is what makes watching well played Soccer so magical to me. THIS level of control.

Then all the other stuff about passing to the right player at the right time .. that’s all gravy to me. It makes the game more excellent but passing and dribbling NEED to get to the levels of Brazil, North Korea, and Spain.

Watch how these teams dribble and pass and you’ll see what I mean.

I also found this article . which might help with getting a feel for the positions. I didn’t do an indepth search for THE BEST guide to soccer positions. Just thought it might be handy for someone else here.

=) Trust me if/when I see the USA soccer team dribble and pass with the level of control that Brazil and North Korea had .. I’ll be overjoyed =). I saw very little of that in the England vs USA game this past Saturday ;-(. MAYBE they were still adjusting to the new Soccer balls. .. however, if that’s so, why didn’t the Brazil vs N Korea game have the same issues as the England vs USA?

As one analyst said something like , blaming the ball is like blaming your keyboard for bad typing (not the analogy they used but I couldn’t find it in print I heard it on ESPN later)

to the question of is the ball a factor I found an article in vanity fair of all places . . .

blurb from vanity fair regarding the Jabulani ball

Which brings us to the Jabulani: an eight-panel, thermal bonded ball that’s been fit to a mold so the ball shape is completely consistent, from the first ball that’s manufactured to the last. It went through all kinds of research and development testing before it launched last December and was distributed to the various World Cup countries in February.

Adidas even used aerospace software to track the flight of the ball. "We want to make sure the ball flies the most accurately it possibly can—that it’s the most round it can be," Zea says, explaining that thermal bonding reduces the small variation in ball shapes that handstitching could create.

The eight-panel ball also has a striking surface that’s 70 percent larger than previous balls’, and the sweet spot is bigger, too. Adidas’s new Grip’n’Groove technology has been added to the panels to help with wind channeling (to create a more perfect flight), and the ball’s texture makes it play better in different weather conditions.

I know Isaw a commentator on ESPN say SOMETHING to the effect that blaming the ball for bad plays was like blaming your keyboard for bad typing (not the exact analogy from the commentator. The ESPN commentator's comment was MUCH funnier. But the idea was the same).

Anyway, I thought I'd drop by to ask if anyone else was surprised at how well the Brazil Vs N. Korea game went. I really liked it. And I felt like THIS was the caliber of world cup soccer we'd been wanting to see. I can hardly wait to see Spain play.