Group G

[Dylan]

Germany

Portugal

Ghana

USA

Times are GMT.

16/06 17:00 Salvador Germany - Portugal
16/06 23:00 Natal Ghana - USA
21/06 20:00 Fortaleza Germany - Ghana
22/06 23:00 Manaus USA - Portugal
26/06 17:00 Recife USA - Germany
26/06 17:00 Brasilia Portugal - Ghana​

 

[Besnik]

My predictions for Germany and Portugal to go through...

 

[Y&h]

I went with Germany and Ghana. I don't know why but I'm getting the felling Portugal will suffer a lot to qualify despite their seemingly favorites labeling.

 

[Armes]

Tough group. Germans and Portugese will probably go through, but US & Ghana are not to be underestimated either.

 

[crzdcolombian]

Obviously Germany tho I'd love it if they failed to make it out of group stage haha which would never happen.

I picked US because Portugal is over rated and US has beaten them before. If CR7 doesn't preform it's over for them and we all know he can't handle pressure all too well. I can't wait to see him cry and go "but I'm better than Messi!!"

Ghana can surprise as well but it's anyones game. It's Germany + any one else.

 

[Coasterfreek]

This is gonna be a straight up Ass whooping. I see USA getting maybe 1 goal in three games.

 

[Verathia]

Ian Darke... classic.

 

[crzdcolombian]

This is gonna be a straight up Ass whooping. I see USA getting maybe 1 goal in three games.

People nut on Portugal because of Ronaldo but they almost didn't qualify. US isn't a great team but they are a strong team that works together and plays better then their potential. I wouldn't say they won't qualify. I still think its Ghana and Germany but every team loses to Germany. A tie and a win and your in.

 

[thatdude]

People nut on Portugal because of Ronaldo but they almost didn't qualify. US isn't a great team but they are a strong team that works together and plays better then their potential. I wouldn't say they won't qualify. I still think its Ghana and Germany but every team loses to Germany. A tie and a win and your in.

Exactly, the key for USA is the first game. We need to get a result against Ghana to have any hope of going through to the next round. Than if we can tie Portugal and go in to the Germany game not having to win (and hopefully with them already qualified) we have a real chance. People will look at us as the potential shipping boy, we need to use this to our advantage and play with no fear.

 

[Wings]

People nut on Portugal because of Ronaldo but they almost didn't qualify. US isn't a great team but they are a strong team that works together and plays better then their potential. I wouldn't say they won't qualify. I still think its Ghana and Germany but every team loses to Germany. A tie and a win and your in.

But Portugal had Russia in their group, who aren't exactly minnows. And they certainly qualified more easily than Mexico, who you keep claiming will go through.

Portugal have a solid team, apart from a lack of a striker. You're underrating them heavily.

 

[JJM]

Portugal's 30 man squad

PORTIERI: Anthony Lopes (Lione), Beto (Siviglia), Eduardo (Braga) e Rui Patricio (Sporting Lisbona).


DIFENSORI: Andre' Almeida (Benfica), Antunes (Malaga), Bruno Alves (Fenerbahce), Fabio Coentrao (Real Madrid), Joao Pereira (Valencia), Neto (Zenit), Pepe (Real Madrid), Ricardo Costa (Valencia) e Rolando (Inter).


CENTROCAMPISTI: Andre' Gomes (Benfica), Joao Mario (Vitoria), Joao Moutinho (Monaco), Miguel Veloso (Dinamo Kiev), Raul Meireles (Fenerbahce), Ruben Amorim (Benfica) e William Carvalho (Sporting).


ATTACCANTI: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Eder (Braga), Helder Postiga (Lazio), Hugo Almeida (Besiktas), Ivan Cavaleiro (Benfica), Nani (Manchester United), Rafa (Braga), Ricardo Quaresma (Porto), Varela (Porto) e Vieirinha (Wolfsburg)

 

[crzdcolombian]

But Portugal had Russia in their group, who aren't exactly minnows. And they certainly qualified more easily than Mexico, who you keep claiming will go through.

Portugal have a solid team, apart from a lack of a striker. You're underrating them heavily.

haha Mexico has a worst chance than the US after I saw Croatia's squad !!

 

[Il Divin Codino]

haha Mexico has a worst chance than the US after I saw Croatia's squad !!

kay:

 

[Azul]

Some options made by Paulo Bento made me laugh.

