The World Cup Thread

Thoughts on Germany-Algeria:

-Loew needs to stop f'ing around with the defenders. Just move Lahm back to fullback. It makes no sense to take your best defender and move him to midfield when 1. defenders are clearly your weakness and 2. midfield is your overwhelming strength. Have at least one defender with pace to track back.

-Neuer is basically playing as a hybrid goalie-sweeper. While its pretty cool to watch, and while he's timing his challenges really well, it's super dangerous and a direct result of the weakness in defense.

-Move Schurrle and Khederia into the starting lineup. Let Khedira play holding midfield. Move Lahm to FB. Drop Howedes and Gotze to the bench.

-Ozil is so f'n frustrating. Offensively, the guy can do everything but finish. Maybe that garbage goal will give him some momentum.

-The lineup I would like to see from Germany vs. France

Neuer
Boateng--Hummels--Mertersacker--Lahm
Khedira--Schweinsteiger
Ozil
Muller--Schurrle

-Amazing performance by Algeria. I totally underestimated them. They were solid in defense while still pressing Germany and creating chances. They literally gave it their all and fought until they were utterly burnt out. A really excellent performance from a team that has clearly made massive progress since the last World Cup.
 
Didnt the player that he sub'd in score a goal for the US? Idk what else they couldve done there in the end and obviously Altidore wasnt healthy enuff. That trick set play was awesome and shouldve tied it at 2. The US made strides but are still far off from the top tiers as far as technical ball control. Belgium owned the play for long stretches...couldve easily put up 4-5 goals.
 
Yeah Julian Green, from the Bayern Munich B team. 19 year old kid whose working with one of the best clubs in Europe. He could be a superstar come 2018.

Overall a valiant performance by the US. Howard was amazing and the defense was staunch against a superior opponent. Skill won out in the end, but the US has to be proud of the way they played in this tournament. However, we need to do a lot better at developing skill before we can consistently contend with the big boys. The past two matches have displayed a severe disparity in skill level.
 
Yeah Green seems very promising...liked what i saw in Yeldin as well.

So it seems the US is or should atleast be trending toward training and taking part in European ways. Klinsman made mention of how the youth of the US goal toward college playing and scholarships etc, while this is good and encouraged, at the same time Euro and other world players have way more intense soccer training during that same 4 year span.

Any insight would be great. Wether this seems practical, how much is the US already invloved with more intense training, other methods or are we never going to catch or keep up with other soccer powers i wonder? For instance, i had no clue that Green was involved in any Euro league play.
 
Europeans have a huge advantage in that their best teenage players can join a youth team that is sponsored by a professional club like Chelsea or PSG (and even some of them go pro), while the best Americans of the same age are stuck playing for their high school or maybe for a youth academy. That's the biggest difference I think.
 
Sure that makes sense. Do we have more and more US born players participating / growing over in Euro...lets say than from a decade ago? I wonder if the focus is more this, or are we concentrating on revamping our own training systems via foreign trainers, methods etc. I know this is a broad topic and lots of money and politics are at play. Im not one of these hack fans who only gets excited when its the WC...just trying to expand my soccer knowledge limited as it may be lol.
 
Super pumped for tomorrow's games! Should be a great quarterfinals.

Germany 2 France 1

Apparently 7 of the Germans have the flu. Depending on how severe and which players, that could be a deathblow. Assuming most players are fit, it will be a great battle in the midfield. Germany will be on the front foot a lot and France will try and counter. I think Germany finds ways to make a few more plays than France.

Colombia 2 Brazil 1

Colombia will put a ton of pressure on that creaky defense and without Gustavo, Brazil lacks a real holding midfielder. Rodriguez and co. will just get too many opportunities. Brazil fall behind and crack under the pressure.

Argentina 1 Belgium 0

The two super talented teams who don't perform up to their skill level and plod along for the better part of the game until Messi does something amazing.

Netherlands 2 Costa Rica 0

If Costa Rica won this game it might be the biggest upset in World Cup history.
 
Germany gets it done...solid! Not the most exciting match, but both sides very effective defensively.

Ive been rooting all along for the Hosts to get knocked off, but they seemed to feed off the crowd and the moment today obviously. Thought we'd see more from Columbia but all in all it was a pretty exciting dynamic game. I just love the post-match commentators ripping Brasil and some weaknesses and they wont show well when they face stiffer opponents etc, yet they just keep on winning.
 
Neymar broke his back and is out. Silva is suspended for being an idiot... it's gonna be tough for them to beat Germany. I honestly don't think Brazil have a lot of elite players and two of them are gone now. Germany, on the other hand, are stacked. They just have to persevere the first 20 minutes when the crowd will be going ballistic.
 
Wow, he actually did fracture vert eh...that sux.

Even if they had all hands on deck, im not sure they get past Germany. Brazil "just keep on winning" comment was in spite of some commentators and up til this point of course. Cro, Chi, Col, are certainly no Germany. Still this should be an interesting match to say the least.

Now seemingly the underdog, i almost want to see Brasil win...atleast against dreaded Germany. The Wife is part Brasilian so wtf lol.

Lets go ARG and CR. Would love to see the huge upset (w/ CR).
 
Germany is the team that made me fall in love with soccer, so I always root for them when they're not playing the US.

I think you can say Brazil "just keep on winning", but the same is true of Germany, Argentina and the Netherlands. None of the favorites have set the tournament on fire. However, talent usually wins out at this point in the tournament and I have a hard time seeing how Brazil are better than Germany, especially minus Silva and Neymar.
 
So is it a heritage thing with you as far as Germany, or just thier style of play, the system, thier success that appeals to you? Just curious.

For me its always been Italy...being my ancestors, heritage etc. An overall iconic successful world cup team, yet ive been disappointed and not a total fan of thier plodding conservative style over the years. So its been frustrating to say the least.
 
Man I really don't want Germany to win. :lol: They are great but too great, if that makes sense. & I've always been a fan of underdogs. The Brasil V. Colombia game was awesome. I was rooting for Colombia (have close friends who are Colombian) but such is life and they played a great game. At this point I'm not sure who to root for… as I like most of the teams quite equally with some preference over Argentina and France.

I'm soo bummed over the Algeria game. They were one of my favorites. However, they got 9 million for it and donated it to help the Palestinians in Gaza.
 
So is it a heritage thing with you as far as Germany, or just thier style of play, the system, thier success that appeals to you? Just curious.

For me its always been Italy...being my ancestors, heritage etc. An overall iconic successful world cup team, yet ive been disappointed and not a total fan of thier plodding conservative style over the years. So its been frustrating to say the least.

Germany hooked me to soccer during the 2010 World Cup. The energy and creativity they played with was totally mesmerizing and made me appreciate a sport of had never previously paid attention to. Then I started following a lot of the clubs they played for.
 
Man I really don't want Germany to win. :lol: They are great but too great, if that makes sense. & I've always been a fan of underdogs. The Brasil V. Colombia game was awesome. I was rooting for Colombia (have close friends who are Colombian) but such is life and they played a great game. At this point I'm not sure who to root for… as I like most of the teams quite equally with some preference over Argentina and France.

I'm soo bummed over the Algeria game. They were one of my favorites. However, they got 9 million for it and donated it to help the Palestinians in Gaza.

Well you've still got Costa Rica left for underdogs, but otherwise it's basically all the pre-tournament favorites.

Algeria gave Germany more of a scare than France, so that says a lot about how good they played. It's rad they donated it to Palestinians.