Bear Down Wildcats

Katzenfreund wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:Katz,

How goes things in the Fatherland? Is it WC crazy over there? Seriously believe Germany is the team to beat.

Some of my favorite times living/Traveling in Europe were during EuroCup/WorldCup years.

Hopp Suisse.

Spent the days since the beginning of the tournament in Le Mans, France (24 hours race), Switzerland and now here in Austria for "our" home F1 GP. The German sentiment towards this WC has been rather reserved, since it's been the common opinion among fans that the team is light years away from our great squads of the past. Jogi Löw's suitability for the coaching job is debatable and the win over Portugal left a lot to be desired. However, those three points moved the anticipation needle towards cautious optimism, considering previous occasional concerns that we wouldn't even make it out of the group stage (which can still happen). But most fans here take it one game at a time and so there's a lot of World Cup partying going on, nevertheless.

Swiss fans are ecstatic since they've got a promising team and 2014 is only their fourth (third consecutive) WC since 1966. Strong, almost exuberant national pride makes for a lot of red flags with white crosses in any given place.
I remember shooting in the Swiss Alps at one of the gnarliest MTB downhill World Cups in the history of the series. Rain, mud and a terrain so steep that my guys had problems getting their cameras up the mountain. Several riders had to be airlifted to the hospital, others rode injured (broken fingers, etc.) after being involved in one of the many heavy practice crashes. Eventually, during an unbelievable finale among the remaining top ten riders, the proud event announcer's voice blared through the speakers: "Attention everyone, Roger Federer hat gerade die nächste Runde der French Open erreicht. Again, our Roger Federer has just advanced at the French Open!" This was comparable to a proclamation of the latest Olympic figure skating result during a MMA cage match. Needless to say that it raised a pretty good laugh from everybody. The Swiss organizers were swollen with pride, though.

Now, for tomorrow's game against Ghana I'm in the best place for a (hopeful) German win: Austria. The passionate hate and envy, harbored by many Austrians towards German football teams, is almost unparalleled and a reliable source for amusement on behalf of our fans. The GER vs. POR game thread in Austria's largest broadsheet newspaper had over 5000(!) posts, the post game analysis made it to over 1700 comments. Adjusted to US population numbers, it's the equivalent of 200,000 and 68,000 posts respectively. A victory in tomorrow's game against Ghana would best be compared to an Arizona NCAA Tournament win while being among scummies in Phoenix. Not at Arcadia Tavern, though, which is better than McKale anyway.

Zero wrote:Italy vs Uruguay is gonna be good stuff.

Longhorned wrote:How confident are you that USA will at least get a draw against Portugal.

SCCat wrote:

Longhorned wrote:How confident are you that USA will at least get a draw against Portugal.

There are some interesting cross currents outside of just "who has the better players."

1. Is Portugal mentally strong? If I had to rate all 32 teams' mental fortitude, I would have Portugal in the weakest third. So after getting totally shelled in their first game, do they come back stronger than ever knowing they have to preform or do we get a listless/folding performance?

2. How will the weather effect the teams? Manaus was a mistake to hold games at. Supposedly it's going to be 85+ degrees and 85%+ humidity. Who will be able to adapt to the weather better? Besides the physical element there is a mental element and this dovetails back into point #1: do the miserable conditions start effecting the mindset (which might already be in a not so good place), drive and concentration of Portugal?

3. USA sits at 3 points, Portugal 0. Portugal could theoretically take a draw and try to pin their hopes on outright beating Ghana by a large goal differential (since Germany shelled them so badly), but the reality is at -4 goal differential they probably need to go for a win. The USA will know that and sit back in the miserable conditions and absorb the pressure and let Portugal run themselves out of the game in the miserable conditions.

So lots of cross currents that really have the chance of piggybacking onto each other to crush Portugal. Not mentally strong, conditions sapping your energy in about 45 minutes but you know you have to go for the win even though you physically and mentally feel like crap?

