World Cup Predictions

[mjuhb]

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story...orldcup&cc=5739

 

tactical analysis of all teams

[arsenalisgarbage]

this is the best Italian team in years! HA! EVERY expert says this is the worst Italian team ever. yes ever. They play without passion, and the talent of the individuals is more important to them than the overall success of the team. The Czechs are no more talented then the US, and they are constantly battling with injuries, which will kill team chemistry. Ghana is the best african team? They were going to put Freddy Adu on the starting team, if that tells you something. No, no Ivory Coast and Tunisia are much better. And Essien is as overrated as they come, 1 goal in his entire premiership career. He is another 43 million pound mistake. You obviously dont pay attention to now, you just look at a name and pee your pants. 'Oh no, Italy! the Czechs!' Just names that dont mean a thing, the US can play with these teams. And the mere fact that your name is 'arsenalisgarbage' should discredit everything you say since they went to the Champions League Final.

I know more about the game then you could ever imagine, especially european soccer. U.S. as good as Czechs??? I hate Arsenal is why I have this name and I made this name like a year ago. Essien costs more than the entire u.s. team in the transfer market, def not a mistake he plays for chelsea! they have superstars that never play. I root for the u.s. dont get wrong, but some of you have lost your minds. We will have to play awesome every game and the other teams will have to underestimate entirely (portugal 02). Rui Costa said they didnt even scout the u.s. they thought they could just show up and win. we will not be underestimated anymore and germany was crap in 02 they were lucky, very lucky to get to the final. mls players are just no where near the level of european professionals, it is fact. Donovan could barely get off the subs bench at Leverkusen and he is the best in the mls!! We have a few good players that can play but not near enough good starting 11 to win the group. winning the group is just ridiculoulous, getting 2nd in the group will be an amazing accomplishment. The injuries will not effect Czechs as much as you think, Jan Koller was back 2 weeks ago and scored a brace against Bayern Munich, nedved is getting old but he is still much better than anyone we have. you act like some overexuberant american fan who fails to see the truth. u.s. is my team but i dotn say things like c"zechs are no more talented than the u.s."- you lose all credibility with that statement. its not your fault, you just dont know what you are talking about.

I do hope to see Mcbride own Nesta though.

Edited June 6, 2006 by arsenalisgarbage

[the_legend]

I know more about the game then you could ever imagine, especially european soccer. U.S. as good as Czechs??? I hate Arsenal is why I have this name and I made this name like a year ago. Essien costs more than the entire u.s. team in the transfer market, def not a mistake he plays for chelsea! they have superstars that never play. I root for the u.s. dont get wrong, but some of you have lost your minds. We will have to play awesome every game and the other teams will have to underestimate entirely (portugal 02). Rui Costa said they didnt even scout the u.s. they thought they could just show up and win. we will not be underestimated anymore and germany was crap in 02 they were lucky, very lucky to get to the final. mls players are just no where near the level of european professionals, it is fact. Donovan could barely get off the subs bench at Leverkusen and he is the best in the mls!! We have a few good players that can play but not near enough good starting 11 to win the group. winning the group is just ridiculoulous, getting 2nd in the group will be an amazing accomplishment. The injuries will not effect Czechs as much as you think, Jan Koller was back 2 weeks ago and scored a brace against Bayern Munich, nedved is getting old but he is still much better than anyone we have. you act like some overexuberant american fan who fails to see the truth. u.s. is my team but i dotn say things like c"zechs are no more talented than the u.s."- you lose all credibility with that statement. its not your fault, you just dont know what you are talking about.

I do hope to see Mcbride own Nesta though.

 

pal, u just dont get it. Did you even watch our own state tourney? things happen

that cant be explained. Teams are beaten by other teams when the team that

was beaten was so much stronger. We already have the whole world against

us, at least we Americans should stick together.

[Laydown]

I think even the U.S. fans underestimate our team. Wierd things can happen in soccer.

