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World Cup 2014, June 12th - July 13th in Brazil


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@JDawg:   Congratulations on the trip.  Looks like fun, great pics, wonderful beach life.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh....   Must have been fun.

Meanwhile I'm still stunned by the results of the Brazil/Germany game.  Scoring 7 goals is typically a function of one team being overwhelmingly better across the board than the other team.  But this was the World Cup Semi's.  A semi finalist can't be that overwhelmingly bad.  Brazil was missing its best offensive player and its best defensive player.

In the context of that loss, missing its captain on defense was more costly than missing Neymar.  Germany's goals were partially a result of poor or weak marking of Germany's offensive players.

I watched this effort to analyze the game.  Commentators include a former Brazilian and German star, each of whom had played in past World Cups.  They couldn't really explain it either.

Oh well ...what's to analyze.  I think the goal scoring gods were on Germany's composite shoulders during that game.  A once in a generation experience.

On to the next matches.

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Man:  Netherlands and Argentina just played to a 2 hour scoreless tie.  Winner to be decided by penalty kicks......again.  not just for Netherlands...but this is far more typical a result at World Cup than the Brazil/Germany outcome.

That Brazil Germany game was a once in a multi generational experience IMHO.   A stunning game and result.

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@JDawg:   Congratulations on the trip.  Looks like fun, great pics, wonderful beach life.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh....   Must have been fun.

Meanwhile I'm still stunned by the results of the Brazil/Germany game.  Scoring 7 goals is typically a function of one team being overwhelmingly better across the board than the other team.  But this was the World Cup Semi's.  A semi finalist can't be that overwhelmingly bad.  Brazil was missing its best offensive player and its best defensive player.

In the context of that loss, missing its captain on defense was more costly than missing Neymar.  Germany's goals were partially a result of poor or weak marking of

Germany's offensive players.

I watched this effort to analyze the game.  Commentators include a former Brazilian and German star, each of whom had played in past World Cups.   They couldn't really explain it either

Oh well ...what's to analyze.  I think the goal scoring gods were on Germany's composite shoulders during that game.  A once in a generation experience.

On to the next matches.

There are games such as Bayern over Barca last year 5-0 (two games) and Juve 2-0 (two games) and then Bayern losing to Real 4-1 this year which are inexplicable.  Similar would be Germany and Portugal along with the NL and Spain.  But I believe Germany's best player is Marco Reus from Dortmund and he has not played in this WC.  He is a fantastic offensive player.  Nobody mentions him, at least nobody on this side of the Atlantic. Regardless Brazil played like it was a sandlot game without structure; Germany was precise and supportive of each other.

But I write this as someone who believes that Arjen Robben is as exciting of a futbal player as anyone on earth and has flown to Munich more than once specifically to see Bayern play.

Germany vs. Argentina is the most interesting matchup.  I just want Robben to score and/or assist vs. Brazil.  I'm actually glad that he is not playing against his seven Bayern teammates on Sunday, six of whom start for Germany.

One last comment:  Reus is phenominal.  He'll leave Dortmund and go to a team like Real/Barca/Bayern/ManU and eventually receive the recognition here that he already has in Germany.

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I assume the last two pictures are from the Germany-US match, but could you mention the matches that are included in your photos?  Thanks!

I hope you had a good time!

Yeah captions could have helped, whoops. I'll add them retroactively. [Edit - I put them in for you. Cheers, Rocks] I was tired at the time.  :wacko: First one is US-Ghana, second is from Italy-Uruguay, and last two are indeed Germany-US

Love that you got a Suarez holding his teeth photo!

We had no idea that happened at the time. Just seemed like another scuffle that was typical of the game. It wasn't until we got back to our hotel that we found out what happened. I was having a good time at the game sitting in Uruguay's end and wasn't focused on the game like the US matches, so I took a lot of pictures and while scrolling through I saw that I captured that above (and some scuffles that happened after) and was quite amused. It was quite the case of dumb luck.

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Photo 1: Ponta Negra Beach in Natal (home base near the point, just about the closest point to Africa, where the US-Ghana game was played)

Photo 2: US-Ghana

Photos 3 & 4: Pipa Beach (30 miles down the coast from Natal)

Photo 5: Suarez holding his mouth after the infamous bite during Italy-Uruguay

Photo 6: Dune buggy ride through the dunes north of Natal

Photos 7 & 8: From right after the US-Germany game

Incredible Suarez photo!  Barca must want their players to have a healthy appetite because Liverpool have agreed to sell him to them.  It will be interesting:  Messi, Neymar and Suarez attacking.  (the latter with a knife and fork...)

