2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Thread

So it's 23 days before the World Cup starts, so I thought it was time to open a thread for World Cup discussion!

Who will take home the trophy? Which team will surprise everyone? Which team will disappoint ?


Here are the groups:

GROUP A:

Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Cameroon

GROUP B:

Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia

GROUP C:

Colombia, Greece, Cote d’lvoire, Japan

GROUP D:

Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy

GROUP E:

Switzerland, Ecuador, France, Honduras

GROUP F:

Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Nigeria

GROUP G:

Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA

GROUP H:

Belgium, Algeria, Russia, Korea Republic

 

These are my picks:

Round of 16:

Brazil vs Chile
Colombia vs Italy
France vs Nigeria
Germany vs Russia
Spain vs Croatia
Uruguay vs Japan
Argentina vs Ecuador
Belgium vs Portugal

Quarterfinals:

Brazil vs Italy
France vs Germany
Spain vs Uruguay
Argentina vs Portugal

Semifinals:

Brazil vs Germany
Spain vs Argentina

Final:

Brazil vs Argentina

Third Place Match:

Germany vs Spain

You can check the pairings and build your own bracket here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo.../World-Cup-2014-Wallchart-Predictor-Game.html

 

Very nice link Imperial. I used it and I got Spain victorious in the final against Brazil. Germany and Argentina too meet in the third place playoff. England managed QF

 

I'm going with Spain also. I know even less about soccer than I do about hockey, so maybe I'll fare even better here than in that thread . . .

 

Link to video.

Nice documentary on the American side. Never knew that Ghana was America's eternal rivals.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/interactive/2013/dec/18/world-cup-2014-draw-strength-of-schedule

That was kind of cool. It uses FIFA rankings/points to score each group by strength and determine who has the hardest set of group fixtures. Australia have the hardest draw (lol), while group G is the strongest group overall (GER, POR, USA, GHA).

I fancy Ivory Coast for an unlikely cup run.

 

Don't be so pessimistic. Sure we won't win a game, but we could make a splash against one of the teams.

 

Interesting link. And here I thought we were handed the toughest schedule...I don't expect much from Costa Rica anyway. if we put somewhat of a decent showing, it'll be fine.

 

ESPN released posters for the 32 teams. Link

Some of them look pretty cool, they also feature the nicknames of each squad. I doubt, however, that the Americans would call themselves "The Yanks"...

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

Luis Suárez is injured and went through surgery on meniscus damage and could miss at least the first game of the World Cup. Even if he recovers, he won't be fully fit for the group stage games... Which could benefit their group rivals.

 

lol we're gonna get pummelled

 

Teams named variations on "the national football team": Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Greece, Iran, Switzerland

Teams named "the blues": France, Italy

Teams named for their red but sometimes with another word: Belgium, Chile, Spain

Teams named in Spanish after the existence of three colours in their uniforms and flag: Mexico, Ecuador

Teams named celeste: Uruguay, Argentina

Asian teams with actually excellent names: Korea, Japan

Teams with really embarassing names that illustrate the awkward minority status of soccer in their country: Australia, the United States

 

These guys in the picture have different facial hair. Some are hairy and others are smooth.

 

Trust me, if someone is gonna get pummelled, its us...

 

You could easily come 3rd with England in the group. Hell if you get a result against us and we take points off Italy or Uruguay you might even go through! E.g. Italy beat Costa Rica but lose to Uruguay and England. Costa Rica beat England but lose to Uruguay and Italy. England, Costa Rica and Italy are all on the same points now, so down to GD and GS -- might get lucky.

 

Conclusion: less doomed than Australia.

Also probably a better team.

 

It seems like every year that there are those 3-4 teams that one wonders how they even qualified in the first place. It happened this year with Australia, Costa Rica, Cameroon, and Mexico. All of whom seem like very underwhelming and mystifying in terms of how good they actually are.

 

We're good enough to qualify from Asia most years but we've got a stonkingly hard group and are a poorer side than ten years ago.