[chaos11]

I know more about the game then you could ever imagine, especially european soccer. U.S. as good as Czechs??? I hate Arsenal is why I have this name and I made this name like a year ago. Essien costs more than the entire u.s. team in the transfer market, def not a mistake he plays for chelsea! they have superstars that never play. I root for the u.s. dont get wrong, but some of you have lost your minds. We will have to play awesome every game and the other teams will have to underestimate entirely (portugal 02). Rui Costa said they didnt even scout the u.s. they thought they could just show up and win. we will not be underestimated anymore and germany was crap in 02 they were lucky, very lucky to get to the final. mls players are just no where near the level of european professionals, it is fact. Donovan could barely get off the subs bench at Leverkusen and he is the best in the mls!! We have a few good players that can play but not near enough good starting 11 to win the group. winning the group is just ridiculoulous, getting 2nd in the group will be an amazing accomplishment. The injuries will not effect Czechs as much as you think, Jan Koller was back 2 weeks ago and scored a brace against Bayern Munich, nedved is getting old but he is still much better than anyone we have. you act like some overexuberant american fan who fails to see the truth. u.s. is my team but i dotn say things like c"zechs are no more talented than the u.s."- you lose all credibility with that statement. its not your fault, you just dont know what you are talking about.

I do hope to see Mcbride own Nesta though.

the point i was making about portugal and germany is that you said the us never plays good euro teams but gets spanked when they do. last time i checked portugal and germany are both from europe and are both traditionally good teams.

 

italy is known for choking. i agree, this team is pretty good, much more talented that the US but they're the choke artists of international soccer. czechs are also good but they're so committed to the attack that they can be punished by counters. idk much about ghana so i cant really say anything about them.

 

fact of the matter is, we are no brazil. everyone knows, including the us players, that we are nowhere near as talented as the teams we're facing. having talent sure helps but a good team chemistry makes up for a lack of talent.

 

lastly, favorites dont always win. if that always happened no one would play sports, it'd become boring. we play the game b/c anything can happen, especially when italy is in your group. i think we come in second behind the czechs but whoever comes in second has to play brazil i believe.

[OnlineLC]

the point i was making about portugal and germany is that you said the us never plays good euro teams but gets spanked when they do. last time i checked portugal and germany are both from europe and are both traditionally good teams.

 

italy is known for choking. i agree, this team is pretty good, much more talented that the US but they're the choke artists of international soccer. czechs are also good but they're so committed to the attack that they can be punished by counters. idk much about ghana so i cant really say anything about them.

 

fact of the matter is, we are no brazil. everyone knows, including the us players, that we are nowhere near as talented as the teams we're facing. having talent sure helps but a good team chemistry makes up for a lack of talent.

 

lastly, favorites dont always win. if that always happened no one would play sports, it'd become boring. we play the game b/c anything can happen, especially when italy is in your group. i think we come in second behind the czechs but whoever comes in second has to play brazil i believe.

 

You are making some great points and I think the team chemistry you mention is extremely important.

 

I watched an ABC show the other day where they talked with all the players and coaches of the US team. A few things really struck me:

 

First, they all agreed that a #4 ranking for the US is way off base. That being said, you could see that the bar had been set higher in all of their minds and I thought there was a strong drive to not take anything for granted, but to go out and prove that the US might just be worthy of such a lofty rank.

 

They all knew the first two games pretty well define their World Cup and they are not under any misguided theory that teams like Italy and the Czechs will take them for granted. In other words I expect the US team and their opponents all to come out with their A game.

 

Though there are no superstars, I think this US team is the most unified of all of the teams.

 

Being a transplanted Brit, I will naturally be cheering for England, but very close behind that, I would love to see the US do really well. There is nothing I would love more than to see the MLS get a boost and start to see soccer get a real following over here that would start to attract great players (and I don't mean players like Beckham who may come over here when it is almost time to hang up the cleats, I mean players who are at thee top of their game now).

 

The US is in a tough group for sure, but I honestly believe they can make it through to the next round.

[stayNskool]

arsenal is garbage.... you say you know more about european football than any of us can imagine?? i'd like to see you test that theory against moi.

 

This Czech team is aging but talented. Looking at their play from Euro 2004 and qualifying for this World Cup you cannot help but be impressed. They only had to go into a playoff against Norway because both they and the Netherlands were undefeated against everyone except each other and those 2 matches were epic. However they are aging, and its showing in the number of injuries that are starting to pile up. And with Baros injured they dont have a marquee striker who possesses pace to play off of Koller's touch and strength in the air.

