Meatballs gonna meatball. Quaresma & Co are solid. Not spectacular. They aren't going to run riot on anything.
What? Underestimate the US all you want; I've seen Portugal's NT play enough this cycle to know that they're good, but they're not some world beating monster that's going to blow us off the park. They have 2 guys we have to worry about. The rest of them are good, but not amazing. The game is going to be played in the middle of the rainforest, in a hot, humid craphole. It's not going to be joga bonita. We'll have every opportunity to get a result there.
That's just the thing isn't it. I have to question how much football anyone watches when they assume an easy victory for a team full of all stars that takes on another team full of professionals. Particularly when you are talking about international football where team chemistry is by no means a given over the course of a few weeks. It's as if some people hadn't seen one of these international tournaments before. 2002 is just an example. In fact I'm willing to put money on the fact that at least one or two highly regarded European squads, whether they are seeded like Belgium or not like Portugal, will flame out spectacularly in June. Four years ago we had Italy and France crap the bed. Eight years ago the Czech Republic. 12 years ago Portugal, Argentina and France. It reminds me, quite frankly, of US fans heading into the World Cup Qualifying Hex who assumed we were going to blow Honduras off the park because our players are supposedly better.
But Portuguese don't see the US as Honduras. The general consensus is that the group is difficult but people tend to believe basing on recent performances that the team usually performs better when facing stronger opponents. In 2002, they clearly underestimated the difficulty of the group. I'm pretty sure they won't do it this time. Though, the weather will play a role like it did in Korea, and a significant number of key players have been recently injured for long periods or are simply not at their best.
No doubt Portugal is favored to go through for a reason. And chances are, even though some fancied team is likely to fail, it won't be Portugal. But, as you say, people who actually follow the game are generally are more circumspect about their teams chances when favored given the reasons you cited among others.
World Cup matches are nervy affairs, with a lot more extreme care than pretty play. Let's keep in mind it's the 'civilized' equivalent to warfare, and most countries around the world take the FIFA WC very seriously. So everybody is worried about not making mistakes. That's probably the biggest priority: don't make mistakes that will cost you, and your family, years of shame and perhaps even violence. So teams come out with the holes plugged, so they don't get screwed early (something the USA has often failed to do, due to a lack of solid defenders and defensive mids --in comparison to what other teams bring). Portugal, in a way, is similar to the USA in that: their attacking options have always been better than their defensive options, so they have opted often for an "attack is the best defense" view of the game. Yet those defensive weaknesses is why they are often qualifying in play-offs, not straight away. The ideal way to counteract them is to show them they have no open venues to spread the field in attack. Portugal is shut from the sides in. After that, countering is the best tool to hit them hard. The way the USA used to play back in the day, bunker + counter, is the ideal formula to beat the Portuguese even now. If JK tries to play the passing game, pushing sets of players forward to generate attack, considering our defensive options, he'll be playing right into their hands. Move Beasley and Cameron forward, next thing you know you got Nani, Ronaldo, Quaresma, Varela, Pizzi, etc. (they got a true embarras de richesses in what respects wingers) coming down fast on the sides, and you get a 4 vs. 2 or 4 vs. 3 that will end with Howard executed point blank. I think the Portugal match is winnable, with good coaching. Their central defense is noting to write home about: Ricardo Costa, Pepe, Veloso, Ruben, etc. are not the sort of guys to turn on a dime, and they accelerate rather slowly. Israel played them to perfection, and were unlucky not to beat them in Lisbon (the last 20 minutes the Portuguese could only stop them with fouls). All they did was secure the wings and press through the middle in counters. Not the typical American counters, that happened mainly on the sides, but counters through their slowest part: the center of the field. That's a formula the Israelis perfected from their first game, in Tel Aviv. In the end, Portugal couldn't beat them in 180 minutes of play, and were close to losing the second match.
