Eating ton of crow. Wow!!!!!!!!!

Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

:facepalm

US sloppy ball handling gives the game up. Predictable from the first 5 minutes.

Well. It could have been a bit better result but at least there goes Portugal's perfect record when scoring first.

Dammit. If Bradley just receives that pass at midfield and holds the ball it's a win.

Ridiculous pass from Ronaldo. That's why he's so dangerous.

Ugliest bookends in futbol

TheBearsHaveWon;842327224 said:

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Well. It could have been a bit better result but at least there goes Portugal's perfect record when scoring first.

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Yey?

Phantomfan;842327223 said:

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US sloppy ball handling gives the game up. Predictable from the first 5 minutes.

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Well they did enough to win, but then Bradley just gives one up inexplicably when all he had to do was hold it in space which caused the run out to Ronaldo. It would have been game over. Now we probably need a result v. Germany. Ugh.

sycasey;842327226 said:

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Dammit. If Bradley just receives that pass at midfield and holds the ball it's a win.

Ridiculous pass from Ronaldo. That's why he's so dangerous.

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I don't know what Bradley was thinking. First, he is in some space, and has the ball to himself. Second, why is he trying to make a play (did he not see what Wondo did so effectively)? Third, why is he making a play toward his own goal? All he had to do was control the ball and continue to play keep away for 20 seconds. *sigh*

Phantomfan;842327228 said:

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Yey?

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Um. No. Just trying to see some positive out of that.

Next: root for Portugal against Ghana, but not to blow them out.

I wonder about collusion between USA and Germany? If they draw then they both get through. It would be interesting if neither side is trying particularly hard to score.

Bradley almost redeemed himself from his poor play against Ghana until that last pass/miss.

KoreAmBear;842327229 said:

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Well they did enough to win, but then Bradley just gives one up inexplicably when all he had to do was hold it in space which caused the run out to Ronaldo. It would have been game over. Now we probably need a result v. Germany. Ugh.

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Yup....Bradley pulled a Buh.

KoreAmBear;842327231 said:

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I don't know what Bradley was thinking. First, he is in some space, and has the ball to himself. Second, why is he trying to make a play (did he not see what Wondo did so effectively)? Third, why is he making a play toward his own goal? All he had to do was control the ball and continue to play keep away for 20 seconds. *sigh*

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Hell, if he just kicks it out of bounds we're probably fine. To not get a foot on the ball at all . . . WTF.

KoreAmBear;842327229 said:

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Well they did enough to win, but then Bradley just gives one up inexplicably when all he had to do was hold it in space which caused the run out to Ronaldo. It would have been game over. Now we probably need a result v. Germany. Ugh.

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First, the didn't do enough to win. They did enough to tie.

The entire game they were playing sloppy, giving up the ball on bad passes and poor handling. The US gave up both goals for the same reason. Playing sloppy and getting caught. If they had won, it would not have made their ball handling better. It would have just been easier to ignore.

Not saying they should be as crisp as Germany but they played ugly and got caught twice.

Also Bradley did that a couple of times that I noticed in additional time. The first was not memorable, the second was.

What a heart breaker. Very reminiscent of Iran/Argentina. You're outplaying them all game long and then you give a great player like Ronaldo/Messi an opening and they burn you. MF

sycasey;842327235 said:

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Next: root for Portugal against Ghana, but not to blow them out.

I wonder about collusion between USA and Germany? If they draw then they both get through. It would be interesting if neither side is trying particularly hard to score.

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If they don't play the gentlemen's game, Germany also has the potential to blow the US out. It's made things very complicated. What a shame after they had it.

freshfunk;842327237 said:

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Bradley almost redeemed himself from his poor play against Ghana until that last pass/miss.

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Well even with that whiff on the free ball, although he did better, he wasn't that great. He had a couple of decent shots on goal, but he really still looked lost out there for some reason. He's supposed to be the midfielder that controls the attack. Jermaine Jones has done that better in both games.

I have to say that Beasley looked pretty good this game. I have to give him props. Also, the Yedlin sub by Klinsi was spot on. The Brooks and Yedlin subs have been great. Klinsi is really making the right moves.

At least game three means something. We're with house money right now.

bearsandgiants;842327252 said:

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At least game three means something. We're with house money right now.

