{"id":5605,"date":"2014-06-23T08:50:45","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T12:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=5605"},"modified":"2014-06-23T08:50:45","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T12:50:45","slug":"drinking-from-the-world-cup-day-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=5605","title":{"rendered":"Drinking from the World Cup: Day 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recapping Day 11:
\n<\/strong>The US-Portugal game was a great one.\u00a0 In some ways, it was the opposite of the first game for the Americans.\u00a0 They gave up a goal very early, but then settled in and started to really control the game at about the 20 minute mark.\u00a0 Eventually, they were rewarded with two goals, only have to have Ronaldo finally make a play in the 95th minute with a perfect placed cross for the equalizer.\u00a0 Michael Bradely, arguably the Americans best player, has been terrible in both games so far, but they’ve gotten great play from Dempsey and some of the Germans.\u00a0 Jermaine Jones has been great in both games, including a goal in this one.\u00a0 Fabian Johnson has been incredibly disruptive and dangerous from the right-back spot and, of course, the John Brooks goal in the first game.<\/p>\n

There’s been a lot of backlash from the media and talking heads to Belgium’s perceived status as one of the favorites.\u00a0 I’d say they’ve been overly criticized.\u00a0 Yes, they’ve had to scuffle to beat two fairly mediocre opponents, but look around at the other favorites.\u00a0 Spain has been embarrassed, while Germany and Brazil have four points apiece.\u00a0 Argentina barely squeaked by Iran, who is easily worse than the Belgian foes.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Belgium has six points in hand.\u00a0 They haven’t inspired a ton of confidence but they’ve gotten the job done.\u00a0 Especially in this sport, a win is a win, and sometimes you just have to win by one.<\/p>\n

Today’s Games:
\n<\/strong>Noon: Netherlands vs. Chile and Australia vs. Spain
\n4PM: Croatia vs. Mexico and Brazil vs. Cameroon<\/p>\n

Today’s Drink:
\n<\/strong>Hop Doom Imperial IPA. <\/em>You can’t tell from the name, but this one is Spanish.\u00a0 I’ve never had a craft ale from Spain, so I’m curious to see how it is.\u00a0 It’s easily the strongest beer I’ll have in this competition, at 11.5%.\u00a0 I recommend all Spaniards to down a few of these as they watch today so they can forget their troubles and maybe imagine their national team is still the world power it once was.<\/p>\n

What’s At Stake:
\n<\/strong>Netherlands and Chile are already through in Group A, but the loser of this game will likely see Brazil in their next game, so both teams will be playing to win.\u00a0 Considering the talent each side has in attack, it should be a really entertaining game.\u00a0 The Dutch have the edge in goal differential, so they would be satisfied with a tie, but they’re without Robin Van Persie after he picked up two yellows (and three goals) in the first two games.<\/p>\n

It’s incredibly unlikely but we have to mention that it’s at least possible that the tournament hosts and favorite could be eliminated from the tournament today.\u00a0 If Brazil loses to Cameroon and the Croatia-Mexico game ends tied, the Brazilians would be ousted.\u00a0 But, considering how poor Cameroon has looked and that all Brazil needs is a tie to clinch a spot in the knockout stage, let’s assume they’ll be ok.<\/p>\n

So, with that assumed, the Mexico-Croatia game is essentially a knockout game, though Mexico would advance with a tie.\u00a0 Two solid teams that have looked pretty strong so far.<\/p>\n

Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa spent last season playing for a team that finished dead last in the French Ligue 1 and many didn’t think he should be the team’s starter coming into this tournament.\u00a0 My point: his incredible performance against Brazil may have been a bit of a fluke and we shouldn’t expect him to repeat it.<\/p>\n

Even if that’s true, Mexico still has a lot of quality, but not on the level of Croatia, especially since they’ve added striker Mario Mandzukic since the Brazil game, and he popped two goals vs. Cameroon.\u00a0 I like Croatia to win this 2-1 and move on to face Chile, my predicted Group A winners.\u00a0 That would set up a pretty great Brazil-Netherlands matchup as the first game of the knockout stage on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recapping Day 11: The US-Portugal game was a great one.\u00a0 In some ways, it was the opposite of the first game for the Americans.\u00a0 They gave up a goal very early, but then settled in and started to really control … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5610,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions\/5610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}