Thanks Pepe, and Im not good at picking WC winners

Well, thanks to Pepe's meltdown and Germany demolishing Portugal in their first game of the World Cup, the United States has advanced to the Round of 16 and play Belgium next.  (Where are you Peter?!?).  They were even able to do it with no biting!!!



Belgium will be stiff competition, but I like USA's chances (relatively, as opposed to teams like Germany, Argentina, etc).  Belgium has world class players who play in the Premier League, like Vincent Kompany, Eden Hazard, and Marouane Fellaini, but overall, the team is young, and even though they swept their group, havent always looked spectacular.  I actually think this team will make a run to the finals in 2018, but hopefully the US can push them a bit next Tuesday.

Fellaini


But, what do I know?  Obviously nothing as my original WC predictions for the group winners were crap.  I got 9 out of the 16 teams correct.

My picks were

Group A
Brazil
Croatia

Mexico proved me wrong.

Group B
Spain
Chile

I thought this would be a competitive group between Spain, Chile, and the Netherlands.  What happened to Spain????

Group C
Ivory Coast
Greece

Colombia made me a loser here.  I would have thought the Toure brothers and Drogba could have got them through.

Group D
Uruguay
Italy

Here in the US, Group G was called the Group of Death.  However, I think Group D was more difficult, and Im surprised that Costa Rica was the team who made it through over Italy and England.  I saw Costa Rica play several times in CONCACAF, and while decent, Im really shocked they passed over two of the futbol giants.  Losing 'the Biter' will really hurt Uruguay.  Suarez is a dipshit for such a spectacular soccer player.

Group E
France
Switzerland

Hot damn.  I got one right.  This is the group I probably knew overall the least about.  That tells you something I think.

Group F
Argentia
Bosnia and Herzegovinia

Nigeria made it through over Dzeko and company.  Surprising - the US gave Nigeria a thumping in its very last warm up game prior to Brazil.  My winner (Argentina) is still alive, and Nigeria's coach says that "Messi is from Jupiter".  Still hard to bet against that guy...

Group G
Germany
Portugal

Hell yeah!  Gladly wrong about this one.  I still think this group played out exactly as I thought it would, but Portugal's meltdown in the first game was a killer for them.  Had they kept their shit together, they may have gone through.  Germany looks good, and frankly, they may be the winners this year.

Group H
Belgium
Russia

Another one that is a little surprising to me, although I didnt know much about Algeria (who finished in second in this group).  Belgium is full of world class players who I feel arent quite ready for the big time YET, but they will be.