Europe sinking, Americas rising
- One of the biggest stories so far is the collapse of Europe: Germany= loss, Spain= loss, England=2 ties (1 total goal), France= yikes
- The Americas, so far, are the better teams: US= nuff said, Mexico= thumped france, Brazil= Brazil, Argentina= Argentina, Chile/Paraguay/Uruguay are all solid squads.
-Africa: still irrelevant even with home continent advantage
A solid defensive team will knock Spain out
-I see Spain as this tournament's Washington Capitals, the most talented team but won't do well in the playoffs. Yes, I know they won the Euros, but see comment A.
Don't get too excited about Portugal
- it was against North Korea: teams ranked higher than them= Jamaica/Oman/Macedonia
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I agree with all of these thoughts. I wouldn't call Europe dead yet. The knockout stage is a different ball game, but the signs aren't great right now.
ReplyDeleteSpain might face Brazil in the Round of 16 - that's must see television. We were supposed to see that last summer but the US ruined that (wonderfully.)
Don't hate on Oman, Keith.
Another thought - the overall television product has been A+++++ from ESPN. I love it, all of it. We all knew Martin Tyler was good and he has not disappointed. I think Ian Darke's reputation will rise in the States, he's been fantastic. Derek Rae also does well, I missed him on the CL this year since ESPN no longer has the rights.
Tomorrow starts a crazy week of knockout stage qualification, I can't wait for it.
Good comments from Bernardo and Pete.
ReplyDeleteObviously since FIFA is headquartered in Europe...
I also have observed a universal similarity in the defense of corner kicks. I have yet to see a team use a zone defense, almost everyone is using a total man to man defense with some teams adding a near-post, far-post defender. Coaching texts say that man-to-man defense of a corner kick is useless because it is impossible to cover man-to-man in a corner kick situation. The easiest way to beat it is to have your attackers make dummy runs out of the penalty area with a lone "target" man running to the panalty spot for a header. I haven't seen that yet either so I am perplexed.