Posted on 06/19/2006 2:54:14 AM PDT by soccer_maniac
Switzerland and Togo meet in a Group G match at 8:55 a.m. ET (ESPN2) in Dortmund. Saudi Arabia and Ukraine match up in the day's second game, a Group H affair that starts at 11:55 a.m. (ESPN2) in Hamburg. In the final match of the day, Spain encounters Tunisia at 2:55 p.m. (ESPN2) in Stuttgart.
(Excerpt) Read more at mlsnet.com ...
Switzerland up 1-0 and dominating play so far.
Go switzies !
Keep the surrender-monkeys out of the second round !
My personal definition of Group of Death (which is as good as anyone else’s, seeing as it’s not exactly written in stone) is that three of the four teams must be good and of a similar level, and probably two of the teams must be traditional big names. Competitiveness is a lessor factor, as clearly Group G is no Group of Death, despite France doing their best to give everyone a chance.
So Groups C and E both contender for G.O.D. status, but if there was to be only one I’d pick C because the two good teams are more ‘very good’ than Group E’s top teams. Plus the Ivory Coast look better than Ghana. It’s just that, even though the Ivory Coast are a good side, results have gone to the traditional big guns anyway and Group E has been left as the more competitive group.
I always thought any of the Group E teams had a chance of getting through. I never gave Serbia & Montenegro a snowball in Hell’s chance of escaping Group C, which gives it more ‘deathiness’ in my opinion :o)
Thinking a little more about the "sub in hand", I could see an argument being made that the substitution not be used in case it was needed to replace an injured player (kind of like not using your backup catcher as a pinch hitter) -- there's no way Arena would want to be caught 10-on-8, even for a few minutes while a player got treatment.
It seems a lot of places are very anti-american now. Spain has to be up torwards the top. Saudi Arabia though gets my vote as the most anti-american country in the tournament. Iran ain't far from that.
Is a man who is dead on his feet much better than no man at all? (Personally can't say in this case - I'm playing devil's advocate).
If anything I'd have used a sub just to waste some time, which it does even if it shouldn't in theory.
Ghana looked great Saturday against Czech
45' YELLOW CARD 7 SALIFOU Moustapha (TOG)
I think the 8 Italy offsides had a lot to do with that more than anything, total lack of focus and discipline on part of the Azurri there.
Just read that Ghana has decleared half of thursday a national holiday for the game against the USA :-)
Did you guys see this one?
Fury in Egypt over Ghana's Israeli flag waver
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1651726/posts
We are going to have to play with the same intensity as against Italy to have a chance against Ghana.
The good news is that they are missing key players due to bookings. We are missing two players as well, but I think we are in better position to offset that than Ghana is.
But the US needs to find a way to finish without relying on own goals.
Yes and they looked good for a while against Italy too. I still think Ivory Coast are better. It’s just their competition was better than Ghana’s competition too.
Both Groups C and E certainly have more claim to be Groups of Death than the original one – which was West Germany, Denmark, Scotland and Uruguay.
They can go F themselves.
Well, nothing personal against them, but I hope they have a lousy half-holiday. :)
It is going to be interesting for sure.
I will have to do some channel switching to keep updated on the score in the Italy game.
Looking forward to the last week of group play :-)
I was really suprised that Ghana beat the Czechs in such a fashion. What suprised me a bit more is that the US held Italy (of course Italy had to score the US goal for them it seems...). No mind. Say the US gets second in their group (and that's not a given by far). They draw the Brazilians. Game over. The game I'll be watching (and it's still a possiblity I believe) is 1A vs. 2B. Then we'll see if the Germans still 'love' the English as the papers have been saying after that..
Agreed. Every linesman knows the Italians are the biggest cheats in the World Cup; therefore they are not about to cut them any slack on offsides calls. Knowing this the azzurri should have played differently, not relying on long balls to overmarked forwards. Dummies.
I wouldn't complete count out USA against Brazil if they should meet. Brazil has not looked very impressive so far -- if the US can find someone to actually finish a chance or two, they can score. The real challenge will be preventing the Brazilian counter-attack. On the whole, I think the same style and strategy used against Italy would serve Team USA well against Brazil -- high-tempo, agressive, break up the rhythm.
If the US makes the knockout round, they will have overachieved, given the group they were in. At least it keeps some sense of momemtum going for US Soccer, a repeat of 1998 would have been disastrous.
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