Badass World Cup Bracket

There was a GS bracket post several days ago, with the statistical likelihood of each match and their "most likely" bracket. That being said, Brazil has the best chance of winning in almost everyone's bracket.

Top of page 6, exhibit 2. "Predicted knockout round"

-No European team has ever won a world cup in the Western Hemisphere. -The last two years of Champions League football has shown that counter football is hotter than tiki-taka right now. Just look at Pep Guardiola's shambolic last two seasons in the Champions League. -Never trust a team whose top offensive talent plays in the Premier League. -Colombia is a mystery without Falcao. They probably won't do as good as their UEFA coefficient would suggest. -Brazil is so hot right now as Mugatu would say. And with reason.

eloratings.net is your friend.

argentina will win. brazil will disappoint. england will not make it out of their group. US will make it out of their group due to germany playing a weakened squad in the last group game (low does this a lot). Lukaku will win golden boot. Spain will struggle.

Portugal.

U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A.

I'd be surprised the US made it out of the group stages this time.

Anyone got links to obnoxiously patriotic images?

I can't wait until the MLS collapses, remember all those people who used to say soccer would take over the U.S. because so many kids under 10 were playing haha

http://tinypic.com/r/2zs6tma/8

someone teach me how to imbed images pliz

Bloomberg made a sweet one that you can change as the games are played:

http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/world-cup/#0,0,-1

Brazil have never won the world cup while they were the favorites to win... as much as I'd like to see them win at home, I don't think that fairy tale will come to pass

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see soccer increase in popularity significantly soon. So many kids play, and the only competition it has as a fall sport in the US is football. With more and more information coming out about the long term effects of football head injuries I can see more over protective parents encouraging kids to stay with soccer. Also if FIFA ends up stripping Qatar of the 2022 WC, if it manages to land in the USA it would really be a perfect storm.

Soccer is actually a very easy way to get horribly injured.

There is a disconnect between the MLS and Team USA's fortunes, at least for now. The fact most Team USA players play in the US as opposed to top European leagues is a major damper on the US' chances. There is simply no comparison in terms of how well prepared for the World Cup players who've played in European Cup football are.

Some of that has to do with the high school/collegiate sport system in the US. Soccer is very much a game of skill that is virtually impossible to pick up much later than 10 years old like say football or basketball. Just look at Messi. The dude is tiny and basically autistic and yet is one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen. There is no way he would have made it where he is growing up in the US. In a country with over 300 million well-fed people, there has to be enough raw talent to build an amazing team. There just needs to be a system that puts players on an equal footing with Europeans and South Americans (and that means giving up high school to take a shot at being a pro, not lifting weights until you're 18-19...)

US players also need to take the jump and go elsewhere than the Premier League, particularly strikers.Why? Because outside of the Big 5, Premier League defenses are awful. Unspeakably awful. The Premier League is fun to watch because refs are very lax and lots of goals are scored but the reality is that the premium on skill and technique is much lower in English football than in the rest of the world. Thanks to intense homerism on the part of the English, very few English players ever play abroad (the fact every team overpays their players doesn't help either). As a result, England's teams have been woefully underprepared for every football competition ever, except for 1966 when they were playing at home.

This Premier League obsession is present in the US too. Just look at this article on NYC hipster soccer fans (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/fashion/soccer-particularly-englands-…). These clowns think they are cool and edgy for supporting a team they have no real affiliation too and think are playing in the best league because it is the richest one. No wonder adapt or die thinks soccer is a pussy sport. (This is what real fans do btw:

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The whole way the US looks at soccer is fundamentally wrong. The coverage on ESPN during the 2010 World Cup was laughable. Pre-game coverage that goes on for hours is stupid. Make your analysis after the game. Take the example of the US-Ghana game. Everyone on ESPN kept going on and on about how the US was in the best physical condition of any team in the tournament. Why in the world would the US be in better shape? Because they have more money? Because they have Lance Armstrong's doctor? Is the Biggest Loser team in charge of their exercise regimen? By the end of the game, Ghana was running laps around the Americans. Same goes with how pumped people were about beating Algeria and feeling like the ref was so unfair. Act like you've been there for goodness' sake... You just beat... Algeria! The lack of a soccer culture in the US is painfully obvious on ESPN. World Cup coverage is aimless, arrogant and clueless.

The day soccer/football will have arrived in the US is the day European and South American players will think going to the US to play isn't just a pre-retirement option. It's the day soccer isn't a thing for hipster douchenozzles but a sport where everyone roots for their local team (Go New England Revolution!), not some overpaid Brits 3000 miles away. It will be the day US commentators will make up more BS about potential player transfers than BS about how Team USA "has got hustle" or some such soft crap. That will be the day the US wins a World Cup.

Put all your money on Germany

I'll be cheering for the USA but our bracket is going to make it tough. Not only do we have Germany and Portugal, but the third team is Ghana which has knocked us out of the last two WCs. Not going to be easy.

It wouldn't be a big surprise if any one of a number of countries won it. Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Spain. Being great isn't enough, you need to perform in 5+ consecutive games that could all be decided by one mistake by the goalkeeper or a shot that misses by inches.