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Here's JDawg's picture of Suarez - one for the ages:

Photo 5: Suarez holding his mouth after the infamous bite during Italy-Uruguay 

We had no idea that happened at the time. Just seemed like another scuffle that was typical of the game. It wasn't until we got back to our hotel that we found out what happened. I was having a good time at the game sitting in Uruguay's end and wasn't focused on the game like the US matches, so I took a lot of pictures and while scrolling through I saw that I captured that above (and some scuffles that happened after) and was quite amused. It was quite the case of dumb luck.

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This is a very funny picture, and completely one-of-a-kind. Worthy of a Tweet for sure!

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Well, it wasn't a great WC Final, but it was tense, nervy, and entertaining. Both sides had opportunities to win in regulation. In the end, the Germans, like they so often do, wore down their opponents and won the match. And that was the proper result. Considering most of the German core is under the age of 25, we could be watching this team for many more years to come.

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Well, it wasn't a great WC Final, but it was tense, nervy, and entertaining. Both sides had opportunities to win in regulation. In the end, the Germans, like they so often do, wore down their opponents and won the match. And that was the proper result. Considering most of the German core is under the age of 25, we could be watching this team for many more years to come.

And you have to feel pretty good about the US's performance, all things considered.

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I watched sporadically over the tournament.  Such great skills.  As much as the national teams developed wondrous movement, its astonishing.  These players only play together on the national teams for a relatively short period.  Their ability to play a smooth game is a testimony to their skills.

Any time I watch a lot of soccer or futbol I'm blown away.  I played a lot of American soccer in the 60's and 70's in high school, college and in Euro-American ethnic leagues at that time.  The immigrants from various parts of Europe were invariably dramatically more skilled than the native born Americans, regardless of how good the native born players were.  It was the way in which American born players dramatically improved their skills.

At some point possibly 6-8 years after I had graduated high school I was visiting my parents in my home town.  There was a "big" high school soccer game that week.  My home town team, then rated among the best in the state was playing in a tournament against another of the best teams in the state.  In watching the game I ran into two players with whom I had played in high school and in various competitive summer leagues;  two brothers, one a year older than me, one a year younger.  We had all played during our years in college, one becoming a college all-american.

We were as a group in complete agreement:  The individual and team skill levels of the players of both those teams were dramatically better than the skills we had.  We too had  played on teams ranked toward the top of the state.

But the skill levels of American soccer players started to soar beginning in the 1970's.  Compared to the best futbol in the world the Americans were at a bottom, so rapid improvement was to be expected.   Still it was exciting to see.

Here is to the players from around the world.  They are extraordinarily talented.

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When Gotze came on in the 98th minute seven of the German players were from Bayern and had played together much of the season.  Hummels grew up in the Bayern organization and represents one of Munich's greatest losses along with Kroos who is leaving for Real.  Prior to Gotze coming on, Klose was Bayern's striker for several years.  Podolski before him.  At any time from 7 to 9 of the eleven German players have played or play for the same German team in the last several years.

Several Bundesliga clubs (Bayern, Dortmund, Schalke) have excellent youth programs where students live full time from a very young age.  Many of the Bayern players came through this.  Fussball is every bit of the obsession in Germany as it is in Brazil, Argentina or anywhere else.  Here are the television ratings for yesterday's game in Germany:  86.3% of all televisions turned on in Germany were tuned to the game-the highest tv broadcast in history. 34.65 million Germans (out of about 81 million total) watched the game.  Germany has the highest % of attendance of all soccer clubs in the world (i.e. Bayern Munich have sold out every single seat of their now 71,000 seat stadium since it opened in 2005).

I watched ESPN last Wednesday when Germany played Brazil and they did a short feature showing traffic on a major downtown road in Rio which was gridlocked several days earlier.  Thirty minutes before the game started there was only the odd car to be found.

My wife and I were in Munich when Bayern played Dortmund a couple of years ago in the Spring-the game was at Dortmund.  We watched the first half in a Marriott ballroom with a 1,000 or so passionate Germans (many of whom had their whole family there!) and left at halftime to return to our hotel next to the Haufbahnhof.  The ride was about four or five miles through downtown Munich traffic.

There was none. I believe I saw a total of four or five cars during the entire ride.

Verizon carries TyC Sports in its Spanish language package which we subscribe to.  This is Argentina's national sports channel similar to, say, ESPN in the U. S.  Incredible the wall to wall coverage they are still giving their team who just met with Cristina Fernandez the Argentinian president.

I believe D. C. had the highest TV ratings overall of anywhere in America for the World Cup.

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Building on Joe's point, arguably the best soccer you can see is NOT at the World Cup, where national teams hold a few weeks of camp before going to compete, but when the clubs play against each other. So watch for UEFA Champions League matches in February-May each year as the top European clubs go head-to-head with each other.

Note that of the 700+ players who were named to starting WC squads, well more than half of them play regularly in the top 5 European Leagues (England, Italy, Germany, Spain, France). And if you look at the squads that made it past the group stage, it's more like 3/4.

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