Your Bloguero loves futbol, soccer, calcio, whatever you call it. He’s now knee deep in World Cup. He’s put virtually everything in real life on hold (like the rest of the planet (except the US)). He’s watched and watched. And opined. And cursed. And fulminated. Right now, he’s totally excited by Thursday’s game between the United States and Germany. That’s why he’s here right now. To remind you to watch this important game and to make a prediction.
This essay will be extra very short. Thrice before (here and here and here) your Bloguero has talked about the Copa Mundial extensively. But this essay is little because there’s only one thing to say. If the US wants to advance further in the World Cup, tomorrow's game is absolutely critical.
Join me off side behind the dKos defender.
A word about structure. The World Cup is ending the group play part of the event. In the group play there are 8 groups of four teams each. Each team in the group plays the other teams. The two teams in each group with the best results and the most points (3 points for a win, 1 for a tie) advance. The other two go home. Then there is the knockout stage with 16 teams, lose and go home, win and advance.
The US, you will recall, was in the Group of Death, probably the hardest of the groups (this was not necessarily karma though your Bloguero has suspicions about it) along with Germany, Portugal and Ghana. At this moment, Germany has 4 points. The US has 4 points. And Portugal and Ghana each have one point. Tomorrow this will be all settled when the US plays Germany and Portugal plays Ghana.
What does your Bloguero mean, “settled?” The mind races at the permutations and combinations, the arithmetic. It comes down to this: if US beats or ties Germany, it advances. If Ghana and Portugal tie, the US advances. If the US loses to Germany and Portugal or Ghana win that game, the US can still advance even though the winner of that game will also have 4 points, but it’s complicated, and the tie breakers are (1) goal differential, (2) goals scored, (3) head to head results and, get this, (4) flipping a coin (your Bloguero assures you this is accurate). You can play with this if you want to. Your Bloguero prefers the cleanliness of a US tie or win and/or a Portugal-Ghana tie.
Both games, US v. Germany and Portugal v. Ghana will be played simultaneously at noon EDT on Thursday. You can watch on TV or stream live via Univision.com (commentary in Spanish) or ESPN3 (commentary in English, which you can understand, but extremely stupid).
Your Bloguero is counting on the US (yes, he has dissed the US repeatedly for lack of ball control, terrible passing, ball watching, defensive glitches galore, selfish play and a host of other sins he will not bother enumerate here) to play to its potential and put on an awesome defensive show against Germany, which has every incentive except ego to tie and advance. Failing that, let Cristiano Ronaldo redeem his sorry self by matching Ghana’s scoring and tying. Let him go home with his expensive haircut and the pretense that he played well. In one game.
Yes, your Bloguero has some strong, probably unsustainable opinions. So you can express yourselves and your potential dismay in the comments.
Your Bloguero ends with this: USA! USA! USA!