**Official USA vs Germany World Cup Match Thread**

[|Zach|]

USA vs Germany | Recife | Group G | 11 CT | ESPN

This is the big one.

If the United States ties or wins they advance to the knock out stage of the World Cup. There are also scenarios that are not that outlandish that let them move on if they lose but **** those scenarios.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by aturnis

So it's cool with you that a 7-9 team made the playoffs while a 10-6(or 11-4, can't remember) team stays home?

Of course not but the divisions create great rivalry's. It's a trade off. Bronco's and Raiders games have extra meaning over a Browns game.

Baseball for 80 years had all the teams in two divisions. It just doesn't make the rivalry's you see in baseball and football.

Watching the World Cup, I understand a lot more about soccer now. The strategy's.

I went to a Wizards soccer game back in the day. Hated it. I didn't understand why they couldn't pass the ball successfully more. If a QB can't throw to a wide open receiver regularly, a outfielder throw to a base for an assist they don't play at the top levels. This was suppose to be the top level. Now I see what the top level really looks like. Way different.

[aturnis]

You walked into the middle of a debate. When you walk between flailing fists, you're going to get hit.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by aturnis

You walked into the middle of a debate. When you walk between flailing fists, you're going to get hit.

That's flailing fists?


JFC

[notorious]

I will leave you to it guys.


Wow, just wow.

[Reaper16]

This is classic troll behavior from notorious.

Dude, if you honestly aren't trying to rile people up then you need to understand that the way you've been posting is EXACTLY how to rile people up. Troll rhetoric down to a T.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Of course not but the divisions create great rivalry's. It's a trade off. Bronco's and Raiders games have extra meaning over a Browns game.

Baseball for 80 years had all the teams in two divisions. It just doesn't make the rivalry's you see in baseball and football.

Watching the World Cup, I understand a lot more about soccer now. The strategy's.

I went to a Wizards soccer game back in the day. Hated it. I didn't understand why they couldn't pass the ball successfully more. If a QB can't throw to a wide open receiver regularly, a outfielder throw to a base for an assist they don't play at the top levels. This was suppose to be the top level. Now I see what the top level really looks like. Way different.

This is the same thing. The Rams moved on ahead of a much better team, b/c they outplayed their competition. The US outplayed most of their group. An incredibly strong group. They earned their spit among the 16.

Also, this is a bit like college football. CONCACAF is like the Big 10. We compete with our "conference" to get to the world cup (bowl games I suppose). While you develop rivalries there (Mexico), we root for our "enemies" in the world cup, b/c it helps to validate ourselves compared to better "conferences" like Europe (SEC).

Now it may not seem like it, but the group stage does lend itself to rivalries too. Look at the US and Ghana. When a team knocks you out of THE tournament that only happens once every 4 years, you don't forget.

There's plenty of history for dramatic back stories.

Hope you continue watching and discussing. I don't mean to discourage interest, just think it's silly to criticize one game but not the other, for essentially the same thing. Outside of ties anyway.

Also, the people who don't like that head to head isn't the first tie breaker, goal differential ensures that more matches mean something during the 3rd leg of group stage. Less teams feeling comfortable means more effort and better matches. Otherwise, the US wouldn't have had much to play for today.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by notorious

That's flailing fists?


JFC

What the **** else do you call arguing on a ****ing message board?

[SPATCH]

Guis, Americans can't grasp ties. It makes our brains hurty.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Of course not but the divisions create great rivalry's. It's a trade off. Bronco's and Raiders games have extra meaning over a Browns game.

Baseball for 80 years had all the teams in two divisions. It just doesn't make the rivalry's you see in baseball and football.

If you don't think rivalries exist in club soccer then boy do I have a list of riots and acts of violence stemming from those rivalries to show you.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

If you don't think rivalries exist in club soccer then boy do I have a list of riots and acts of violence stemming from those rivalries to show you.

Where did I say there no rivalries in soccer?

[Eleazar]

Why does every sport have to be like every other, where you get instant gratification, where there is some sort of a trickle of payoffs every few moments, etc? Can't sports be different and appreciated for their uniqueness, like music or film or beer or women? Why do we have this attitude that if I go unentertained for 2 straight minutes I'm turning it off...?

For that matter, what's the problem we Americans seem to have with a draw? A long game is played where a detailed battle is played out, and at the end of 90 minutes (and sometimes extra time) it's decided that there was nothing much to separate the two on that day, that they both performed equally well. Why is that such an offense...?

Every sport doesn't have to be tuned to "You will have one who wins everything and one who loses completely at the end of a predefined block of time today".

I think the point in soccer originally when you had recreational clubs playing each other was to measure the skill of the clubs against each other, not to get a result that day. If you drew, then your club and the neighboring town's club could be considered about even that day and that was fine.

I know it's American to want to see blood and guts and someone cheered and someone else humiliated, and plenty of explosions throughout, but this game isn't like other games.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

If you don't think rivalries exist in club soccer then boy do I have a list of riots and acts of violence stemming from those rivalries to show you.

Yes, of course there are plenty of club rivalries that are 100 years old. Soccer didn't start in 1994 'murica...

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by Cochise

I know it's American to want to see blood and guts and someone cheered and someone else humiliated, and plenty of explosions throughout, but this game isn't like other games.

Honestly, the possibility of a tie in soccer is one thing I don't terribly mind because there are certainly times when neither team deserves a win.

I just don't understand why WC pool games don't have one 15 minute sudden death half.

[Silock]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Now I see what the top level really looks like. Way different.

What's REALLY funny about the World Cup is that it's actually NOT the top level of soccer. Most of the guys on national teams don't play in the highest leagues (with some exceptions, like Spain from the last world cup). The top, top, top level of play is the top teams in England, Spain and Germany. And that's only the really top 8-10 of the English Premier League, the top 4 of the Spanish league and maybe top 4 of the German league. Those guys have the best players from any and all countries playing for them. And some of the really, really good guys' national teams didn't even qualify for the World Cup, so you don't get to see them play like you do if you watch the league games (guys like Gareth Bale). Or, you maybe see a national team who has a position that is STACKED, so other good players sit behind them and you don't get to see them play.

It certainly is the best you'll see Americans play in, though. We just don't have many guys in the top leagues in the world. Yet.

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Where did I say there no rivalries in soccer?

You didn't. You said that it doesn't make rivalries like baseball or football does. I'm saying that when it comes to club soccer, many of its rivalries are intense on a level that only a handful of American sports rivalries can match.

Here's some great late-night reading about one of those rivalries: http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014/...istanbul-derby