World Cup

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Played awesome? Are you kidding me? Maybe for a US team, but not on a World Cup level. A few good players a good team don't make. And a good team does not get a goal 30 seconds before the final whistle.

Bye-bye, best 16! Germany will wipe the floor with us. Our only chance is a draw between Portugal and Ghana.
 
I disagree. They persisted. For a US team, they flexed their muscles. As a whole, I still think they looked good. Ronaldo sucked balls. Tons of misses. Great assist on the final goal though. If that last play didn't happen, Portugal would have lost. Came down to the last 5 seconds. Arhh... so close.

Coming back from 0-1 to 2-1 is def. no easy feat in those conditions. I think we may actually go on to the round of 16.
 
That was definitely a great performance. Both goals can be attributed directly to US miscues, especially Bradley and Cameron. The US offense was outstanding and Tim Howard did an amazing job.


Lets just strike a deal with the Germans to keep it a draw.
 
D36A04A8-7303-4078-A54F-A579404400F9_zps3ztjjzmf.jpg

:artist:

:horns:
 
Overall played much better than against Ghana. If not for a couple of defensive miscues, we'd be through already. We'll need to play like that again against Germany if we want to stand a chance though.
 
What in the Sam hell was suzi thinking taking that long at the end of the game??! his ass is the reason they added that extra minute to overtime. You gotta be kidding me with the lack of defense at the end. I thought we had it , and fricken USA gave it away at the end! They should stealthily run down the clock. ... Don't take 50 seconds to walk off the field. God that is frustrating.
 
Funny how we very well might have to cheer for Portugal next game. If we lose against Germany, a Portugal win is probably our best bet to get in (outside of a Portugal-Ghana draw).
 
The only reason we shined today was that this Portuguese team sucks royally, as Portuguese teams go. (Actually most famous teams at this World Cup suck big time.) And Klinsmann is a great coach.

I miss the 24 team-World Cups, without all the "amateur" teams that don't belong there (at least one per group).
 
Portugal is not a good team. They just aren't; I've never gotten the hype. Ronaldo's last second heroic assist notwithstanding, they're done.

Their ass-kicking by Germany was well deserved. They should've lost by several to the US today, and the US is not a really strong side.

Our advancement odds are still good.

Win or draw vs Germany, we're good - but I don't think we can. Maybe a 0-0 draw if every star aligns and Howard has a great game.

If we lose to Germany ... Portugal is still sitting at a -4 goal differential, so they'd have to win + we'd have to lose by 5 total goals. I doubt that. Portugal isn't that good, and I don't think we'll get blown out by Germany.

I think it's more likely that Ghana will beat Portugal, badly, and edge us out of the 2nd place spot by goal differential. Making it 3 World Cups in a row that Ghana spoiled it for the US. :-|

Also, the fact that Germany and Ghana have an extra rest day, AND aren't coming off a game at the terrible venue US/Portugal played at today is a real advantage.

I'm hoping Portugal shows up (that talented ******* Pepe will be back) and draws or beats Ghana.

If Ghana wins by 1 and we lose by 1, we'll still advance (GD of head-to-head match being next tiebreaker).

I'm still betting on the US advancing, and beating the group H winner, before Messi sends us home.
 
Ghana is easily the most athletic team in our group. It just wouldn't surprise me to see Ghana handle Portugal easily. If we come out trying to play Germany to a draw (playing defensively), we will almost certainly lose.
 
pgg said:
If Ghana wins by 1 and we lose by 1, we'll still advance (GD of head-to-head match being next tiebreaker).
Click to expand...

This is not exactly true. The third tiebreaker is total goals scored. If Ghana wins 2-1 and we lose 0-1, Ghana advances. This could easily happen since I expect the other game to be way more aggressive than ours. Ghana winning is bad news for us.
 
I hate to make this prediction because I'm a die-hard US fan, but we won't advance I don't think. Portugal is terrible this season. Ghana will beat them. As for Germany and USA, well the odds are largely in the German's favor of winning. They're strong enough to win the whole thing. The goal difference of 2 will be easily overcome by Ghana's win and our loss to Germany this week.

The 76% chance of US advancement predicted by fivethirtyeight website is hogwash.... just playing into the hands of legalized betting in Asia and Europe. I give the USA team a 15% chance of advancing (of course I hope they do make it).
 
On the plus side, even if the US doesn't advance this year, I think Klinsmann is a fine coach and I trust he'll continue building a great team for future years to come.

Here is an article about Klinsmann "overhauling" the US team.

One of Germany's greats coaching the US team against one of the greatest soccer teams!
 
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Messi.... pops in a nice upper 90.

 
Let's not be too distracted today....

E03B5289-4599-449E-A573-35F8C3726CB6_zpstfduagzz.png
 
Bam! Good stuff. Lost the game, but moving on to the round of 16. Awesome.
 
pgg said:
Portugal came through. I'll take it.
Click to expand...
The US lost that game 1-0, without one of their best players, and by barely possessing the ball in the 2nd half. They looked like they were playing not to lose in this game. I know they were outmatched, but if they play like they did for the Ghana game and 92 minutes of the Portugal game, they should knockout an opponent or two coming up.
 
