Germany and England got the toughest group I think .
I feel bad for the US too…LOL
Mexico always makes it through the first round. As bad as they’ve been recently, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them do so again.
Germany and US will go through. Ronaldo is absolutely unstoppable right now, but I remember 2002 when Portugal had Luis Figo, Rui Costa etc and the US beat them. Portugal look a bit brittle and with any luck the US can beat Ghana this time.
I feel good this year up against Ghana. Yeah, they pretty much made us their bitch (well, they and the refs) the last two cups, but we didn’t have the X-factor then – Klinsmann.
Of course, Germany and Portugal will probably re-bitchify us, but, eh, whaddayagonnado?
Israel held Portugal twice and Israel is nowhere near the quality of the US.
The FIFA circus continues. After two years of sticking to their schedule…
FIFA changes start times for 7 WC games, including USA-Portugal
What’s next?
Getting out shot, out possessed, and winning in OT is making the US their bitch?
<looks at Group B>
<giggles>
Random draw is random I guess. USA looks to have got a tough group but it could have been worse.
Well, the key-word there is “winnning”, so … half-a-bitch, anyway.
I dont see what the big deal is, they’ll get much higher TV viewing audiences this way.
Would you rather have the US play their games while everybody is at work and unable to watch??
Making another team your bitch implies domination, not barely eking out a win.
Not just how far; look at where they’re travelling to: Manaus, Recife, and Natal. IOW, as I see it, the three hottest (temperature/humidity wise) venues in the Brazil WC. Yeah, playing in 85 degrees/75% humidity isn’t going to take it out of the U.S. team, compared to playing in say, Porto Alegre or Curitiba. FIFA couldn’t have screwed the U.S. over harder if they’d tried.
Nice they moved England - Italy. Now instead of kicking off at 2am London time, it will kick off at 11pm. That game is going to be insane in the pubs and clubs here - everyone is going to be hammered before kick off. I’ll bet the police will be hoping for an England win simply so as to hopefully keep a lid on it.
Didn’t they do the same for some games in Japan/Korea? Although in that case it was more like moving games from 9am UK time to midday.
Of course the problem is that some of the games, including Italy - England, are getting moved earlier in the day to suit TV audiences, when it will be quite a bit warmer. Could be upper 20s Celsius at the new kick-off time in Manaus.
England have a very good record against Italy (as opposed to Germany).
I think you guys can pull off an “upset” perhaps
I’m afraid we don’t have much of record against Italy. We don’t play them very often, for one thing. I think we’ve only beaten them once in a serious match, a World Cup qualifier many moons ago.
According to FIFA stats England have an overall record of 8 Wins, 9 Losses and 7 Draws. Thats not half bad. Its a lot better then Germany, thats for sure
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/headtohead/team1=eng/team2=ita/index.html
We’ve not beaten them in a competitive match since 1978 and 5 of our 8 wins came before 1976. If England can get a draw in the game v Italy, that is a good result for us.
It’s true that Germany’s record is worse, although again competitive matches between the two are rare because they’re almost always seeded. Germany’s record is Played 8, Won 0, Drawn 4, Lost 4. England’s is Played 7, Won 1, Drawn 2, Lost 4, and one of those draws is when they knocked us out of Euro 2012.
I think thats doable. Pirlo aint getting any younger, and maybe Balotelli has an off-day.
Interesting enough, Italy has never beaten Holland in major tournaments. They did tie us 0-0 in Euro 2000, and then beat us on penalties. They’ve also never scored a goal against Holland.
We beat them 2-0 in 1978
Drew 0-0 in 2000
And beat them again 3-0 in 2008