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Lotsa house money. +2 with Ghana and +5 with Portugal. The one thing no one is mentioning is if Germany blows us out, then that last goal would be a spear in the heart. Twas' a beautiful cross and great heading thrust though, as painful as it was. Best would be a tie with Portugal and Ghana, for then it is over without any implications of Germany laying down to keep Portugal out over us.

OdontoBear66;842327254 said:

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Lotsa house money. +2 with Ghana and +5 with Portugal. The one thing no one is mentioning is if Germany blows us out, then that last goal would be a spear in the heart. Twas' a beautiful cross and great heading thrust though, as painful as it was. Best would be a tie with Portugal and Ghana, for then it is over without any implications of Germany laying down to keep Portugal out over us.

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Right, though really even if they find they can do it, Germany has no real incentive to blow us out. If they score first they'll probably just sit back and run out the clock.

Portugal is probably still finished anyway; going to be real hard for them to qualify with such a bad goal differential.

sycasey;842327255 said:

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Right, though really even if they find they can do it, Germany has no real incentive to blow us out. If they score first they'll probably just sit back and run out the clock.

Portugal is probably still finished anyway; going to be real hard for them to qualify with such a bad goal differential.

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I think you are right. I think Germany wants to gain a one goal advantage over us, and then they can sit back, for a tie with us advances us both and eliminates the others and a one goal win for them pretty much eliminates Portugal, who they do not want advancing. A one goal loss for us becomes a problem if Ghana wins by a lot (BTW, is it +2 or does +1 do it for them if we have a one goal loss? What is tiebreaker #2? Or is tiebreaker #1 head to head? Not sure on this one)

USA has scored late a bunch of times to pick off results. Today it happened to them. That's sports! Says how far USA soccer has come when people are disappointed they haven't gone through after 2 games!

OdontoBear66;842327276 said:

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I think you are right. I think Germany wants to gain a one goal advantage over us, and then they can sit back, for a tie with us advances us both and eliminates the others and a one goal win for them pretty much eliminates Portugal, who they do not want advancing. A one goal loss for us becomes a problem if Ghana wins by a lot (BTW, is it +2 or does +1 do it for them if we have a one goal loss? What is tiebreaker #2? Or is tiebreaker #1 head to head? Not sure on this one)

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I think the next tiebreaker is total goals scored, which we are 1 up on Ghana. After that it's head-to-head.

So basically this:

1. Win or draw against Germany and the US is in. That's the simple part. If the US loses to Germany . . .
2. If Ghana and Portugal tie, then we're in.
3. If Portugal wins, we are probably in unless they win by a ridiculous amount or we lose by a huge amount. Portugal needs to make up 5 goals of differential, and they probably can't do that.
4. If Ghana wins, there's a lot of weird stuff going on, but we are ahead on most tiebreakers. Basically, we need us to not get shut out or them to not score a lot of goals. If they win but only get one goal (and USA is not blown out) we are in. If the goal differential is even, and the total goal count is even, we still get in because of the head-to-head win. If we lose and Ghana wins, hope that both games are close and low-scoring. Again, I'm thinking Germany doesn't have much incentive to score a ton of goals against us, so our game probably will be low-scoring. Maybe Ghana can really boat-race Portugal, though that also seems unlikely.

sycasey;842327282 said:

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I think the next tiebreaker is total goals scored, which we are 1 up on Ghana. After that it's head-to-head.

So basically this:

1. Win or draw against Germany and the US is in. That's the simple part. If the US loses to Germany . . .
2. If Ghana and Portugal tie, then we're in.
3. If Portugal wins, we are probably in unless they win by a ridiculous amount or we lose by a huge amount. Portugal needs to make up 5 goals of differential, and they probably can't do that.
4. If Ghana wins, there's a lot of weird stuff going on, but we are ahead on most tiebreakers. Basically, we need us to not get shut out or them to not score a lot of goals. If they win but only get one goal (and USA is not blown out) we are in. If the goal differential is even, and the total goal count is even, we still get in because of the head-to-head win. If we lose and Ghana wins, hope that both games are close and low-scoring. Again, I'm thinking Germany doesn't have much incentive to score a ton of goals against us, so our game probably will be low-scoring. Maybe Ghana can really boat-race Portugal, though that also seems unlikely.

