Being on vacation for the last week allowed me to catch up on games. Thank you TiVo. As for the KO stage,
bracket 1: I said Argentina will come out of this one and I'm sticking with it. Although Germany will give them a tough test. This can really go either way....
bracket 2: I'm personally glad Italy eliminated Australia, but you know why because of my bias ;-) - Shockingly, I think the Ukraine-Switzerland game was one of the better games of the Cup, but Ukraine pulls it off by PK. Italy should win this group
bracket 3: Again, as much as I like England, they're basically riding on Beckham's foot. I think their run ends vs Portugal a few days from now. But man, what a carded game that was between Portugal-Holland. The story of this Cup, unfortunately, will be the refs. Warn them, THEN card them! An instant red card is simply unheard of unless if it was something blatantly obvious (de Rossi's elbow on McBride causing blood)
bracket 4: Starts today, but I think Brazil will win this group. I'm sure everyone's inspired by Ghana....what's ironic is you have the most carded team (Ghana) playing the least carded (Brazil). That MAY go against Brazil but for the life of me, I can't see Ghana beating them. And then.....I don't think Spain nor France has a chance vs Brazil. Possibly Spain but their ghosts will come back.
Yep, I'm plaing it safe and I see Argentina vs Italy and Portugal vs Brazil. Although this ain't scientific....predicting soccer games is almost guessing.
As for the US: keep Eddie Johnson, Bobby Convey, DaMarcus Beasley, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, Oguchi Onyewu, Carlos Bocanegra, Pablo Mastroeni, Tim Howard and build them. The rest of the roster? We'll find out for the next 4 years. There are plenty of players in Europe (EPL) that should be noticed as well as Adu and Twellman. I know their magical #5 ranking is probably gonna tank after this World Cup.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I think the Germans can do it. If Pavel Pardo can control the midfield against Argentina, surely Michael Ballack can do so. Plus, Germany has proven finishers and home field advantage. I'd have gone with Argentina too, but they didn't perform so hot against Mexico, relying on an own-goal and a beautiful (and kinda lucky) golazo from Maxi.
Ukraine does not deserve to be where it is, it's only there due to crap draws and luck. Italy will easily beat them.
Portugal played a great game against Holland. Holland fell a few notches in my book with that thuggish display. Without Deco, though, they will have a tough time. I think Portugal will win since England has been relying on luck and poor play from the opponents to advance this far. I hope Cristiano Ronaldo can play. He's kind of a crybaby, but I felt bad for him after he took that vicious tackle from van Bommel.
I wouldn't write France off against Brazil. Vieria has been playing superbly, and Zizou has demonstrated flashes of the brilliance that won '98. Plus, Ribery looks like he is catching on fire now. If Henry has a good game, and Vieria/Zizou can control the midfield the way Appiah did, then Brazil will lose. Especially if Brazil plays crappy soccer like they did against Ghana. If both Brazil and France show up though, man, I think this game will be better than the Germany-Argentina game.
For US, I think the key will be developing a good controlling midfielder. At this moment, that's gotta be Adu (although if JOB is fit, he's good too). Mastro's good defensively, but we need a creative force in the midfield. We also need to groom some quality finishers. EJ needs more experience and get Twellman groomed up top as well. We also need Clint to make the transfer to Europe, and Gooch to get on an EPL side. I like a backbone of Gooch at D, Mastro/Adu or Mastro/JOB at mid, and whoever is our solid striker up top, be it Twellman or EJ. Whatever the case, we need two things most: a creative, controlling midfielder and a proven finisher.
Yeah, again, I can see the Germany-Argentina game going either way. If we're going strictly by what we saw in the 1st Rd, I'm gonna go with Germany, but I like to make my decisions final and I'm still sticking with Argentina.
I agree with Ukraine. Good draws will get you far. They get destroyed by Spain but they get lucky since their next opponents were Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. Then they get Switzerland who can't get goals and won't allow goals...Italy should take care of them. If Ukraine wins, that'll be an upset in my book.
Portugal should get the nod over England. England is another team that's just......there. They get by Paraguay by an Own Goal, they get by Trinidad and Tobago literally at the last minute, they tie Sweden for the millionth time, and they get by Ecuador with a PK. I think Portugal will end their run.
