Landon Donovan: U.S. Expects to Advance Out Of World Cup ‘Group of Death’

I have a feeling that the U.S is looking at 4 points. A win and a draw against Portugal and Ghana (not respectively), and a likely loss against Germany. The first game is a 'must-win' affair. Botch it, and it's "To Russia With Love 2018"....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alltidore

Dempsey, Jones, Feilhaber(??), Bradley, Donovan,F. Johnson, Besler, (NOT Gonzalez), Cameron

 

It's obviously not impressive, but it is deceiving just to look at the score. Portugal lost to Russia away from home with a terrible defensive mistake, when it had more goal chances. The same thing happened with Israel in both matches. Especially, in the game at home Israel only scored due to an offer by the goalkeeper. If this weren't the case, then Portugal would have qualified in the first place. And it beat Russia at home, anyway. The only terrible match was Northern Ireland at home.

The problem is that those defensive mistakes seem to stem from a lack of concentration/motivation. This happened in 2010/2012 with Denmark and in 2008 with Poland. None of these teams seemed to be better, but they were more consistent. However, in all three instances Portugal did better in the main competition. No defensive mistakes were made, which leads the majority of us who know this team (and the Portuguese mentality) that, unless under pressure, they do not give everything they can. Portugal is still a team with flaws under these circumstances, but not as bad as the results in the qualifiers lead others to believe. I think you should take that into consideration. For instance, no one believes that a team that forced Spain to a PK shootout in the semi-final of Euro 2012 and beat Netherlands in the group stage is not capable of beating Cyprus and Northern Ireland. Those were two sets of matches, under completely different circumstances. The question you should be asking is whether the Portugal from 2014 will show a similar improvement in its performance from the qualifiers to the main competition. It already started well by beating Sweden in a convincing manner, regardless of the influence of Ronaldo. It remains to see how well prepared the players will be.

 

I have little confidence in making it out of the group. I want to drink some koolaid with everyone on here, but I've been continually burned by believing in "my teams" throughout my life. I've been Charlie Brown too many times. I'm not going to let Jurgen be Lucy this summer.

The realities are:

We have the least talent of the group on a man for man basis.

We will likely have at least one, if not two starters on defense that aren't normally defenders by trade.

Our 2nd best player has had his worst year in a long time in 12-13, and in limited minutes in England, that looks to continue.

Our #1 striker is a falking headcase with no apparent urgency to find the net. His touch has deserted him, and his confidence is looking for bottom at the Marianas Trench.

One of our starting mids is also a headcase that lacks positional discipline and good decision making. He also appears to be on a rapid descent in his career.

Our 2 west wide players may not even be played in wide offensive positions (LD, FJ).

And last....not to open this can of worms, but..........I still quesiton our staff's roster selections, starting lineups, and starting tactics. He tends to get the end of the game right. He gets the 1st half wrong too often. That cannot happen in Brazil.


For these reasons, I choose to go in with expectations of 1 or 2 points out of the group. Anything more is gravy. I'm prepared to see the American Eagle squirt out a big fat egg this summer.

 

As World Cup 2014 approaches, I am certainly glad Landon Donovan (and the team as a whole, most likely) is more confident than Fanatical Monk.

 

If your skeered, get a dog.

 

We just put our two dogs down. I'm out of the dog biz for good. I'm done buying and paying maintenance on guaranteed future family tragedies.

I'm just hedging my emotions. I have extensive personal experience pulling for the underdog. My heart says APPLE PIE, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, BBQ RIBS, USA MOTHERSCRATCHER!

My brain keeps saying "ASAMOAH GYAN, ASAMOAH GYAN, ASAMOAH GYAN

me too. I'll be ecstatic to be wrong. I have no problem admitting I'm wrong (contrary to what you may hear from certain women in my life). You wont see me around here strutting and quoting myself if I'm right. This divulging is for cathartic purposes. It feels good to finally put in out there into the ether.

 

And I keep telling myself (admittedly, perhaps rather foolishly) that even if things go wrong on June 16 vs Ghana (and I actually do think the USA will be good for 1 or 3 points in that match), the USA will have a very decent shot at taking points (and maybe even enough points to advance) from their UEFA opponents, who just might not find it all that easy to play specifically in the Amazon/tropical climate and against this USA squad.

 

I am also of the opinion that the climate will play against Germany and Portugal, relative to USA and Ghana. WC 2002 taught us that lesson. The real problem is not the heat, but the humidity. Nowhere in Europe can you find a climate similar to that of Manaus, for instance. Portugal and Spain can get hot in the summer, but it is always dry.

 

I think that the teams and the order of games makes points veerrry hard to predict results for our group, so I've started to think in terms of goal differential. Tournament soccer reliably produces some unforeseen outcomes, so it would take a lot to truly shock me. But I'd be pretty darn surprised if the US's GD for the group ended up being worse than -5 or better than +4. And my gut tells me that if this group stage were to play out a million times, our average goal differential would be about -2 (0.0ish vs. Ghana, -0.7ish vs. Portugal, -1.3ish vs. Germany). And note that a -2 GD could easily mean anything from 1 point to 4 points.

 

Fwiw, a projected -2 GD could also equate to 6 points in the group.

And a -3 GD could mean 0 points.

(Although those may be unlikely or outlier possibilities.)

Not that projecting GD achieved across 3 games is any easier or better for the discussion than would be trying to predict total points earned from those 3 games.

 

That's why I said "easily."