All do respect sirthat isreal team gave everyone a hard time in the group amd they are rather good ben basat and bibras are no joke And portugal has a history with the jews that spans centuries
I must add that Clint Dempsey is going to be a big part of the United States team I've been following him since he played New England
Your perception is very skewed. Our central defense is nothing to write home about? You realize Pepe has been one of the best ceneterbacks in Europe this year right? He plays and starts for a team called Real Madrid? Ricardo Costa is a captain for Valencia, a team in the semi-finals of the Europa League. Veloso is not a cente rback and neither is Ruben. For the amount I see USMNT fans speak, it seems they are very, very misinformed on a variety of topics. Think about how in the history of your national team, you never had anyone come remotely close to that. And he's arguably not even the Top 3 best players on our team.
Pepe runs hot and cold. There have been months when the RM fans groaned seeing him in the line-up. Of late he's been doing fine, although having him and that other dunce* Ramos together as CBs is not always the best decision. By "central defense" I don't mean just the CBs, but the DMs and the CMs covering the CBs. Veloso and Ruben were in those roles against Israel. --- * While Pepe and Ramos are both solid defenders, neither is particularly smart, and need the guidance of Alonso or Casillas. Having two rather dumb guys as CBs is never a good idea, IMO. With Real Madrid, of course that is masked, because of the amount of creativity and intelligence in the rest of the team.
No, he doesn't. Our center backs play and start for the following clubs: Real Madrid, Valencia, Zenit and Fenerbahce. That's four teams who have all been in the knockout stages of the Champions League recently. We were the last team to suffer a goal at the World Cup in 2010, and it was an offsides goal to Spain. In 2012, we held Spain out to 0 goals right before they shipped 4 past Italy. Our defense is fine. Veloso and Ruben are probably not even going to go. Ruben is injured and Veloso is going to lose his spot to William Carvalho and Fernando who are unarguably the two best defensive mids in the Portuguese league and will not be in Portugal next season. Your perception is skewed by a lack of information.
Idont know if it factored but I do know many on that team are sephardic jews and qualify for Portuguese citzenship and that is a source of motivation for some of them I no I do not know and many portuguese people re of jewish descent
Please, I get your point but don't be naive. These players play at the best teams in Europe and have been in all sorts of situations with the national team. This isn't 2002. We jumped up to 'Powerhouse' too quickly and arrogance cost us, very, very dearly. This is not the case anymore.
my friend they dont have any clue about portugal except for ronaldo soon they will learn about quaresma etc
And yet you still couldn't win your UEFA qualifying group, not at all arrogantly dropping points to international powerhouses Israel (twice!) and Northern Ireland. Who doubtless all have players at Bayern Munich or something by your logic.
Dude, Ricardo Quaresma kind of sucks. Of all the good players in your side that you could name (Moutinho?), you're naming the guy that has bounced around and got released from Al-Ahli.
Unlike club matches, where the guys know each other well, and can map the position of their mates easily because they practically eat and sleep together, the international game is 60% about coaching. That's how 'weak' teams like Israel can push 'strong' teams like Portugal to having to resign themselves to the play-off. I'm convinced the USMNT, with good coaching, can beat this bunch. On paper, yeah, they are better player-by-player. But this is not a club match. If JK outsmarts Bento, the game is for the taking.
Not by much. The odds I trust the most are Nate Silver's predictions. The man is a wizard at using data and statistical analysis to generate incredibly reliable predictions. He has the odds of Portugal advancing at only slightly higher than the US's chances. http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1639248/spi-world-cup-group-stage-projections?cc=5901 these are dated at 6 December though. I'm not sure if they've updated them based on recent news, form, etc.
It's actually quite good if you understand statistics. The problem is what he is measuring. It's very difficult to quantify a question such as "who will advance from a World Cup group." He uses the best data available, but he still arrives at what amounts to a coin flip with probably a large margin of error. Maybe he underestimates Portugal, but he is basically saying that he thinks Germany will go through and someone else, nobody really knows between the three of the US, Ghana and Portugal. Part of the problem is that his election predictions are based on data that is actually very rigorous. So he can make a claim about who will win a particular state with a high degree of certainty, and get it right for all 50 states (Florida was a bit lucky as that was a coin flip). But based on his success with "getting every state right" and a failure to grasp statistics, people are misinterpreting what his World Cup odds are really telling us.