Group K's General Discussion Thread

This does concern me...

 

I voted for Portugal, but Colombia winning would be interesting.

 

Yes indeed. Me neither.
It could be a rest Vs. rust argument that we have here in the USA when pertaining to American sports.
From what I have witnessed (generally) teams that usually have more rest are not as in rhythm as the teams that have shorter days of rest advancing to the next round.

 

100% agreed. But I feel like teams playing a tournament like this in the heat will benefit more from rest than not. We shall see.

 

Interesting.

 

Let’ see how Portugal does today.
Lot’s of expectations around here. I am not so sure.

 

Not sure if I'm an idiot, but it definitely feels like betting DR Congo +0.5 for a halftime bet, and +1.5 for a full time bet is at least worth a look, both pay basically at -105 to +100 and while I think Portugal is gonna win, it wouldn't shock me at all if this is low scoring, and it takes a long time for Portugal to find a winner, maybe hedge halfway through the first half? Not sure. I can't decide if I'm just being a homer for DR Congo because I like them, but they typically do a good job of keeping games tight and finding their winner, Portugal seems simply too good for that to work across 90 mins, but putting some energy into DR Congo for at least 20-30 minutes, kinda of interesting. Just watch it blow up in my face lol.

 

Your location makes sense lol

 

1-0

 

Yellow for Silva.

 

The early goal opened up this match. D. R. Congo cannot bunker anymore.

 

Cristiano Ronaldo will want to desperately boost his tally, but I think at the most he will score 1 goal (if Portugal dominates games and gives him easy assist). Anything less than 2 goals will be a massive failure as Portugal has a very strong team and weak teams in their group, they have the weakest African team, Uzbekistan (who is a degree below other AFC teams like Japan/Australia/SKorea), and while Colombia is a good team they play attacking and are not difficult to score against (they conceded the most among CONMEBOL qualified in qualifiers).

Despite playing 5 world cups already, he is only 26th all time in terms of world cup goals, behind midfielders and those who played much less world cups, for example Rivaldo (2 world cups), Christian Vieri (2 world cups).

And his goals/match ratio of 0.36 (8 in 22) is near the bottom, not even in the top 50, among players who scored at least 6 goals in the world cup. Well below midfielders like Maradona, Rivaldo, James Rodriguez, Tim Cahill, Zidane, Xherdan Shaqiri, Landon Donovan, wingers like Robben, even defenders like Hierro, below non-superstar strikers like Fernando Morientes and on par with the likes of Podolski and Perisic.

Among players who played a similar number of matches, we have Miroslav Klose with 16/24 (0.67), Lothar Matthaus who is a defender with 6 in 25 (0.24), Messi with 16 in 27 (0.62), R9 Ronaldo with 15 in 19 (0.79), Thomas Muller with 10 in 19 (0.53), and the midfielder Maradona 8 in 21 (0.38).

I think the only other player as disappointing as Cristiano Ronaldo is Thierry Henry with 6 in 17 (0.35) and Higuain with 5 in 14 (0.36). But at least Henry had the whole issue with Zidane, while Portugal was always built to feed Cristiano and he took every penalty and free kick.

 

Shot on goal for DRC

 

1-1!

 

I thought it was gonna get ugly for DR Congo after giving up the early goal, but they settled into the match.

 

D. R. C. Keeping organized and their cool under pressure.
Offensively looking mediocre during most of the run of play but did well at the end of the match after earning the corners.

 

How come the crowd in Houston only gets excited when cr7 gets on the ball? So many great players on the field for Portugal right now, cr7 is probably the one who is least likely to create something out of nothing for his team, goalkeeper aside.

I thought the Portugeezers were more educated about their team and sport than that. Or maybe they got priced out and these are just rando locals at the match(?)

 

D.R.C. Playing with some confidence.

 

Not only that but he is a liability. As usual he is playing for himself, Portugal playing with 10 men trying to feed him for his tap in.

 

More than likely they are people who are just happy to see Ronaldo. Not real Portugal supporters.

 

Offside.

 

Pity about the offside, it was a wonderful goal.

 

Portugal looking really shaky right now.