Germany entered the match as -700 favorites to advance. According to BetMGM sportsbook insights, 99% of the money wagered was on Germany to qualify! I’ve never seen a betting situation like that – all the money placed on a bet that would have paid next to nothing.
They lost to Paraguay, a team that the USA beat 4-1.
The USA team has so far managed to recover from their embarrassing loss to Turkey. (Turkey lost all of their other games, scoring no goals.)
Thanks to a red card, the USA had to play a man short for the final 25 minutes against Bosnia, but still managed to advance to the round of 16 for the first time since 2002. They are not expected to advance farther because the red card also means that star player will not be eligible to play the next game against Belgium.
That red card was crap. The was no intent by the USA player and was simply a bang-bang play. Messi had a way more flagrant foul and it was not even looked at. Impressive that Team USA held it together for the win, The next match they have a very tough uphill road to travel, it does not look good. But with FIFA scripting this WC, don’t you think they would have tried to arrange so that Team USA played the UK…on 4th of July. Now that match would have had the whole country watching.
I saw that. That was such a bullshit call. It was a Yellow Card foul at best. Still, that didn’t stop the U.S. as I do hope they beat Belgium to reach the quarterfinals. I think they will play Croatia at the quarterfinals as they are my pick to win the World Cup along with France, Spain, Argentina, and Morocco as my dark horse pick.
The Germans were also robbed as that was not an offside and honestly, Paraguay is not that good of a team.
Neither is Germany and their coach is inept.
1.Germany and Brazil are not the elite soccer nations they used to be. Germany has not advanced to the round of 16 since they last won the World Cup in 2014. Germany is now ranked second by FIBA in men’s basketball and Brazil is ranked #10 by FIBA in men’s basketball. I’d say that there are roughly 10 fairly equal nations in basketball behind the U.S, all of whom are pretty good to very good (Canada is ranked #6.)
2.There is a slim possibility the suspension from the red card to the American player can be overturned. The red card itself can’t be lifted (the player was already removed from the game) and America can’t appeal. Like a lot of FIFA rules, it’s very odd.
3.The U.S certainly can still beat Belgium even without this one forward/striker. Belgium is a mature soccer team (meaning they understand how to play the different moments of the game, don’t panic…) but they aren’t that good overall.
4.The U.S not beating Turkey doesn’t mean anything. The United States had already won the group so they were playing the game against Turkey as a ‘friendly’ trying things out and stuff (the only difference is they couldn’t make as many substitutions as they can in a friendly.) Of the four games they’ve played, the game against Turkey is still the only game in which the Americans have conceded a goal. To win the World Cup means playing 8 games in 5 weeks. Not playing to win a game that isn’t necessary to win is actually a sign of a mature team.
My guess is Christian Pulisic will step up for the U.S if the suspension isn’t over turned. He’s a forward/striker but from what I’ve seen he’s played in a more defensive role in support of the red carded American forward/striker up to now.
France…end of story.
One mistake, sorry, the United States conceded a goal against Paraguay.
Of the other major soccer/football nations, a number of them have also declined like Germany and Brazil. 1.Italy has not made the last three World Cups (although they won the Euros in between the first and second)
2.England likes to think of itself as one of the top soccer/football nations in the world, but they’ve won just the won World Cup on home soil 60 years ago now. England probably has the best domestic league and I think their national team has gotten better again in the last 10 years or so, but I don’t think they’re great, they’ve struggled to score at this World Cup.
3.The Netherlands have never won the World Cup, but they’ve lost the final game three times in 1974, 1978 and 2010.
The Netherlands should have won at least one of the two times in the 1970s when they played a probably overly complex style team game called ‘total football.’ They simplified things after that but played a very likeable attacking game with a lot of forward passing including up to 2010. However, in 2010, they also demonstrated a more cynical side when they played dirty losing to Spain in the final game.
Since then, they’ve become generally even more cynical, maybe not as dirty, but they tend to only play an attacking game now against lesser sides while playing a much more defensive game against the better teams such as they played against Morocco.
The only elite nations in soccer/football now seem to be France, Argentina and Spain. There seem to be some African and North American nations coming up but they haven’t shown a level of consistency yet (except for maybe Morocco.)