U-S-A! U-S-A! :happy:

I wonder how far we'll make it in the round of 16 though? We might be able to make it past Belgium. But (assuming Argentina beats Switzerland) I'm not sure we can beat Argentina. Unless something crazy happens like Messi doesn't show up!
 
I think we can take Belgium. Yeah, they put up 9 points in 3 wins, but their group was warm and cuddly, not death-like.

Argentina should beat us.

One game at a time though. 🙂
 
Very surprised at the Germany USA game today. Like always, USA played pretty ugly soccer, with Howard being the game saver. Jones is goin to injure himself and another teammate if he doesn't get his head out of his ass. I'm glad they advanced but holy crap, they are not playing very well. Was impressed with their defense against Germany today though.
 
I liked some of the attacks the USA team managed to set up against the Germans. Boy, sure glad my prediction about not advancing was wrong. Hooray for the USA!! I told myself if we were to advance out of the Group of Death into the final 16 that would be like winning the Cup for us.
 
GoodmanBrown said:
And as a side note, 2 Americans have broken noses this world cup.
Click to expand...

Some of those people who think soccer is mainly a girls' sport don't realize how rough it can get on the pitch! Broken noses, slide tackles (sometimes intentionally with cleats up), Suarez on the prowl, etc.
 
wjs010 said:
Very surprised at the Germany USA game today. Like always, USA played pretty ugly soccer, with Howard being the game saver. Jones is goin to injure himself and another teammate if he doesn't get his head out of his ass. I'm glad they advanced but holy crap, they are not playing very well. Was impressed with their defense against Germany today though.
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Jones looked visibly tired out there on Thursday. His position and style of play are definitely tasking, which is why it could be very good that we play Belgium on Tuesday rather than Algeria on Monday.
 
Mexico had a great game (should have won the game). That PK at the end was a total flop... but the Netherlands had a PK ripped away from them in the first half.
 
Sneijder... sick... f'n goal. Just too good.
 
Awesome game Netherlands. Looking forward to USA on Tuesday!
 
sevoflurane said:
Mexico had a great game (should have won the game). That PK at the end was a total flop... but the Netherlands had a PK ripped away from them in the first half.
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Mexico had a play where they could have had a PK as well earlier in the game. Really didn't make any sense for the ref to reward a penalty at that point of the game.

Either way, I'm ready for tomorrow and after tomorrow. I'm calling an Algeria upset over Germany. They've got a decent offense that could cause some problems.
 
Well played by both African squads today. Not easy to try and topple France or Germany.

And it gets even more impressive when you realize that the Algerian team had 16 out of their 23 players fasting for Ramadan.
 
And german players were running as fast in OT as Lance Armstrong going up the Tourmalet... (just wondering...)
 
dhb said:
And german players were running as fast in OT as Lance Armstrong going up the Tourmalet... (just wondering...)
Click to expand...

Hold on to your seat DHB... we're coming for you...:heckyeah:
 
pgg said:
I think we can take Belgium. Yeah, they put up 9 points in 3 wins, but their group was warm and cuddly, not death-like.

Argentina should beat us.

One game at a time though. 🙂
Click to expand...

I really hope we beat Belgium. That'd be great for American soccer as a whole too. 🙂

I didn't realize this, but someone mentioned to me that Belgium has a good track record of besting us. Apparently they beat us in the last 3 or 4 matches? Not sure if that's true, but if it is then we might have our work cut out for us. Then again, Klinsmann is optimistic and our squad has been performing really well so far.
 
Howard is the man.

We have a chance... albeit a small one.
 
The way we played the last 15 minutes is the way we should have played the whole game. We also missed our chance to put it in the back of the net and win it at the end of the second half. That was our chance. :shrug:
Good show though. We'll get there.
 
Howard was fantastic. Dempsey shouldn't be in the starting team (and that also includes the ***** who could not score from 6 yards in the 92nd minute - this is not the Major League of Suckers).

Overall, a lot of athleticism with little creativity and team play on the American side, so typical for most of the teams at this absolutely crappy World Cup (sorry guys, I am old enough to have seen Maradona or Ronaldo play, and Messi is nothing compared to them).

That's why it's so friggin' unpredictable and "exciting", because most teams are just average, with average twelve-a-dozen players; they would get their asses kicked by any top European club. It's like watching a bunch of kids playing on a European street.
 
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It's the story of our national team. Works hard, fights hard, never gives up, great goalkeeping, can't finish. Might've been different if we had Altidore up top, but the fact that he was the best striker on the roster and we had no good #2 when he went down just underscores our ongoing problem: the US just hasn't ever had a world class goal scorer.

If we had ONE guy who could finish, we'd be in the quarterfinals looking at an Argentina team that (let's face it) really hasn't been inspiring during this tournament.
 
Dempsey's a great player, he's just out of his element when he's asked to play alone up top. I agree we haven't had an elite scorer in...ever... but that's not our only issue. We just can't control the ball for extended periods of time. We were outplayed by 3 out of the 4 teams we played, we were just lucky enough to capitalize on a couple good strikes on the one team we beat (Ghana). You can beat some teams by playing soft and then catching them on the counter-attack, but it's not a recipe for extended success.

We're still a long ways away from being a contender, despite the heart and passion.
 
I wonder if anything would've changed if Landon Donovan was on the team? Probably not.

I think we did a good but not great job. Let's hope Klinsmann can build a better team in years to come.
 
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