2014 World Cup

Come on Old T. You've seen enough baseball teams celebrate clinching a pennant or a playoff spot after a loss, I'm sure. Their fans don't care. It's not an unheard of U.S. phenomenon.

 

Who's attention?

 

This is the issue with soccer. There are so many ties and low-scoring games that the better team doesn't always win.

When you have a single-elimination format and add the potential for games to be decided on penalty kicks, it's a total crapshoot to pick a winner.

 

International soccer fans. As respectable as the US has been since 1994, they've never been a threat to win. They've never beaten a top team in the Round of 16.

 

In which World Cups did the best team not win? And in what other sports are there no upsets?

 

I want to feel good about what went down today. Really I do.

Can't do it.

Take a look at how the U.S. "maneuvered" its way through the so-called Group of Death:

a) Eked out a victory over a Ghana side they were 50-50 to beat anyway.

b) Wrenched a tie out of the jaws of victory against Portugal.

c) Failed to pose a serious threat until the final minute today.

I've seen little to believe that they're among the world's elite.

 

If the US made the semi finals in three straight world cups, then people would say, "until you make the finals, people aren't going to take you seriously".

Its the old moving goalposts concept.

 

Get in line behind ESPN.

 

Well done, Jurgen. You got a fairly average team to survive the Group of Death.

Thoughts:

-Michael Bradley has been trash. I don't think there are viable substitution options at this point but he won't see another World Cup.
-Belgium hammered the USA 4-2 in a friendly at Cleveland Browns Stadium last year.
-Funny how even if Portugal was beaten on Monday, the end result would have been the same.
-The team is exhausted and I hope some of the older players (especially Dempsey) will be able to hold up going forward.

 

That's an awfully silly standard to judge the U.S. team against.

Of course they aren't among the world's elite. The fact that anyone even feels the need to state that shows how much ridiculously better they've gotten.

 

Who cares about international soccer fans? To be fair, other than Brazil in 94, which won the title that year, what top team have they played in the round of 16? Mexico and Ghana and probably Belgium this year. Maybe that proves your point. But if you look at the quarters in 02 I would argue they outplayed Germany. As others have said, I guess that's soccer.

 

Football writers go through the 30 skidillion possibilities of making the playoffs, and soccer is screwed up because the U.S. advances from ending the equivalent of the regular season with a loss?