This isn't a criticism of your excellent work, but opponent quality really makes any surface level comparisons between our stats and the rest of the teams in the tournament pretty tenuous. What would be especially interesting is to compare our Germany, Portugal, and Belgium games to the games of each of those three's opponents. In other words, control for the opponents in the comparison by looking at our deviation from, for example, the averages from the games of Ghana, Portugal, Algeria, France, Brazil, and Argentina against Germany.
I don't necessarily agree with all of this -- but it's nicely put together: Also: Every Dive from WC 2014 A 'smorgasbord of deceit' as "WhoAteAllthePies" called it.
I think #15 for us is quite fair. If anything, I think Algeria is better than us right now. On neutral ground, they'd beat us 6 out of 10 times, so to speak. And Costa Rica is even better. Yes, we topped the Hex, but the Ticos played the best soccer in the area. They just didn't seem to care enough about getting as many points as possible. And, after all, winning the Hex doesn't get you anything.
Eh, I like Algeria and CRC just fine, but I don't think you'd find many neutrals who think they are better than us. I think you're being a little too humble here about our quality.
SIAP Seems Ozil is a classy guy, didnt;' ahve the greatest of tourneys but nice gesture. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/socce...anks-for-world-cup-hospitality-004617079.html
For whatever is worth, I think the only teams not in the WC that deserved to be there among the Top 32 were Ukraine, Paraguay, Sweden and perhaps Senegal, and we're better than all of them. So we're the legitimate #15 in the planet. It's not small potatoes.
Ozil also donated 200,000 of his WC earnings to Gaza after a child was killed wearing his jersey. https://www.facebook.com/GolTV/phot...01977485505/10154358867985506/?type=1&theater Classy guy.
Were the FIFA ranking to be used for a Copa America, right now the pots would be: Pot A (seeds): Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil Pot B (top C-CAF): USA, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama Pot C (second tier C-BOL): Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay Pot D (weakest teams): Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, Jamaica Random Draw: Group A: Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia Group B: Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Honduras Group C: Uruguay, Panama, Chile, Jamaica Group D: Brazil, USA, Paraguay, Peru If played with A-teams, it's going to be a ton of fun.
FWIW, the story about Ozil donating money to Gaza has been reported as false, same with the Algerian team doing so as well.
Brazil would be tough as always, but a Paraguay team that's fallen on hard times and a Peru team that, while having talent, is still beatable sounds like a potentially OK group for the US
DON'T Sleep on Paraguay. They always have talent waiting to explode. Their two recent games have them 1 win and 1 tie. The win was in Austria vs. Cameroon (palyed in the WC), and tied France in France. ALways talented....
Agreed, off the top of my head, Paraguay was at WC 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010. You can't take that lightly and that's surely just scratching the surface.
In the friendly they played in Germany last year, they tied the now Champions 3-3, in a match with A-teamers, played at neck break speed. They're still just recovering, but they can be formidable when sticking to their tried-and-true bunker + counter.
The US and Costa Rica have been "even" for quite some time. For some reason this is news to people. Our all-time record against Costa Rica is 13-13-6. (W-L-D) Since 2000, we're 6-6-3 against them. Just as a comparison, against Honduras we're 14-4-3 all-time. Against Jamaica we're 13-1-8. Against Panama we're 10-1-2. The truth is that since 2000 we have a significantly better "winning percentage" against Mexico than against Costa Rica. Against Mexico since 2000 we're 12-5-5.
I think despite the record there's not a lot of difference either way. We generally win against Costa Rica and Mexico at home, and we generally lose against them away (although we did lose to both Costa Rica and Mexico at home around our lowest point in 2011). I would wager that the difference in record mostly reflects a difference in how many home games we've played against each team.
Dunga is the one rumoured to be the next Brazil NT coach. I kid you not.— Rafael Hernández (@RafaelH117) July 17, 2014 Rumor's are that he's baaaaaaack
Exactly what they need. A former DM, who always focuses most in shoring up the defense. As it should be. First priority, always.
Oh god...not Dunga again. I thought he was going to get teh Venezuela job but an internal champion coach got it.
Some Brazilian fans I know didn't like the defensive style of play Dunga employed. Well, they just lost 7-1 to Germany at home. I think a defensive style may be what they need.
I said it earlier in this thread, but Dunga got a lot of misdirected hate during his time in charge imo. This would be a good move, but the public would hate it.