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Pretty much it - if Ghana wins 1-0, we need to not lose by more than 1 goal. If Ghana wins by one goal with any other score, we need to lose by no more than 1 goal [U]and [/U]score at least as many goals as Ghana does against Portugal, less one.

If Ghana wins 2-0 or any other score by 2 goals or more, we need a tie or win because we lose the differential tiebreaker. That's the worst case scenario for the US.

We have a +5 goal differential over Portugal and +2 goals scored advantage, so they would have to win big and we'd have to lose big for them to finish above us - not impossible, but improbable.

goldenokiebear;842327292 said:

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We have a +5 goal differential over Portugal and +2 goals scored advantage, so they would have to win big and we'd have to lose big for them to finish above us - not impossible, but improbable.

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Especially improbable since the incentive for both the US and Germany will be to play a conservative defensive game. Unlikely we see a blowout either way there. Germany will not want to help Portugal get to the next round.

So the biggest threat is if Ghana puts up a 2+ goal win. That also seems unlikely, but you never know.

At this time yesterday, I though Portugal was going to get throttled by Ghana. In today's game, however, CR7 and company actually hinted that they didn't go to Brazil just for a vacation, to take selfies, and sign autographs.

Still, they are old and depleted and will have one less day of rest than Ghana.

If we can at least net one goal in the Germany game then I like our chances of getting through.

Yeah, if you want to see the U.S. advance, you have to hope for as little of this as possible on Thursday...

I'm holding out hope for a victory. We tend to defeat the Germans when it counts.

KoreAmBear;842327249 said:

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Well even with that whiff on the free ball, although he did better, he wasn't that great. He had a couple of decent shots on goal, but he really still looked lost out there for some reason. He's supposed to be the midfielder that controls the attack. Jermaine Jones has done that better in both games.

I have to say that Beasley looked pretty good this game. I have to give him props. Also, the Yedlin sub by Klinsi was spot on. The Brooks and Yedlin subs have been great. Klinsi is really making the right moves.

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I'll defend Bradley here - not for the play at the end, which was bad. But otherwise, he played a very good game - nothing like he did against Ghana. He was our best player, aside from Jermaine Jones (and you could convince me that Fabian Johnson also had a better game).

I posted much of my frustration with soccer in this thread: http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84702

As far yesterday, what a shame. We outplayed Portugal and were it not for a shank clear and crap giveaway with about 15 seconds left, we would lead the Group of Death. Wow. Why in the world doesn't Bradley chip that ball forward as a time killer or just knock it out of bounds? Stupidity from our most poised player aside from Jones.

No one is talking about the extra time. How are there 5 extra minutes in that game? Besler went down for a bit but I did not see 5 minutes coming. Especially when in the first half you take a water break and there are only 2 minutes of stoppage time? I've seen no discussion of the time accounting.

blungld;842327395 said:

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No one is talking about the extra time. How are there 5 extra minutes in that game? Besler went down for a bit but I did not see 5 minutes coming. Especially when in the first half you take a water break and there are only 2 minutes of stoppage time? I've seen no discussion of the time accounting.

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It was also extra questionable since they originally announced 4 minutes and then somehow it became 5. Yeah, not sure about that one.

grandmastapoop;842327383 said:

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I'll defend Bradley here - not for the play at the end, which was bad. But otherwise, he played a very good game - nothing like he did against Ghana. He was our best player, aside from Jermaine Jones (and you could convince me that Fabian Johnson also had a better game).

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I'm not sure if he was one of our best players v. Portugal, but it's not unreasonable for you to feel that way. He also had an absolute gimme that kicked right into the Portugal defender (he had the rest of the goal open to him) while Beto was off his line.

I could think of at least a few players that had more positive impact than Bradley: Deuce, Jones, Howard, Beasley (played a solid game and Klinsi allowed him to attack), Yedlin (only for a short time), Zusi, Johnson (flying down the right side), Besler and Cameron (save the first and last goals LOL).

I guess perhaps my view of Bradley is tinted by what I am expecting of him -- which is to create more chances and breaks from mid-field. I don't remember one break that started from a Bradley run or through ball. Our first goal came from a corner, and our second goal was started by a run by Yedlin (Bradley did get a touch).

He is definitely one of our 3 best players, but I don't see him playing like that right now. We are going to need his skills and leadership at top form going forward. I believe that he will play a a high level v. Germany and hopefully in the next round.