André Almeida I guess was called for being able to play in multiple positions, I like him but Cedric made a better season.

André Gomes, who only started playing after being sold to a fund for 15M, over Adrien. It´s curious that you call for the WC top 30 a player that dividing all his minutes on the A team for 90´ you get 11 full games in the season at the time of the press conference. And most of them were on a rotation system, he got the equivalent of 3 full matches in the entire league, even Josué deserved better than him.
João Mário is a good prospect but can´t be above Adrien ATM, not that Adrien is the best player in the world but he deserved more the call.

Ivan Cavaleiro over Bebe is a complete joke, not even Quaresma deverved more then Bebe and he played a lot more than Cavaleiro who has the equivalent of 7 full matches in the entire season for the A team, 3 of those for the league cup, the minor competition in the country.


Apart from Ronaldo, and keep in mind that I didn´t follow Vieirinha nor Hugo Almeida, Bebe was the player that had the better season of all of our attacking options.

Anyway, I don´t think those players will make it into the final cut but that still doesn´t make sense.

Our CFs are beasts and every other nation should fear them, I guess with them up front we have a real chance this WC.

 

[crzdcolombian]

haha how are Quaresma and Varela both on your NT squad those 2 suck. Isn't Varela a sub at Porto? I went to check out why not more players from Porto and they have no Portuguese players !!

Why didn't you guys nationalize Maicon?

 

[Azul]

haha how are Quaresma and Varela both on your NT squad those 2 suck. Isn't Varela a sub at Porto? I went to check out why not more players from Porto and they have no Portuguese players !!

Why didn't you guys nationalize Maicon?

No, he´s a starter, that´s how good our wingers are, that´s also the reason why we took such a big gamble on signing Quaresma in January, we were playing with Varela and Lica on the wings, or Josué, who a CM/ AMC!

About Maicon, here we don´t have the rule that limits the number of foreigners or players outside the EU on the team, that´s why Porto and Benfica have so little portuguese players, and the ones we have are squad players. He´s not good enough anyway, we have better options on the squad.
Porto typical 11 only has Varela and Quaresma as starters, Benfica has none. Sporting has a lot because of his youth academy and shaky financial situation that made them rely on the youth even more this year.

Even though the portuguese youngsters have talent the don´t make the money make the cycle everybody wants to get their piece of it.
If we go outside to buy a talent we pay more everything, the transfer fee, a higher salary than the one we would pay for a kid from our clubs, the agent gets a cut, then we can sell a % of the pass to a fund to buy back after for more and they get a cut and so on.
That´s the reason why Porto and Benfica need to sell every year despite how big fees we get, a lot of the money is melted on the process to please everybody.

Sporting was/is on the verge of the financial breakdown, but they already made severe changes on the management of the club, Porto and Benfica didn´t because they keep on making big deals, when one, or both, of this teams struggle for a couple of years out of the CL or without selling for +50M per season you´ll hear what will happen on the news, we´ll have to do what Sporting is doing and go back from the squads with limited talent and do as best as we can. But no one wants to face the truth and so they keep pushing the problem forward.

 

[Azul]

Final List:

Guarda-redes: Beto (Sevilha), Eduardo (SC Braga) e Rui Patrício (Sporting);
Defesas: André Almeida (Benfica), Bruno Alves (Fenerbahçe), Fábio Coentrão (Real Madrid), João Pereira (Valência), Neto (Zenit), Pepe (Real Madrid) e Ricardo Costa (Valência).
Médios: João Moutinho (Mónaco), Miguel Veloso (D. Kiev), Raul Meireles (Fenerbahçe), Rúben Amorim (Benfica) e William Carvalho (Sporting).
Avançados: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Éder (SC Braga), Hélder Postiga (Lazio), Hugo Almeida (Besiktas), Nani (Manchester United), Rafa (SC Braga), Varela (FC Porto) e Vieirinha (Wolfsburgo).

Players left behind from the previous selection:
Anthony Lopes (Lyon), Antunes (Málaga), Rolando (Inter), André Gomes (Benfica), João Mário (Vitória FC), Ivan Cavaleiro (Benfica) e Ricardo Quaresma (FC Porto).

 

[ElDuccio]

No Rolando?

 

[Besnik]

I kinda feel sorry for Rolando though, he has been performing very well consistently the past season...

 

[Pajo]

Definitely deserved to be there, but oh well...