Brazil has been a pretender all tournament long, imo. First real contender they play after an easy group, and probably the easiest path to the semis, without their best player and a starting defender, so a loss was not surprising. But wow, this was just pure domination from start to finish by Germany.
*** Official FIFA World Cup 2014 Thread ***
- Thread starter 3TrueFans
- Start date
yeah he's 33 I believe so it will probably be his last. He is 82 overall in FIFA so...
I know that when I make fantasy teams, the first thing I do is refer to video game stats before anything else.
Argentina has one guy who is rated really high on FIFA, but Netherlands has way more guys rated high on FIFA. So Netherlands wins but Germany has even more high rated FIFA guys who will win the final on FIFA.
I'm not sure Howard could have saved Brazil tonight.
The entire game was the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. As far as I can tell, Brazil was the first team all World Cup to play Germany outright aggressive. Every other team, including USA, cluttered up the midfield, and while Germany was able to advance the ball, it was much more difficult. Instead, Brazil attacked all evening - which is fine, if they weren't sloppy with the ball and had scored a few goals. Instead, they turned the ball over and over and Germany made them pay on the counter. And while the tactics hung the defense out to dry, the defense outright hung Cesar out to dry. I'd say at least 5 of the goals Cesar gave up weren't his fault. When Germany is playing 4-on-2 in the box all first half, that's not on the goaltender.
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Only one guy on Aregntina's team? Check Aguero's stats again. I think the top goal scoring threat for Chelsea would be pretty well rated.
I agree. I rewatched the first half last night (was stuck at work yesterday), and I'm not quite sure what Brazil was trying to do tactically. Were they just trying to outrun Germany to spots? What was with the long pass and pray offense? Germany is just too good, too fundamentally sound, for the attack Brazil was trying. It was as though Brazil did not want to use the mid-field at all.
That game was a classic example of how important "technical" soccer is. Brazil was incredibly sloppy, while Germany was incredibly crisp. The pace of the first 30 minutes was insane, and Germany rarely missed a pass, controlling everything. As soon as Brazil made a mistake with the ball, Germany went for the throat.
It was an *** beating of epic proportions, and the technical skills Germany displayed were incredible.
Aguero plays for Manchester City, but you're right he is a fantastic goal scorer, although he hasn't done anything so far in this tournament. Also Higuain and Levezzi are no slouches either. I know they say Aguero is fit but I really wonder if he's actually healthy enough to play just a week after his injury.
It was like there were no Brazilians in the midfield at all, it was really amazing to watch the Germans carve them up so easily.
More like how important it is when you are young and much lower on talent than in recent World Cups. When Brazil had the best talent in the forward positions(Ronaldo, Ronadinho, etc) they could simply control the ball and the match. They didnt have that this year, and never adopted a team strategy to compensate. Other teams that lack the elite talent have had to adopt these strategies for years. This reminds me of when the USA basketball team stopped being able to mop up the international competition. The talent was there, but the team chemistry and tactics where way behind, and the talent gap had shrunk to the point where we were losing those games. Americans were just as shocked as the Brazilians, although the way in which Brazil lost is still amazing.
Agreed. My point is that if Argentina had a fit Aguero and DiMaria, they would have been the run away favorites in this tournament. There defense has looked far superior to Brazils as well, making Belgium seem so pedestrain on the attack. This is set up to be a Messi slaying the giant in the German national team in the finals.
We would have beaten Brazil the way they played yesterday. We may not be close to as technically sound as Germany is, but we are trending in that direction. If we played Brazil the way we played Portugal and Brazil played the way they played yesterday, well, it wouldn't be 7-1, but it would be a comfortable win by American standards.
