OT: World Cup Day 15 Open Thread
Posting early because interesting news out of the Ghana camp:
#GHA crisis: Muntari & Boateng fought 2 days ago, which spilled over to Boateng insulting the coach when queried about it. #clubmetro
Reliable Twitter sources are saying that Kevin-Prince Boateng and Sulley Muntari have both been booted from the Ghana team. Muntari was out today anyway due to suspension but bad news for Ghana and says something about the potential state of their camp. Bad news for Ghana is good news for the USA. A Ghana win is the last thing U.S. fans should want to see from their game.
Anyway here's the schedule today:
12:00 PM
USA vs. Germany (ESPN)
Portugal vs. Ghana (ESPN2)
4:00 PM
Algeria vs. Russia (ESPN2)
Belgium vs. South Korea (ESPN)
I don't know about Germany winning it all . . . I'm not sold on their defense. The four center back alignment is going to catch up to them at some point, I think.
Any Korean win would be HUGE for USA playing Russia instead of Belgium. Belgium playing without a couple starters looks like they could be had on counter attacks today.
We can't play Russia. It's either Belgium (who currently has 6 points) or Algeria (3 pts). Russia (1 pt) and Korea (1 pt) can only finish second at best.
I'm not sure how big a break it would be to play Algeria. They've looked good this tournament. They lost to Belgium in the final minutes but outplayed them for long stretches, then dominated Korea.
EDIT: moot point now, since Belgium just scored.
Russia cannot win the group. We would need Algeria to win to avoid Belgium.
Belgium it is
The were a team with a lot of hype coming in, and one could argue that they haven't exactly lived up to that strong hype. This is a game that the US can win, as Belgium isn't the attacking side like Ghana or Germany. The US will have chances in this one, and need to capitalize.
for the first time in their history isn't living up to the hype?
They won all three, but only led for about 30 minutes total in the three games. They scraped each one out.
Algeria will finally get a chance at revenge for 1982. Great matchup.
Group Stage done. Knockout round bracket is:
Brazil-Chile vs. Colombia-Uruguay
vs.
France-Nigeria vs. Germany-Algeria
--------------------------------------------------
Netherlands-Mexico vs. Costa Rica-Greece
vs.
Argentina-Switzerland vs. Belgium-USA