Brasil 2014

Anyone think the rain really helped the US out there?

USA! USA! USA!

Another overpaid, overhyped Euro bites the dust… Portugal struck out against the US as well in 2002.

Won’t put it past the US to get deep into the second round.

Yeah, it’s hard to see anyone but Belgium winning Group H. They’d have to lose to South Korea, which seems pretty unlikely.

The key game this afternoon is between Algeria and Russia. The Algerians make it through with a draw, but Russia has to go all out for the win. Should be fun.

Was the U.S as bad as the stats show?

Not bad as such, Germany were pretty clinical and didn’t give them much of a sniff. The USA may well get closer to Belgium (But I suspect they’ll need to play at a million miles an hour and out-score them)

Having just seen his goal tonight, it’s the Ghanaian keeper that saved you :wink:

On a lighter note, did anyone see the (somewhat NSFW) tackle from the Portugal/Ghana match?

The better the US gets, the worse it is for everyone else incidentally. A country with a population near that of combined Europe, which is also the worlds richest and most technologically advanced country. If soccer takes off in the US, which its threatening to, I would say the US would be the dominant power in the sport.

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Not bad as such, Germany were pretty clinical and didn’t give them much of a sniff. The USA may well get closer to Belgium (But I suspect they’ll need to play at a million miles an hour and out-score them)
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The analyst where I am watching are saying that the US might just have enough to get past Belgium, but then its some guy called Messi and Argentina in the quarters.

Although a US-Russia match would be…interesting…

Dang, we were so overmatched it wasn’t even funny. Good job, USA, for keeping to only 1-0.

Wouldn’t it be hilarious, though, if Korea beat Belgium and Algeria beat Russia with enough goals to put them in first place? Algeria has 5 goals to Belgium’s 3, so it’s certainly possible.

Go Taeguk Warriors!

The US team for much of the match were caught between limiting Germany from scoring a handful of goals and trying to snatch a goal themselves. It undoubtedly affected the way the game was played.

That is the thing about football, such one-off results are possible.
I’d be happy to see Russia go out, politics and sport shouldn’t mix, but still…

US-Russia match…is it still possible?

By the way, with the Germans and the Brazilians in the same half of the second stage, we are going to have a repeat of 2002, that the best two teams meet early on.

Three of four CONCACAF sides in the WC Finals are in the Group of 16! Who predicted that?

Right now I’d pick France as better than Brazil, Netherlands as well. And Germany are likely to meet France in the quarterfinals!

The thing is, though, that for much of their run so far, that’s exactly what Argentina have been: Messi, and ten other guys.

He has basically dragged them through the group stage single-handedly. Agüero has done nothing, and neither has Higuaín, and a bunch of their other top players have been pretty ordinary.

I’m definitely not counting them out. They have some truly great players, and any team with Messi is always dangerous, but i think they’ll need to improve if they want to keep moving on.

The one where the Ghana player had its pants pulled up and showed that yes, he was wearing underwear? And that there was some dangling stuff around?

Yea, I saw it…

Certainly, there are some potentially more dangerous sides we might have been looking at facing in the quarterfinals, had the groups been drawn differently, such as France, Brazil, or Netherlands.

People are a little overrating how important Howard is to the US, I think. Guzan is nearly as good of a shot stopper and cheats on shots less. The US would have still won CONCACAF without Howard. Not qualify? Please.

The US will be underdogs against Belgium, but it’ll be more evenly matched than this. Certainly not an impossible task.

Any updates on Jozy? The US missed him today.

And no more Brad Davis please.

Germany deserved the 3 points from that match, but the correct 2 teams made it out of the group, IMO. And no injuries, despite the horrible weather and pitch conditions. A good outcome.

Pretty wacky own goal by Ghana. Ate up the defender and then ricocheted crazily off the post and the crossbar before going in, giving the keeper no chance.

This.

No team apart from perhaps France has overly impressed me in this tournament so far. Some of the supposedly best teams(Argentina, Brazil and Germany) have been very weak defensively. Brazil in particular.