Imagine being Rayan this past Christmas, you’re with your family having just finished a good year in the Brazilian top flight and you’re mulling over offers from European sides. Six months later Raphins gets injured in the first half vs Haiti and you’re coming off the bench at the World Cup.
Turkey are absolutely the funniest World Cup team. Turn up with tons of good players, get an easy group, and then lose all your matches anyway. Just like last time!
Turkey have really fucked my bracket predictions lol I see there's talk Neymar will feature v Scotland. That's a boost for @okayibelieveyou because it means they're not taking that final game seirously!
The US Path to the Final: Round of 32: Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on July 1 against a third-place team from Group B, E, F, I, or J. Round of 16: Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington (if they advance). Quarterfinal: BC Place in Vancouver, Canada (if they advance). (also seeing Los Angeles?) Semifinal: AT&T Stadium in Dallas (Arlington), Texas (if they advance). Final: MetLife Stadium in New York/New Jersey on July 19.
As it stands, this translates to playing Bosnia in the Ro32 and Czechia or New Zealand in the Ro16. Obviously that will change a lot I suspect, but based on that easy run, you guys not getting to the quarter finals would be very surprising.
Yeah, I’m trying to not put too much stock in the current as it stands because then the hope may kill me, haha. But that would be a really good scenario that I hope we’d show up properly for. I’ve seen the “most likely” outcome is Belgium in the R16. We looked pretty awful in that friendly back in March (5-2 loss), but it definitely feels like we’ve changed a bit since then.
Yeah it’s hard to know how it will look. Currently England’s route is Portugal, Brazil, France if we want to make the semis ha. Besides, if you beat Belgium in the Ro16 (I think you would) and go out in the quarters or maaaaybe even the semifinals to a Brazil or a France or whatever, that’s still a great result for the US and shows real progress. This is definitely the best I have ever seen you guys play.
FotMob has QF in LA. If you believe FIFA loves to rig things I feel like the path for winner of group D kinda proves it. Not leaving PDT until the semis and then only making an hour jump after that to the east coast. I’ve been telling my wife that FIFA would love to see the US stick around as long as possible just for the fact that it leaves the biggest opportunity to get as much of the US dollar.
Neither of these teams could keep it tight in their respective recent fixtures so I'm expecting entertainment.