It is a tie breaker. Both teams just have to tie in points, goal difference, and goals scored which is possible if USA/Ghana score the same amount and lose/win by the same amount (ie. 0-1 and 1-0). In that case you would go to the head to head match, which would mean US advances.
I suppose there's the failure side. But can a fanbase really be driven by failure? I would struggle to get invested into a tournament where the only intrigue is if my team will fail. Will they bring their best players, will these players care enough, will they take practice seriously. That's the main intrigue when the US team is concerned. If you are an American basketball fan in Olympics, you are rooting for a team that can't succeed. They can fail, they can embarrass themselves. But they can't succeed. Even if they win every game by 20-30 points, that just means that you've spent 2 weeks watching terrible boring basketball, and your team still didn't succeed, they just did what their talent suggests. So it's all kind of blah.
Howard made a handful of amazing saves as well. The first goal, I don't think it mattered, he had no chance in that situation. Not falling would've helped but I don't think there was any way that wasn't going in. On the 2nd one, he definitely should've been more aggressive
Is this really true? I've gotten the impression that like the NBA, there are really only a few contenders and the winner is always a powerhouse.
I know fans struggle with this, but a tender doesn't have much chance against a guy one one that close. (2nd goal)
1) Still pissed at Bradley 2) I think it's kind of a design flaw that needs to be fixed in that it's in the best interest of Germany-USA to basically not play their match. If both teams came out there and just played patty-cake for 90 minutes, I couldn't blame them. Why in the world should they be forced to do something that is against their own interests?
Well ofcourse there are a couple of countries who are more a powerhouse. But if we look at the last 10 finals we have 1974 Germany beat the Netherlands 1978 Argentina beat the Netherlands 1982 Italy beats Germany 1986 Argentina beats Germany 1990 Germany beats Argentina 1994 Brasil beats Italy 1998 France beats Brasil 2002 Brasil beats Germany 2006 Italy beats France 2010 Spain beats the Netherlands So in the last 10 tournaments we have had 6 different winners (fun fact the only team to reach a final in these 10 tournament but haven't won a championship is the Netherlands). There is seldom a clear favorite, always a couple of teams who have a chance of winning (not like with Basketbal). When you look at the European championship there have been cinderella winners for example Greece 2004, and Denmark 1992 (who didn't even qualify for the 1996 EC)
It's much more competitive than any big national league. We were talking about this in the context of international tournament vs. national league. I wouldn't have been shocked if Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Holland, France, England won this Cup. I would be a bit surprised re some of these, but not shocked. And the tournament format itself (only 3 group games, NCAA style sudden death playoffs) means that there are always many unexpected outcomes. If Belgium or Switzerland did it, it would be a major surprise, but not a bigger surprise than Greece winning Europe some years ago. It happens.
That list, other than Netherlands, seems to be comprised of countries even I know about. And I don't even watch football unless it's with a football buddy and it's a social gathering.
Seems about the same as the NBA. At the beginning of the season, you had Indy, Miami, Spurs, OKC, Clippers being listed in the top tier. Rockets/Warriors/Bulls/Nets kind in the "a bit surprised but not shocked" if they win.
Why would it be different than in the NBA (it isn't)? We were saying it is different than from national team basketbal.
Integrity of the competition? It's okay to "play for a draw", if both teams did that there wouldn't be a problem. You are still trying to play, but you aren't making a mockery of the game by passing it back and forth all game. The only way to remove this is to get rid of draws, like quarterfinals, have them play extra time and then penalties.
By "big national league", I mean soccer leagues of course. Remember, this was never about the NBA vs. World Cup. You were talking about World Cup vs. Bundesliga vs. Olympic basketball.
on that last play the whole team was lazy, they didn't even commit to the lob, they just let him get his head on it with no resistance... unfortunately they thought they had the game already won.
The lob? That was a well driven cross that was placed absolutely perfectly. Yes, the argument can be made that Cameron never located his man. Even still, I'm not sure what could have been done differently except for 2 things... Bradley not losing the ball OR fouling Ronaldo 40 yards from goal. Take the card but make it a direct kick instead from distance.
Jermaine Jones is doing the exact same thing in that gif lol. And it's worse in the sense that Jones is (positionally) drawn back in comparison to Bradley, so it's much more imperative for Jones to actually be pressing.
