happy thoughts, 4 of them ...

That Was Quick

I will give no thought to Iran and Nigeria, since Iran and Nigeria gave no thought to forming an actual game plan for the 0:0 cure for insomnia midday.

1. 34 seconds
A good way to get over your opening game jitters is to score :34 into the game. This created a problem in that, from then on, Ghana was chasing the game, which is what they do well with the kind of athletes they have. That they spent 81 minutes doing so may have been a part of their undoing, as that’s a long time to chase a target, and when they got to 1-1 they had to play defence, which they didn’t do very well, which is why they were chasing the game for 81 minutes in the first place.

There were about 4 U.S. guys open on that corner. Beautifully executed set piece.

2. 3 points please
I read a few places online that the U.S. weren’t the better side in this game. Those places are wrong. The U.S. made the plays to win, and Ghana failed to make the most of their possession and chances. (And, furthermore, I have no idea why a] Boateng wasn’t starting for the Black Stars, since he wrecked the U.S. midfield upon insertion, and b] why they didn’t try to get Asamoah more involved early on, since he is probably their best all-around player and was stuck playing left back while the Black Stars ran constantly down their right side of the pitch.) The game is often about being resourceful and tenacious. Once Altidore got hurt, the game plan sort of went out the window, but the U.S. still found a way to win the game. There are no ugly wins ... there are no ugly wins ... and this was not an ugly win. Ghana certainly made it tough, because Ghana are really good. It was a great game to watch.

3. Let’s make it 6 points, shall we?
I’ve thought from the original draw that Portugal were the ‘easiest’ game for the U.S. – easiest in the sense that they are the easiest for the U.S. to match up against. My best case scenario for the U.S. in this Group was to get a draw v. Ghana, focus on finding a way to beat Portugal, and then figure it out in the third game. Well, now … shit, aim high. 6 points means you’re almost certainly through to the 16s. 6 points means house money, means you can try all kinds of shit vs. the Germans and see what happens, means that you can really start to think big. It went nearly perfect today for the Americans.

4. Speaking of Portugal …
Portugal were horrible today. That was a total disaster. They lost 4:0 to a beat up German side who only had to put in about 45’ worth of work. That game said a lot more about how bad Portugal was than how good Germany is. Portugal may be #4 in the FIFA rankings, but they’ve never passed the eye test. Having the world’s #1A player masques that they have a lot of pretty average players. And Ronaldo doesn’t look fit – he wasn’t that difficult for the Germans to mark today, and seemed like he was only moving half-speed at times. Portugal lost Pepe to a stupid red card, lost two more players to injury, and now have to run through the molasses in Manaus against a U.S. team which, even with their own injury woes, is considerably more fit at the moment, and which also seems to have been specifically designed to run at the Portuguese.

4 new thoughts

Switzerland score at the gun

1. Playing to Win
If there was ever a game where the teams should've been content to take the 1:1 draw, it was the mess of a game between Switzerland and Ecuador where both teams gave up sloppy set piece goals and squandered all sorts of chances. Instead we got the nuttiest ending in the history of the World Cup. The Seferovic goal at 93' capped off 90 seconds of frenzy – an Ecuadorian player going on a 70 yard sprint with the ball, passing off for a shot but then Ecuador squanders the chance, the Swiss tackle desperately and promptly break 90 yards the other way, with a Swiss midfielder getting run over but then stumbling back to his feet fast enough to compel the ref to play the advantage, leading to this jailbreak with Seferovic making about a 60 yard diagonal run and scoring the goal. The Swiss have been dull and defensive in the past, but this team is very young and has some skill to it. I've been hating on the Swiss for a while now, but this was pretty compelling stuff.

2. What the H was that?
Who on earth thought it would be a good idea for Honduras to try and get physical with France? The French are HUGE. That wasn't going to end well. The H went a man down, conceded a penalty, ran up a large number of yellow cards, and gave themselves no chance. C'mon, H, you have to be a little smarter than that.

3. Lionel Messi is a bad, bad man

Sick

How do you stop this? Messi creates his own space like no player I have ever seen. This was just a simple give and go with Higuain, and Messi makes a masterpiece out of it. Just making those small little dribbles running parallel to the 18 at that pace give him room and have the Bosnians falling all over themselves. He is impossible to defend, simply because the things he can do with the ball just don't make sense to normal humans. Argentina muddled about for a lot of this game, as Messi found himself hounded by a posse of Bosnians for most of the game, but then he does something like this and it doesn't matter. Brilliant.

4. Play to your strengths
Bosnia scored 30 goals in qualifying, but decided to go conservative vs. Argentina, opting to only play 1 striker and feeling like they couldn't play run and gun – and since the Argentine frontline players scored 122 goals between them in the club season, you can see why Bosnia were thinking that way. Thing was, the Dragons controlled most of the middle of the game after clownshoesing an own goal 2' into the game to find themselves a goal down. Their typical, dynamic 2-striker format would've served them well at that point, but their usual crisp last third play was amiss. This was a case where the Bosnians may have outsmarted themselves. You gotta play to your strengths. Bosnia's strengths are offense, offense, and offense. They could possibly lose 5-2 to the Argentines in a firefight, but they had NO chance to win playing it close to the vest.