Germany and Argentina look real good...Mexico playing well...Brazil also playing well...FRance in the mix...

Mexico v Holland will be real good

you have to admit GHANA is the most advance team today,i was hoping to see them in the finals 

The most advanced? They finished last in their group without winning even one game. They were ranked at number 37 before the World Cup. Explain to me please how they are so advanced. 

rank 37 and can still give portugal with one of the greatest player a fight.a country with limited resource.you judge a victor by their enemy,and a enemy by their opponent   

They're a good team like many of the other teams in the World Cup but nothing exceptional. To declare that they are the most advanced is overrating them.

My sentimental favorite Ghana needs the football discipline and better coaching. This is a team with talent to match any country's team. They are not as bad as their results and the US is not as good as its results.

 

I expect in the Round of 16 the following to advance.

 

Brazil to beat Chile, and Colombia to beat a Suarez-less Uruguay; with Brazil beating Chile to get to the Semi-finals.

 

France wins against Nigeria and Germany gets past a tough Algerian team. I think Germany beats France to play Brazil in one semi-final.

 

On the other side of the brackets I have the Netherlands (playing the best ball so far) beating a tough Mexico team. An upset here would not surprise me and it will be more the way Mexico plays than Netherlands weakness. Costa Rica gets by Greece to setup a victory by the Netherlands over Costa Rica.

 

Argentina Switzerland is a tough one but I have to give Argentina the edge in a close one because of Messi and with all their fans in Brazil. The USA will not be a push over for Belgium and with Altidore back Ii expect the US to advance against Argentina. At this level the big boys play their game and I believe the brave USA will not survive to the semis.

 

So it's Brazil vs Germany and the Netherlands vs Argentina. The Europeans have never won in South America and we might see a Brazil/Argentina final or Argentina/Germany final or Brazil/Netherlands final. Either way South America will come out on top.

 

Thanks for the analysis Kari. Let us see what happens. 

The USA team's performance and using that as a predictor of future results must be seen in the following context.

1. The US would not have been in the knockout stages had Ghana not had disciplinary actions taken. Kevin-Prince Boetang had a fight with the coach over his playing time and that of Ghanian players who play in Europe. Ghana played against Portugal as if it was 22 (Portugal) versus 0 (Ghanian). They let in an own goal, Renaldo's goal happened because the goalie instead of clutching the ball parried it out back to an oncoming Renaldo, and many times Ghanian players headed or kicked the ball off target when they had clear paths. They should have beaten Portugal at least 3 - 1.
2. The US will get back one of the players who is key to Klinsmann's style - Jozy Altidore (a big powerful striker who can hold the ball while attackers surge forward - something Michael Bradley has failed to do so far, and Landon Donovan would have been able to do).

Mexico is playing above is talent, no question - just like the US. But in the knockout rounds talent takes over. They have a terrific no 10 - James, but let's not get carried away. Brazil has played to the level of its players - and there are mediocre players like Hulk, Fred, Paulinho, Danny Alvez and David Luiz. I say play Fernandiho, Willian some more and Brazil will be a better team.

 

Argentina plays to its best and still would not beat a Holland, France or Germany, let alone its nemesis Brazil.

 

France and Holland have been terrific but will implode at some stage. Germany is deadly.

Kari - "The US would not have been in the knockout stages had Ghana not had disciplinary actions taken."

What a crock of baloney!

By the same token I can claim that if US star forward Altidore wasn't injured, the US would have scored more goals against Ghana and Portugal and the equalizer against Germany.
Or if Ronaldo was not playing on a gimpy knee and Portugal didn't lose Fabio Coentrao and Hugo Almeida to injuries and Pepe to suspension, they would have beaten both the US and Ghana handily and not given up so many goals against Germany.

The reality is that "what ifs" do not count in sport because you know that if shit had wings, it would fly. That is why the games are decided on the field of play. Ghana played and they didn't win a game. Portugal underperformed and were hurt by losing key defenders and playing a man down against Germany.

The US had a win against Ghana at full strength and without Altidore, and a tie against Portugal. They basically did what was necessary to advance.

Kari still upset bout Ghana

bottom line is US beat them...so US moves on

Brazil has always been my favorite and continues to be. The USA is opening my eyes but my head says they are not yet ready. My head says Germany - the most complete team and with a deadly finisher in Mueller with Oezil and Schweinsteiger feeding him......

we still have a far way to go enjoy and look for the upset 

He is planning to move to Barcelona where his racist remarks are celebrated...

Brazil got lucky. It's Neymar and the rest - not good. Like LeBron and the rest. Brazil had always had a superstar but others around him - not this team. Colombia is as aggressive as Chile and they have #10 James.

 

Germany remains the strongest team but I have to stick with Brazil. Root for Mexico against Argentina.

Not a big Soccer Fan but enjoyed the Game today. Brazil was extremely lucky today. Chile must hold their heads high.

Waiting for the Netherlands vs Mexico, this is gonna be good, both teams have excellent strikers ( forwards) I look forward to seeing their plays.

I've got Mexico here.

I picked the Netherlands to win and go through to play Costa Rica, and while down 0 – 1 they may yet come back.

