Before we move on, one more rant about the American's feeble World Cup performance.
The penalty kick call was ridiculous. If that's a penalty, then the refs in the other games have missed a couple of dozen PK calls. However, the play was set up by Bocanegro (I think) sending the ball blindly into the area right in front of his own net. We teach our U8 team not to do that. If he does even a bad job of clearing the ball, the PK opportunity doesn't exist.
Also, knowing that the possibility exists that you might need to win by as many as four goals to advance, why do you start only one forward? Why not start two, or even three. Take a couple of those useless defenders off the field.
Damarcus Beasley took a lot of well-deserved heat for performing poorly, but that play to set up Dempsey's goal was a thing of beauty, and it was one more good thing than US poster boy Landon Donovan did in this tournament.
After watching the Americans flame out against Ghana, and then watching Brazil smoke Japan, I came to the realization that Brazil's players make better passes with the backs of their feet than the Americans do with the front of theirs.
My group picks weren't too bad, but one commenter was quite correct in chastising my picks of the US and Poland. I also missed two others. I had the Czechs and Croatians moving on. Here's my new and hopefully improved knockout stage picks.
A1 Germany over B2 Sweden
C1 Argentina over D2 Mexico
E1 Italy over F2 Austrailia
G1 Switzerland over H2 Ukraine
B1 England over A2 Ecuador
C2 Holland over D1 Portugal
F1 Brazil over E2 Ghana
H1 Spain over G2 France
A1 Germany over C1 Argentina
E1 Italy over G1 Switzerland
C2 Holland over B1 England
F1 Brazil over H1 Spain
A1 Germany over E1 Italy
F1 Brazil over C2 Holland
A1 Germany over F1 Brazil (championship)
C2 Holland over E1 Italy (3rd place)
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2 comments:
The Netherlands-Portugal match will be the one to watch. Coming in to the cup, the Dutch were certainly regarded more highly but Portugal has looked much better.
Germany-Argentina will probably be deciding who goes to the final from that side of the bracket. Argentina has looked incredible but hosts always seem to come up big, as you have picked up on.
As for the US - I don't think anyone was hoping to advance on goal differential. The only way we were truly going to advance was by beating Ghana and Italy beating the Czechs. That being said, we certainly should've played a 4-4-2 (three forwards would NOT work well for this team). Arena's as good as gone. Throughout the tournament he has proved his stupidity... from starting Mastroeni in the first and second games (he likely would've started in the third as well if he had been available), the incomprehensible decision to withhold a sub versus Italy, to sticking with the 4-5-1 throughout, to the utter lack of Eddie Johnson and John O'Brien (who didn't play a single minute).
Netherlands-Portugal was exciting, like a 1-0 baseball game with two bench-clearing brawls and each team leaving 15 men on base.
Germany-Argentina would be a worthy final. It's a shame one won't even make the semis.
As for the US, I wonder how healthy O'Brien really was, and I definitely think we needed to see more of Johnson.
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