In 2006, ESPN was hyping Kasey Keller as the best goalkeeper in the world when he was in fact the third-best goalkeeper in his qualifying group, which also included Gianluigi Buffon and Petr Cech. I don't believe a word they say.
Points are going to be hard to come by. Ghana has knocked the USMNT out of the last two World Cups, they won't beat Germany, and Portugal of course has Cristiano Ronaldo. Four points in the "Group of Death" would be quite good indeed.
Yes, Ghana is our boogieman but at least in 2010, our team was drained because of the bad officiating in group play, we could not advance until our 3rd game, a win over Algeria and perhaps that was an emotional win not gotten until the closing of the game. I think that's how it happened. 2010 World Cup and then, we met Ghana in the 1st round.
Germany should not have lost to Croatia in the group stage of the 2008 Euro Cup but they did. So I hold out hope of getting a draw with one of either Portugal or Germany. Of course, the objective is to win all of the games, unlikely.
And we do owe Ghana, to beat them this time around. We get out of our group, we could possibly really do something.