Two more great games today. One featured beautiful and flowing football from the Germans. The other featured scrappy, mediocre football from the German-Americans. And the less said about the third game the better.
Germany 4 – 0 Portugal
In some ways it was the most emphatic performance of the tournament. Unlike Spain, Portugal didn’t suffer a nervous collapse or anything; they just couldn’t withstand the relentless pressure and found it very difficult to stay afloat. I honestly didn’t think they were all that bad for the first 40 minutes or so. They gave up two goals, yes, but created a few chances of their own. And I mostly think it was just a matter of Germany being very very good, more than Portugal being bad. But then, of course, Pepe was an idiot (shocking, I know) and got himself sent off (who could have guessed) and from that point on they were pretty abject. Still, Germany should be very happy with their performance. They pretty effectively neutralized Ronaldo and were playing some beautiful football in the midfield. A 4-0 result against Portugal is fantastic and Germany should continue to be treated as one of the favorites to make the semifinals.
Oh, and they’re now just three goals behind Brazil for most scored all-time. They have come as close as a 1-goal deficit, but have never reduced it to zero.
Iran 0 – 0 Nigeria
Do you remember the 2010 World Cup? Iran and Nigeria sure do.
Ghana 1 – 2 United States
USA! Our boys did not play their best game by any stretch of the imagination, but they still came away with three glorious points. And did so against the team who eliminated us from the past two tournaments.
Dempsey’s opening goal was a thing of beauty. Two different wonderful touches to put the ball in precisely the right spot and then a clinical finish. There couldn’t have been a better start. And for about 10-15 minutes, the US looked spritely, engaged, energetic. But from that point on, we were on the backfoot and looked increasingly skill-less. They gave away the ball very quickly, took pointlessly speculative passes, and generally seemed lost. It didn’t help that Altidore went off at about 20 minutes. While he obviously has his weaknesses, a big part of the strategy is built around having him at the top. Johansson gave it his best, but that’s just not his game.
The second half got a little bit better. Clearly they had a talk about re-organizing the formation because Jones provided much better cover for Beasley (who was getting pretty regularly skinned in the first half), and Bradley improved (though not nearly enough).
I have to hand it to the team (and Klinsmann) though. A lot of the guys I’ve been very nervous about played really well. This is probably the best I’ve seen from Jones. Beckerman wasn’t much for the attack, but filled his protective role very well, Brooks came on at the half for the injured Besler and had a few nervous moments but mostly settled in. All in all, it was a very solid defensive performance. Ghana had a fair number of opportunities but most were half-chances, if that. And the ones that did turn up were handled pretty admirably by Howard (who was great).
All that said, for long stretches of this game Ghana was the better team. It’s not just that the US chose to play very defensively to protect the lead, it was the casual way they tossed possession away when they did obtain it. Bradley had one of his worst games for the squad in a long long time. Dempsey was invisible for long stretches (though he was playing with what seemed like a broken nose, so it’s hard to judge him that harshly). Johnson and Beasley provided very little attacking help, which pretty much eliminated the width of our attack.
And when Ghana’s equalizer went in (on a brilliant set of moves BTW – great through ball form the left back, incredible back hell, deadly slicing finish that totally fooled Howard), my heart sank. It sure didn’t look like we had the ideas (or legs) for an equalizer. But just a couple minutes later, John Brooks (!) of all people slammed home a header off a very dangerous corner and just like that, the US was back on top. And from that point on, they played a lot better and held on for the win.
This was a must-win game, and they won it. They didn’t play their best, and will have to do better to get a result from one of the other games. But a draw against Portugal would put us in a commanding position. And that’s certainly achievable. Looking forward to it…
Predictions for tomorrow:
- Belgium 2 – 0 Algeria
- Brazil 3 – 1 Mexico
- Russia 1 – 0 South Korea
Belgium is very good and I don’t expect too much from Algeria. But I said the same thing about Costa Rica so who knows. I would like to tip Mexico against Brazil but I don’t think they’ll quite get it done. I imagine this as a 1-1 going into the 85th minute with two quick Brazil goals to close out the match at the end. I don’t know many of the Russian players anymore, but reliable sources seem to think they’re pretty good (and that South Korea is awful). So I’ll go ahead and call a Russian victory.