I disagree. It's still guesswork, of course. But over three moderately competitive games, goal differential is more likely to reflect the quality of the games than is the total number of points because getting three points for a win is more likely to exaggerate the gap between relatively competitive teams than it is to artificially reduce it. For example, I'd be pleased but not shocked if we ended up with a +3 GD. But I would be really shocked by getting 9 points (which could plausibly happen with a +3 GD--and if we do get 9 points, the GD likely will be pretty close to 3 because we're unlikely to blow any of these teams out, much less all of them).

 

I would absolutely be shocked by a +3 GD for the US during Group G's matches at WC2014.

Although, per this thread, I would not be all that surprised if the US managed to advance -- with 4 or 5, or maybe even 6 points -- from Group G.

But I imagine even if the US did advance, it would very likely be with a GD of only +1 or +2, or even possibly with 0 or some not excessively negative GD.

 

If you have inclination of being a realist, you have to face the facts that we have drawn three teams that, on any given day have a very decent chance of beating us.

In general, the US needs some pretty good breaks to get thru in the WC, but so do most teams. It would have been nice to play Cyprus, Belize and Tonga in the WC, but sadly they are not in our group.

Anyone who is confident (outside of a rabid-fan-coach-player position) is just BSing.

That said, we can beat any one of those teams on the right day with the right bounce. We just got to pray harder and sacrifice more virgins!

 

I know it's a YMMV question, but I wouldn't be shocked by (e.g.) a 2-0 win over Ghana, a 2-1 win over Portugal, and a 1-1 tie against Germany. I'd be pleasantly surprised but not shocked. (I also wouldn't be shocked to lose the first two by the opposite scores.)

I guess my point is that probably most of us would be unsurprised by a GD in the range of, say, -2 to 2. Maybe we'd even say that's more likely to happen than not. But it's just harder to know how many points will come out of that.

I'll leave it at that, though. Whatever approach any of us takes will be some form of guesswork based on a blend of emotion, intuition, and analysis, and none of us has any good reason to be sure whether or how the US will advance.

 

Agreed with that. Across three (assumed to be and hopefully) competitive games, some of that GD might tick up or down across the 270 minutes of play. And finishing within the -2 to +2 GD range seems like a reasonable guess.

And I'd suggest that a -3 GD would be far more likely than a +3 GD for the US.

Getting out of the group will require getting more points than 2 of the other 3 teams in the group. (Or some equal number of points and a tie-breaker.)

And yes, GD could be a deciding/tie-breaking item. But I'd hope/guess that the staff and players are trying first and foremost to gather points from each of their three games in the group, rather than worrying too much about GD or planning/hoping to go through via tie-breaker.

 

Oh, sure. I just gave up on trying to guess what the points would be or whether we'd advance.

I feel (somewhat) more comfortable about my guesses as to goal differential. The sad thing is that GD tells us very little about advancement.

 

Sure, but your initial guesses were so broad and almost all-encompassing as to almost be meaningless, imo.

Very few teams at the WC are likely to finish outside of those GD ranges across their first 3 games.

And the US (as a "#10-20 ranked" team internationally) will very likely (or hopefully) fit toward the middle of that range.

The US certainly doesn't have a history of racking up +2 GDs across World Cup group stages.

And if the US gets knocked out at the group stage, I'd say it does have a fairly decent chance (as was the case in 2006) of finishing with a GD worse than -3. (And even in that group in 2006, the US managed to keep the GD at 0 versus the eventual WC winner.)

As you note, "GD tells us very little about advancement." Especially as evidenced by the US winning their group in 2010 with that massive +1 GD.

The key to any WC is to just get out of (or scrape through) the group, by whatever means. And then in the knock-out matches try to get a positive GD in each of those games (if/as they arrive).

 

I agree that Germany and our Germ-American players will be hit hard, just remember back to the first Honduras game. I think in this WC we will need to rely more on our one time Domestic players, players that have a history of not being affected as much by the heat/humidity. Players that come to mind are EJ, JA, Beckerman, Cameron, Edu (if he still around)

 

Shame the rival most likely to be affected by the weather (Germany) is also the strongest, to the point they may still be unbeatable in the heat.

 

They also don't play games in the summer... games in Spain also tend to be very late at night, so even when it is hot, the temps have cooled off.

Not sure about Portugal.

 

In Portugal, there are 3/4 matches per weekend late in the day but the rest is played at 4/6pm of Sunday. This is done until late May and not before late August. So, it is not entirely strange for Portuguese players to face 25-30ºC although it's still difficult for them. However, the real problem is humidity combined with hot temperatures.

 

USA can advance from the group (with or without a result specifically against Germany).

An "unbeatable" Germany (supposedly) is also limiting the number of points that Ghana and Portugal can each take from the group, as well.

 

Not getting my hopes up for advancing. My main hopes:

Beat Ghana.
Donovan having a great tournament, might be his last WC. We'll miss him.
Staying competitive in each game.
Seeing one or two players have surprisingly strong tournaments.

 

imo, "Donovan having a great tournament and one or two players having surprisingly strong tournaments" likely means (and/or is dependent upon) the USA getting past the group.

(It is very unlikely, imo, that anyone will say that Donovan -- or any US player -- had a "great tournament" if the USA doesn't get to the knockout round. And pretty much rightly so, as having a great tournament isn't regularly credited to players on teams that played but three group stage matches.)

 

It's a shame that the two stronger teams in the region, USA and Costa Rica, got the hardest groups, while the two weaker sides got the easier groups.