And Klinsmann will know all that and plan accordingly to bring the most out of all those disadvantages for Portugal.

Longhorned wrote:Supporting how, Piers?

SCCat wrote:Let's see another nice 4-0 German victory over Ghana this afternoon.

Chicat wrote:

SCCat wrote:Let's see another nice 4-0 German victory over Ghana this afternoon.

I really want to root for Ghana here.

SCCat wrote:

Longhorned wrote:How confident are you that USA will at least get a draw against Portugal.

There are some interesting cross currents outside of just "who has the better players."

1. Is Portugal mentally strong? If I had to rate all 32 teams' mental fortitude, I would have Portugal in the weakest third. So after getting totally shelled in their first game, do they come back stronger than ever knowing they have to preform or do we get a listless/folding performance?

2. How will the weather effect the teams? Manaus was a mistake to hold games at. Supposedly it's going to be 85+ degrees and 85%+ humidity. Who will be able to adapt to the weather better? Besides the physical element there is a mental element and this dovetails back into point #1: do the miserable conditions start effecting the mindset (which might already be in a not so good place), drive and concentration of Portugal?

3. USA sits at 3 points, Portugal 0. Portugal could theoretically take a draw and try to pin their hopes on outright beating Ghana by a large goal differential (since Germany shelled them so badly), but the reality is at -4 goal differential they probably need to go for a win. The USA will know that and sit back in the miserable conditions and absorb the pressure and let Portugal run themselves out of the game in the miserable conditions.

So lots of cross currents that really have the chance of piggybacking onto each other to crush Portugal. Not mentally strong, conditions sapping your energy in about 45 minutes but you know you have to go for the win even though you physically and mentally feel like crap?

And Klinsmann will know all that and plan accordingly to bring the most out of all those disadvantages for Portugal.

SCCat wrote:

Chicat wrote:

SCCat wrote:Let's see another nice 4-0 German victory over Ghana this afternoon.

I really want to root for Ghana here.

I understand the feeling but...you want to see Ghana basically eliminated with a loss. Leaving Ghana even on one point (so a draw with Germany here) going into their last game against a potentially despondent Portugal could lead to a 3 or 4 to zero Ghana win, giving Ghana 4 points and a good enough goal differential to beat us out for second place in the group.

A straight win for Ghana over Germany would be even more dangerous for us. Like much more.

Longhorned wrote:Isn't a draw here a good result for USA? Like even better than a German victory? And a Ghana win the worst possible result for USA?

SCCat wrote:

Longhorned wrote:Isn't a draw here a good result for USA? Like even better than a German victory? And a Ghana win the worst possible result for USA?

It's a longer analysis that I'll get into perhaps tomorrow before our game, but I think a Ghana draw here (and then the expected Ghana thrashing of Portugal in the final group game) would create a goal differential problem for us that might make it necessary to straight beat Portugal tomorrow instead of going for a draw ourselves.

SCCat wrote:

Longhorned wrote:Isn't a draw here a good result for USA? Like even better than a German victory? And a Ghana win the worst possible result for USA?

It's a longer analysis that I'll get into perhaps tomorrow before our game, but I think a Ghana draw here (and then the expected Ghana thrashing of Portugal in the final group game) would create a goal differential problem for us that might make it necessary to straight beat Portugal tomorrow instead of going for a draw ourselves.

Miller time wrote:

SCCat wrote:

Longhorned wrote:Isn't a draw here a good result for USA? Like even better than a German victory? And a Ghana win the worst possible result for USA?

It's a longer analysis that I'll get into perhaps tomorrow before our game, but I think a Ghana draw here (and then the expected Ghana thrashing of Portugal in the final group game) would create a goal differential problem for us that might make it necessary to straight beat Portugal tomorrow instead of going for a draw ourselves.

Wouldn't we advance over Ghana then with a draw against Portugal or Germany?

Chicat wrote:German win is the best result if you have no confidence that we can beat Germany.