 

Ill take the money on the Italians getting out of the group simply because of their style of play. No great strikers on any team in this group(with the exception of Koller) outside of Italy, combined with their style of play(the famed catenaccio) equals low scoring games and the Italians scraping through. Their attack is clearly where they are weakest lately, showing its ugly head mostly in their lack of diversity in attack. The starting forward combination of Gillardino and Toni looks great on paper(I believe top scorer and 3rd top in Serie A this year) but they are too similar to each other in that they are old fashioned bruising Center Forwards lacking the pace to force the opposition defence to play deep. Also creativity has been lacking in midfield and short of dropping Totti or Del Piero deeper they dont seem to have too many options to fix this. Gattuso is injured, De Rossi is no replacement for him as a midfield hardman and their wings are less than impressive.

 

Ghana. You get what on paper looks like a strong midfield from these guys. Appiah and Essien are strong if unspectacular. And you also get a strong defence in Addo and Kuffour but that leaves 8 places in midfield and defence that are lacking as well as a suspect goalkeeper and strikers. As someone else already put it the fact that their coach was willing to offer Adu a starting role in the World Cup is proof enough they are severely lacking in the firepower dept. Back to Essien. I believe it was L24.5 million paid for him which is roughly $43 million USD. Which makes him the second most overpaid for signing of Chelsea's summer in that Sean Wright-Philipps cost L21 million, and barely played! Essien does however play a more important role for Ghana than he does for Chelsea and frankly he does it well.

 

I will take the US and Italy to make it out of the group mostly based on the fact that I am a fan, and love it when my friends in London are forced to give up love to USA soccer. However even were I unbiased I would have to give the US a chance to getting out of the group because they have been getting stronger and stronger over the decade and will only continue to do so in the future.

[Chizaggi]

Brazil will not win it again. Michael Essien is not overrated by any means. Ivory Coast's Drogba came to chelsea for a little under $45 million while Essien came in for a little over that plus Thiago( probably worth around 13 million), and Drogba gets more criticism from fans questioning his worth, while Essien was considered the perfect signing by most after just few games in Che;sea shirt. Drogba didn't do bad his first season afterall and did even better last year scoring good goals. Essien got 1 goal, but he must be doing something right to be new and be a consistant starter, considering a speedy highly-priced Wright-Phillips and many more are on the bench.Doubting Ghana attacking power is a gamble, considering how many very talented unknown players u don't hear about until those big tourneys. Most people around here don't follow african leagues and its hard to have any idea whats coming your way when playing african teams..(just ask France about it). I think Ivory Coast is the best african team going into this world cup, but Ghana will do better in this tournament.

Edited June 7, 2006 by Chizaggi

[utsoccer87]

essien may find himself on the bench next year now that ballack signed with chelsea.

[stayNskool]

if you actually watched the chelsea matches each week you probably would have noticed that essien did little in each match besides break up attacks. william gallas was more affective in his absence even though gallas is a natural centre half. essien is a good player who will probably lose his place in some matches with ballack joining the fray. look at it this way, essien does the same job as claude makelele only not as well and at double the price.

[Chizaggi]

With the exception of Makelele, all of Chelsea midfielders are massive attackers who are always running up front, so a player like Essien who can relax and break attacks and is extremely physical is the peice that chelsea needed to add to the puzzle. They have Drogba, Crespo and C. Cole playing for one spot and they just bought Shevchenko, Ballack, Solomon Kalou and Nigerian teenager Obi Mikel who are all some of the most priced players around, so its easy to say Essien will ride the bench, but really he wouldn't be on the bench. All of these players that are coming in are all 250% attacking-minded and none is as physical as Essien.

[stayNskool]

Look at Chelsea's options and the way they play. Im thinking exodus before the transfer period is over.

 

Central Midfield

 

Ballack

Essien

Makelele

Lampard

 

Wingers

 

Wright-Philipps

Joe Cole

Robben

Duff

 

Forwards

 

Crespo

Drogba

Shevchenko

Gudjohnsen

 

These players combined with Obi-Mikel and Kalou just mean too many talented players to keep happy with so few positions available. There are in theory only 6 attacking slots available each game and with Shevchenko, Ballack, Lampard, and Makelele all but guaranteed a starting position when healthy, the numbers simply don't match.