2014 World Cup

[go birds]

that was a hell of a sequence for the score.

[Schlich]

Altidore, wow

[thrill]

THATS the Jozy we know. [expletive] Sunderland, [expletive] their [expletive] playmakers and fans, long live beast mode Jozy.

[thrill]

Mike Bradley has a better chip game than Phil [expletive] Mickelson.

[thrill]

Here's a totally arbitrary number I'm going to pull out of my ass. Germany is going to go through, and the other three teams compete for the other spot and I'd weigh it like this:
Portugal 40%
Ghana 31%
US 29%

Of course Nate Silver's peeps won't settle for my arbitrary butt numbers.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/world-cup/

[SHOW]

Gives the US 36% chance to advance.

[Schlich]

You were pretty damn close.

[go birds]

pretty good little article about USMNT strategy

http://screamer.deadspin.com/since-they ... regHoward1

and the Ghana write-up

http://screamer.deadspin.com/can-ghana- ... rdogaleano

[lukethedrifter]

St Louisans can be forgiven for taking on a second team and rooting for Bosnia and Herzegovina.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/sport ... louis.html


http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_ ... s-homeland

[thrill]

That Wright Thompson story on Ibisevic is so great.

[Fat Strat]

World Cup starts today!

I have real mixed feelings about it this year. I think this is the best US team that I have seen, though it's hard to say that with Bradley, Dempsey, Donovan, and Altidore all on the 2010 squad. They've been a joy to watch over the past few years in qualifying and friendlies. I honestly think that with a reasonable draw this year's squad could make some noise in the Group stage and we would have a punchers chance at advancing pretty far. Ghana, Portugal and Germany... it's just an killer draw.

It seems like the minimum chance at advancing is to beat Ghana by 2+ or more goals (very difficult task), drawing with Portugal (very difficult task), and then not losing to Germany by more than 1 goal. That would give us a +1 GD and 4 points. After looking through the last few WC brackets, 4 points and positive goal differential will advance most of the time.

While that's the minimum, it still sounds unlikely. Who knows? I'll watch and hope, but I'm expecting to be painfully disappointed.