 

This Mexican goalie Ochoa who blocked a couple of Neymar’s point blank shot shines again for Mexico.

 

I'm rooting for Mexico while I picked the Netherlands.

 

I did not know about #10 James for Colombia until yesterday. He has more goals than Neymar, Messi and Mueller. Watch out for him when Brazil plays Colombia next.

 

Next big game for us here is the new-look USA versus the talented attacking Belgium. Jürgen Klinsmann has 5 German-Americans in the US squad, notably Germaine Jones, Fabian Johnson and Brooks – physical players over 6 ft. Note his substitution of DeAndre Yedlin – one of the fastest players WITH the ball.

 

This US team may yet surprise, as Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica are doing. The Brazil heat is too much for the Europeans – the Germans aside.

 

Another Ochoa block and Mexico’s super sub Hernandez is now on.

 

Wow, van Persie has been substituted for – too much heat (first time I learnt that FIFA has a 3-minute cooling off break when the temp rises above 89 deg Fahrenheit.

The dam Dutch pulled the rug from under the Mexicans just before end of play. Goalbanna Ochro got caught with both shots to the same spot twice.

2-1 for the Dutch.

Mexico laid back too much after the first goal...I was rooting for Holland anyway

Two great Games today. Playing with 10, Costa Rica deserved the win. The Mexicans got too complacent at the end.

USA!!  USA!!!   USA!!!   THESE COLORS DONT RUN.   IT IS GOING TO BE BELGIAN WAFFLES FOR LUNCH        GO USA      GO USA          GO USA

you know it

 

USA   USA   USA   GO GO GO USA!!!

Just checked out a sweet Belgian chick.

 

That's it for me.  Go Belgium Go !

Should Belgium win blame it on Nehru, he gave the US dem bad eye and bad breath.

So this is my take I have Netherlands for all the way.

On Friday I have Columbia over Brazil.

VIVA BRAZIL My LOVING NEIGHBORS.

Columbia good...but Brazil will prevail

I think Germany will win

The 8 remaining teams have all won their groups and have not lost a game yet.

 

Colombia will provide a tough test to Brazil but their inexperienced and I think Brazil will start to put it together.

Germany will get past France.

 

Netherlands and Argentina should get by the other quarter-finals, though Argentina would get a hard time with Belgium.

 

I expect 2 South American giants and two European giants in the fina lfour - Brazil vs Germany (this would be the real finals) and Argentina vs the Netherlands. At this stage it's anybody's ballgame, though the pressure is onj the home team Brazil.

Go for it Argentina.

I did not call on the France Germany game but Ray you made the correct call.

Both Brazil and Germany hang on by their teeth. Brazil is yet to play to the level of their talent.

 

While they get Gustavo back for Germany they lose Thiaga to a stupid yellow card, and who knows if Neymar's back injury will keep him out of the Germany game. It was pretty serious - the lower back injury.

Netherlands survives!!

All the way baby!!

None of the four semi-finalists, all heavyweights, were not convincing in their victories. The Netherlands has been brilliant and stupefying at the same time. The German well-oiled machine does not dominate as the competition stiffens but it still gets the job done. The Argentines have not impressed me as a team - brilliant parts in Messi and DiMaria and to a lesser extent Hiquain. The Brazilians have not played as their talent suggests - maybe their talent is over-rated. Neymar may still pull it off for Brazil in absentia by providing that missing ingredient - that intangible that the Yankees in 1996 rode with deaths and illnesses to their close ones.

 

I still think Germany is the most complete team and the Netherlands can rise to frightening brilliance at times. The South Americans have history on their side, and now that Neymar is gone for this World Cup some pressure may be relieved from the Selecao and they may be freed up in time to play jogo bonito.

Robben is Golden diver....He should be crowned with a trophy.

Brazil accused of dirty play and the refs are enablers

 

NY Times - Sunday July 6, 2014

 

RIO DE JANEIRO — A Colombian defender named Juan Camilo Zúñiga ended the World Cup for the Brazilian star striker Neymar on Friday with a nasty knee into Neymar’s back that fractured one of his vertebrae. It was an ugly play and a bad foul. It deserved, at least, a yellow card.

 

Yet within any game, there is always a road map to every flash point. The beauty of soccer’s continuous flow is that one thing leads to another (and another and another), and that makes it possible to trace a path to a game’s most memorable moment. In a game like Friday’s, doing so makes it easier to see where things went wrong.

 

So what happened to Neymar? How did the face of this tournament end up in a hospital? Brazilian fans will not like to hear it, but while Zúñiga was directly responsible for causing Neymar’s injury, Neymar’s teammates — specifically Fernandinho, though there were others — as well as the referee, Carlos Velasco Carballo, deserve their share of the blame, too. They did not commit the crime, but they contributed to an environment of lawlessness that led to Neymar’s being battered.

 

If that sounds harsh, consider that Brazil’s coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, made a point of saying before the game that there was no historical rivalry between Brazil and Colombia and that games between the teams were “friendly matches.” Thiago Silva, the captain, said that playing against Colombia’s considerable skill players would make for a cleaner, more fluid game.

