Official World Cup 2014 Thread

[wr50l]

Far from vintage from Brazil. Neymar and Oscar were outstanding though. Croatia looks good enough to finish second, especially considering they have Mandzukic for the next two games.

I see that the officials are now 2 for 2 on games influenced with Mexico being jobbed twice in 30 minutes.

[DDRGuido]

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I think the ball might of been better then the header.

1-5 result. Simply amazing. We knew Australia was not going to advance but it will be interesting to see if Chile or Spain get 2nd and have to face Brazil in the KO round.

[Senser81]

Some exciting games thus far. Looking forward to Germany-Portugal this morning. I was hoping Bosnia could pull off the upset against Argentina...they rebounded well from the opening own goal. England played better than I thought they would against Italy, even though they lost. Uruguay losing to Costa Rica has to be a minor upset.

[Senser81]

Typical Portugal flame out so far.

[DDRGuido]

This basically means the US and Ghana control their own destiny. I feel bad for Ronaldo. He might have one more World Cup in him.

[SethMode]

Portugal looks like they just don't give a shit. New cup, same overhyped team that doesn't show up.

[Senser81]

Weird stuff from Pepe. If that had happened in the US, there would probably be a media investigation as to whether or not Pepe had taken money to throw the game. There was really no reason to deliver the head-butt...it wasn't even that subtle. He just walked up to Mueller and head-butted him. Don't understand the indignation of the Portugal players, but they looked pretty crappy even before Pepe was sent off.

[1ke]

Portugal needed their midfield to be much much better. Once they realized they weren't very good, they were down one goal, Hugo was already off for being a knob and not passing Ronny the ball, and then Pepe went all Pepe from 2005. Not shocking from him. Not shocking from Portugal.

All that result did was light up the USA game even more. This game is so much of a must win. If they get three, and after seeing Portugal, things will be looking very very up.

[Fappin Raptor]

You're fucking next Portugal!

[1ke]

Well done USA. Well fucking done!

[DDRGuido]

[Bigpapa42]

Weird stuff from Pepe. If that had happened in the US, there would probably be a media investigation as to whether or not Pepe had taken money to throw the game. There was really no reason to deliver the head-butt...it wasn't even that subtle. He just walked up to Mueller and head-butted him. Don't understand the indignation of the Portugal players, but they looked pretty crappy even before Pepe was sent off.

Pepe has a history of stupid. Some players just react in really really stupid ways. He plays at Real Madrid with Sergio Ramos, who has a lovely tendency to react and get carded.

[Anthony]

Am I the only one who thought the US didn't actually look all that great? I mean yeah, we got the win... but realistically we didn't look that strong. Everyone is cheering about the win and seemingly overlooking the fact that we looked poor. Combine this with the unknown status of Altidore, and I see us really struggling, even against Portugal. I expect Portugal to tell Ronaldo to run at Beasley all game, and frankly that scares the shit out of me. Atsu killed Beasley time and time again. We're also lacking creativity in the midfield. I really like Bradley, but playing him at the tip of a diamond midfield that already plays narrow is not going to cut it. I imagine against Germany we'll line up differently, but if we don't and continue to expect our fullbacks to press forward to provide width, we're going to get crushed in a match that we might really need at least a draw from.

Granted the win gives us a good shot of moving on if we can manage to secure points against Portugal, but I don't really see that as a forgone conclusion at this point.

Props to Tim Howard though, he truly is one of the better keepers in world football right now.

[Senser81]

Am I the only one who thought the US didn't actually look all that great? I mean yeah, we got the win... but realistically we didn't look that strong. Everyone is cheering about the win and seemingly overlooking the fact that we looked poor. Combine this with the unknown status of Altidore, and I see us really struggling, even against Portugal. I expect Portugal to tell Ronaldo to run at Beasley all game, and frankly that scares the shit out of me. Atsu killed Beasley time and time again. We're also lacking creativity in the midfield. I really like Bradley, but playing him at the tip of a diamond midfield that already plays narrow is not going to cut it. I imagine against Germany we'll line up differently, but if we don't and continue to expect our fullbacks to press forward to provide width, we're going to get crushed in a match that we might really need at least a draw from.

Granted the win gives us a good shot of moving on if we can manage to secure points against Portugal, but I don't really see that as a forgone conclusion at this point.

Props to Tim Howard though, he truly is one of the better keepers in world football right now.

Agreed. US looked pretty terrible. I think Ghana 2014 isn't nearly as good as Ghana 2006/2010, and Howard was probably the difference in the game. Neither team had any imagination on offense. Bradley cannot orchestrate from the midfield, his passing is poor and he has no vision. Perhaps he is the best the US has at the moment, but I think he is out of place in that role.

I'm not expecting anything from the US against Portugal or Germany. I think the only way for the US to get a good result from Portugal is if Portugal self-destructs. I figure the Germany game is a loss unless they have already wrapped up the group and are just playing their backups, which still might be a loss anyways. I'm glad for the win against Ghana, but I think its a bad sign when I spend most of the match thinking that the US could really use Landon Donovan.

[SethMode]

I thought that Ghana outplayed the US overall, so you're not the only one (and I didn't think that Ghana played particularly well either). The scoreboard does not properly indicate the amount of stress I experienced from about minute 5 to minute 90.