PUTY’S WORLD CUP REVIEW & PREVIEW – Round of 16 (Day 3 of 4)
Sam’s Safe Space for Soccer Stoolies
Hi haters™,
Yesterday was certainly an “interesting” day of games. Short on goals but not on drama. Today should be quite different, at least this morning’s game, which could be the best of the R16 bunch. We’ll get to that eventually, but let’s start out though with an extremely brief run-through of what went down on Sunday…
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REVIEW – July 1
Scores from R16 so far:
The (poorly weighted) bracket as it stands at the moment:
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SPAIN (1) – (1) RUSSIA**
**winner (4-3) on penalties
RUNDOWN: Spain controlled possession but for the most part looked like it had absolutely no idea what to do with it in the final third. Just passing it around like a hot potato nobody wants to hold but everybody hoping somebody else will do something incisive with. We basically watched the last embers of tiki taka die right before our eyes. Sad!
Russia had a game plan and stuck to it. Defend, defend, defend, and hope to nick something fortunate on the counter or a set piece. Ended up being a set piece.
Spain looked like it had a good shout in extra time for at least a VAR review when two guys possibly got brought down on the box on a free kick but, well, I think we all know how that went…
In the end the difference was Akinfeev out-playing De Gea in the shootout, and that was that.
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CROATIA** (1) – (1) DENMARK
**winner (3-2) on penalties
RUNDOWN: First four minutes were LIT as Denmark scored off a long throw-in and Croatia came right back and scored on a ball that bounced off a defenders face right to Mandzukic’s foot. Game looked like it was back on and we were in for a doozy…
Yep, nope. The next 116 minutes of soccer were about as notable as my sex life (except for Luka Modric having a penalty stoned in extra time)…
though the wee man redeemed himself in the shootout and Croatia snuck through and celebrated like one of the worst teams in the tournament – on paper (but totally not on PEDs) – is the only thing between them and a World Cup semifinal.
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PREVIEW – July 2
Schedule for the rest of the R16:
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Brazil (-185)
Mexico (+375)
Draw (+320)
First and foremost, this game should be a lot of fun. No more Russian bunkers, Spanish mindless passing or Danish dead-end (slash) Croatia cul-de-sac offense. These two teams know how to attack and are not afraid to do so, and it should make for a highly entertaining game.
I have said throughout that Brazil strikes me as the best team coming into the tournament, and after a slow start they showed some signs in their last group match against Serbia of beginning to get on track moving forward. Mexico has been a lot of fun to watch, and has been one of the most dangerous counter-attacking teams in the competition – a potential red flag for Brazil, which likes to pour forward on attack – but the Sweden game revealed some serious defensive frailties that the Seleçao will be keen to exploit. Brazil will be without Marcelo, who had to leave the last game with back spasms that have yet to go away. The more I thought about it though the more I came to the conclusion that missing Marcelo for the Mexico game (while it may be problematic down the road) isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world against Mexico because it means the Felipe Luis – less dynamic going forward but more “defensively aware” – will be more likely to hang back a bit, thus giving guys like Neymar and Coutinho (who’s quietly been great so far) more freedom to attack Mexico.
So while I do think Mexico has a legitimate chance to win, and I considered the possibility that they might be able to keep it close enough to at least take it to extra time, then the team went and had a quarter-life crisis right before our eyes on the eve of the big game… sorry, this kind of mental fragility does not lend itself to becoming the first Mexican team to advance past the R16 in like 30 years.
Brazil to win 3-2.
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Belgium (-290)
Japan (+800)
Draw (+350)
A lot of people are calling Russia’s win over Spain the biggest knockout round upset in World Cup history. Perhaps that is what some paper-pushing math nerd decided based on a quantitative algorithm he came up with over years and years of not watching soccer, but I am calling major bullshit on that hogwash. In contrast, if Japan came out and beat Belgium today – now THAT would be a true upset. Japan just didn’t pass the smell test in the group stage, and looked an inferior team to Senegal, who if playing in this game would have made it a lot of fun to watch. Japan is going to count on their coordinated defense to try and stem the tide of what will inevitably wave after wave of Belgian attacks. Kudos to the Samurai Blue for falling backwards into the R16, but they are up against a team on a whole different level this time around and – importantly – one that is capable of attacking them from many angles and using different approaches (long balls, quick diagonals, crosses, etc) that will eventually break them down. Belgium to win 3-0.
Bull in a Japanese china shop
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So there we have it. Check out the latest episode of PUTY’S WORLD CUP PODCAST if you haven’t
and I’ll be back to bother you with a preview tomorrow followed by (most likely) the next podcast episode on Wednesday looking ahead to the quarterfinals.
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Holler,
Samuel Army