 

Yet from the first minute it appeared that Brazil was determined to play the game cynically, tripping and pushing and kicking at Colombia’s players, especially James Rodríguez, the team’s wunderkind scorer. Colombia, on the other hand, seemed almost deferential at first. When Neymar went off on a spirited run six minutes into the game, the Colombian defenders did little to try to knock him off stride, let alone scythe him to the ground as previous opponents had done. He ran freely.

 

When Rodríguez went to claim the ball a few minutes later, however, Brazil’s Óscar ran right into Rodríguez’s back as if to make clear to him that no space on the Fortaleza field would be a safe space. Rodríguez’s teammates were understandably upset, but there was no retaliation — the feeling of violence in the game, especially early on, came almost exclusively from Brazil.

 

Two minutes after Óscar’s foul, Marcelo blasted the Colombian midfielder Juan Cuadrado. Three minutes after that, Fernandinho, a midfielder who often plays with an edge, slammed into Rodríguez again. Velasco Carballo blew his whistle and called a foul but did not show Fernandinho a yellow card.

 

This quickly became a recurrent theme. Soccer referees will often show yellow cards to players for “persistent infringement” of the rules, a phrase that generally means committing three or four serious fouls. Fernandinho was called for four fouls in just the first half of the game, three of them significant hacks at Rodríguez. But Velasco Carballo gave him no penalty.

This was not a new role for Fernandinho. He committed six fouls in Brazil’s previous game (two more than the number of passes he completed), a difficult victory over Chile in a shootout. Of course, as Scolari noted, that game was between heated rivals. Colombia and Brazil were supposed to be more copacetic.

 

Despite that, the temperature of the game continued to rise in the second half, and again, it was Brazil doing most of the stoking. David Luiz blatantly tripped Cuadrado in the first minute after intermission (Velasco Carballo missed it). Fernandinho slyly pushed Adrián Ramos into the sign boards behind the end line as the two chased a ball that was undoubtedly going out of play anyway.

 

In all, Brazil committed nine of the first 11 fouls in the second half, hacking and pounding on the Colombians despite already holding a 1-0 lead. It was not hard to predict that at some point, Brazil’s top star, Neymar, would become a target.

It was in the 57th minute, though, when the match began to boil over. The Colombians had continued to mostly sit back and take the punishment, but they were clearly infuriated when Silva crushed Ramos from behind as he went toward a ball. Velasco Carballo, again, declined to whistle a foul. The Colombians’ ire was raised even more 10 minutes later when the referee showed a yellow card to Rodríguez — who was apoplectic at the decision — for an innocuous trip that was, as Rodríguez vociferously pointed out with multiple hand gestures, a first offense compared with Fernandinho’s harrying.

 

“I think the referee influenced the game a lot,” Rodríguez said afterward.

He was being kind. Velasco Carballo’s role in the ugliness cannot be minimized. A Spaniard, he is known as a high-level official, but it seemed clear that he was determined to avoid using cards to control the players. That decision backfired, particularly as it related to Fernandinho; instead of giving the players a comfort level to play more freely early on, his lenience served as an elastic band on the game, encouraging the players, especially the Brazilians, to try to see just how much contact they could get away with on Rodríguez without being punished.

 

It was a poor miscalculation from Velasco Carballo, and one he compounded by neglecting to adjust as the game progressed. His culpability is impossible to ignore.

 

Yet neither is that of the Brazilians who, emboldened, continued to chop. The Colombians took a few shots in return, though nothing compared with, say, Chile or earlier Brazil opponents, who clearly had a plan to harass Neymar. By the time the game reached its closing moments, the Colombians — who saw Brazil commit 31 of the tournament-high 54 fouls in the game — surely felt they were owed the proverbial pound of flesh.

 

They got it, then, with Zúñiga’s challenge on Neymar, though it is hard to believe Zúñiga was looking to cause the sort of damage he inflicted. Taking a whack at an attacking player who is awaiting a bouncing or floating ball is standard fare: Rodríguez was hit high, low and in between multiple times on Friday. In the 87th minute, the ball came near, Zúñiga put his knee into Neymar’s back and Neymar crumpled, his World Cup suddenly over.

It was unfortunate and sad, and afterward, Scolari and other Brazilian officials were incensed. Much of their frustration was directed at Zúñiga, with the rest being sent toward the referee.

 

“Everybody knew that Neymar would be hunted,” Scolari said. “It’s been happening in the last three matches, and we had been talking about it. But nobody listens to us.”

 

Those emotions were understandable. But if Scolari was truly being honest with himself, he must look inward, too. Brazil has not showcased jogo bonito here, has not displayed the “beautiful game” that it is known for playing. It has played ugly and rugged and rough.

 

That is Scolari’s choice. And on Friday it was Scolari’s players — Neymar’s teammates — who created the environment that ultimately sent Brazil’s superstar home.

Germany already warned FIFA "you are not going to allow the Brazilians to go out and kick everyone as they did with Colombia"

it is clear to me that Brazil and Holland have been favored by the referees.

Germany is clearly the more efficient team. Brazil looks lost and leaderless. Germany 3 - 0 and it's only at the 24-minute mark

It's a rout - 4 to nothing.