Brazil vs France is same case for me when it comes to Germany vs Argentina. I'm still sticking with Brazil, but France can win this one with yesterday's performance.
it's ironic that you mention US players need to go to EPL. I agree, but it seems like most Americans (particularly ones that support MLS) disagree. Let's face it, they can rely on 2002 all they want - the US got the "Ukraine" treatment in 2002. Get lucky vs Portugal since they overlooked them, tied South Korea, lose to Poland, beat Mexico which was somewhat surprising, then lose to Germany. It's all about who you're paired with.
For me though, they really need to keep their eyes on (long list): Taylor Twellman, Freddy Adu, Zach Thornton, Eddie Gaven, Alecko Eskandarian, Santino Quaranta, Nick Rimando, Nick Garcia, Bo Oshoniyi, Pat Noonan, Edson Buddle, Matt Jordan, Clint Mathis, Kevin Hartman, Nelson Akwari, Matt Reis, Jon Busch, Joe Cannon, Danny Szetela, Quavas Kirk.
keep building up Eddie Johnson, Pablo Mastroeni, Clint Dempsey, DaMarcus Beasley, Tim Howard, Oguchi Onyewu, Landon Donovan, Carlos Bocanegra, Bobby Convey, Cory Gibbs, and Josh Wolff
And there are a load of players internationally, Denmark (Heath Pearce), England (Jonathan Spector, Zak Whitbread, Danny Karbassiyoon), Germany (Conor Casey, Benny Feilhaber), Mexico (Sammy Ochoa), Holland (Lee Nguyen), Norway (Nat Borchers, Adin Brown, Danny Califf, Ramiro Corrales, Robbie Russell, Brian West).
I'm sure there are plenty more players that I missed but US needs to start developing. Overall, US suffered in 2006 for many reasons, they seemed very conservative and lack of intensity at times, better midfield/tactical play, poor finishing, and frankly poor refs, tough draw, and "friendly" opponents
I gotta go with Germany here - but I think it will all hinge on how well the Argies play their game. If Riquelme's distribution is stifled by Ballack and Frings, Germany will win. If Riquelme can give service to Crespo, Messi, Tevez, etc., then Germany is screwed. It might be a high scoring, exciting match though.
Most people think that MLS is a quality league, but in reality, it's just a decent development league. The pace of the game is slower than the minor leagues in Europe even. I think only a couple times have we managed to have an MLS team win a Champion's Cup. We should have more interleague play with Mexican League squads, and maybe more of these European tours in the US to help our league along. I'd like to see us pick up aging stars like Beckham, Ronaldo, etc. to help out. We picked up Djorkaeff, mebbe we can get Zizou? That would rock. Meanwhile, we should try to farm our really young talent into the youth development programs in Europe also. I think JOB is an Ajax product.
Yep, '02 is a distant memory. I think we had the benefit of being a surprise team - not like Ukraine, who teams actually had a bit of worry about playing due to Shevchenko. In '02, we managed to beat Portugal and then got lucky and got set up with Mexico in the round of 16, and Mexico is a team whose number we have. We did have an inspiring performance against Germany, similar to our performance against Italy. We just do well when we are considered underdogs. The Czechs were ready for us, and we didn't have the underdog mentality, so they kicked our rears. Really, we just need a creative midfielder and a solid finisher. We're good at defense, but terrible on offense.
I don't think we need to start developing - we're already on the right track. It's just we're Americans, impatiently expecting results within just one or two World Cup cycles. We've actually come a veeeery long way from 15 years ago, when we were just a bunch of amateurs. We already as good as Mexico, a country where soccer has been king for many decades. I think even with soccer as a third or fourth tier sport, we'll be good enough to be a, say, 50% round of sixteen-er in the next four World Cups, depending on how other countries develop.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
England going home...fitting ending to a crap team!
Allez les Bleus! ZIZOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a game. I hope France wins it all. No team is playing better as a team than France...such poise, class, and professionalism!
What if England had won? Then we'd have the two Euro axis powers and the two Euro allied powers duking with each other to see who would represent in an ultimate match of Axis vs. Allies!
France is definitely playing well. I think I see a Germany vs France finals. But unfortunately for France, I really think after the Argentina game, Germany is playing the best soccer right now. Like France in 1998, home field is going a long way.
Post a Comment