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Ouch US seed in the group of death

I think that we all overrate Germany and Italy, yes they are superpowers, but italy went out in the first round of the Euro, they have been a while without doing anything.

US has a good chance to win this one. But I can promise you that the US-Italy game is going to be one of the mos boring games in history...
 
If we got Italy in the first game, we could pull the upset. The Italians ALWAYS start slow. But we got them in the second, which is just another strike against the USA. And, as noted above, the 2nd place team almost certainly plays Brazil in round 2. So even if we get out of the group stage, it's likely to be a short World Cup for the USA.
 
Everyone is writing the Americans off, just like at the last World Cup......

US was written off against Portugal...they won. They can do it. Will they? We will see.

And yes Germany is overrated. They are expected to do bad for being hosts, they were expected to not even get out of the Group Stage, but they got into an easy group.
 
phunwin said:
If we got Italy in the first game, we could pull the upset. The Italians ALWAYS start slow. But we got them in the second, which is just another strike against the USA. And, as noted above, the 2nd place team almost certainly plays Brazil in round 2. So even if we get out of the group stage, it's likely to be a short World Cup for the USA.
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Not sure of who plays who but I'm pretty sure Italy's first game is versus Ghana
 
wpgfishfan said:
Not sure of who plays who but I'm pretty sure Italy's first game is versus Ghana
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I believe you're right. The best hope for the US is that Italy wins, but sleepwalks through that game, and it carries over to the next one.

On the upside, I have the Portugal and Mexico games from the 2002 Cup recorded, so I can just watch those as soon as we go out.
 
All thsis tuff about "three top 10 teams in the same group"...

The FIFA World Rankings are a load of crap.

http://www.soccerphile.com/soccerphile/news/fifa.html

those are the latest rankings and the way they are worked doesn't take in to account strength of opposition. The seedings that FIFA give are much more realistic in terms of how good a team is.

For example, if you think England should be ranked below America and Mexico then you need your head examined.

I'd say the top 10, in terms of actual ability looks something like this

Brazil
Argentina
England
Italy
Holland
Spain
Czech Republic
France
Portugal
Germany


And then after them you have teams like Sweden, Poland, USA, Mexico etc who I think are on a similar level. I presume Ivory Coast are up there as well, but I haven't seen them play.

THE USA's best chance is that the Czech Republic don't qualify; I say that because I can't see Baros scoring as many as he did in Euro 2004, and Koller is a waste of space. That said, you have to find a way to get the ball past Petr Cech.

For me Italy are as good as through, they are a far better drilled team this time round and Luca Toni could make himself into a star.

Ghana will be tough. very tough.
 
For me Italy are as good as through, they are a far better drilled team this time round and Luca Toni could make himself into a star.

I hope you are right and I hope Vieri does not even make the team. Luca Toni will shine as we will finally have a quality striker


As for your rankings I believe the USA should be around 20 but we can't blame them for who they play. The Gold Cup is not thought of highly enough. Maybe the rest of the world should have a touney the same year as Euro happens then we can see the USA play the Brazil, Argentina and some Asian and African countries
 
The FIFA Rankings are pretty crappy but hey they are there. So I will go by them. Italy is nowhere near as good as through. They choke almost as much as Spain but don't take as much heat as Spain. And Germany a Top 10 Team? :nono:
 
Prime Time said:
The FIFA Rankings are pretty crappy but hey they are there. So I will go by them. Italy is nowhere near as good as through. They choke almost as much as Spain but don't take as much heat as Spain. And Germany a Top 10 Team? :nono:
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Italy is ranked 12 which means they should finish 3rd in a group with the #2 and #8 team. I say they finish top 2 which means they do better than their ranking

I think the ranking that is off is France. They have been terrible for 4 years now but they luck out in an easy group so they will advance and probably keep their ranking
 
France > Italy

Italy chokes 24/7....like American Football any team can beat any team at any point. I like a lot of Italian Players. My ancestors (WAY WAY BACK) were Italian. Your opinion will differ from mines on how teams will be ranked so the only way to go is FIFA's Rankings (which is BS but it is the closest thing to accurate)....
 
I lived in Verona, Italy from 1971-1975 and I got to see Juventus and Lazio play so I am gonna pull for the Azzurri if the USA doesn't make. :)
 
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