The Basics
The World Cup is almost upon us! Brazil, the sport’s ridiculously beautiful spiritual home, awaits. The tournament consists of 32 teams from all over the world. It starts with the group stage, which features eight groups of four teams each. Each team plays the other three; the top two teams of each group advance. The “group of sixteen” stage follows, in which runners-up play the top teams. The Cup is single-elimination from now on out. The quarterfinals, semi-finals, third place game, and final follow.
The Groups of Death
Every group has its own drama, storylines and context. Some, because of their sheer impossibility, are a whole lot doomier than others, and immediately capture the imagination. You see, life isn’t fair, and neither are soccer tournaments. We’re all drawn to impending cataclysm. Some teams, who given a better draw might go all the way to the quarterfinals or better, end up cannon fodder in the first week. A Group of Death must force at least one casualty that would be otherwise unexpected.
Brasil 2014 has three very deadly Groups of Death.
Group B includes 2010’s finalist and runner up in Spain and the Netherlands, as well as excellent attacking Chile. A European country has never won a World Cup in South America. Chile will go for the throat. And yes, this group also contains hapless Australia.
Group D includes Uruguay, England, Italy, and Costa Rica. Uruguay, in case you were wondering, boasts two of the best strikers in the world. England and Italy have young, hungry teams. Nobody here was thrilled with their draw.
Group G has Germany, Portugal, the US, and Ghana. This is a nightmare of a group, particularly for the US, who’ve been eliminated from the last two World Cups by Ghana. All I can say is let’s hope for the unexpected.
The Favorites
Brazil
Brazil has won more World Cups than any other nation (five), they’ve got one of the world’s biggest stars in Neymar, and will be playing to the wild roar of their home fans. The Brazilians don’t just get the sport, they embody it, and fair warning: this sort of statement will be repeated ad nauseum. They’re the bookies favorite to win it all.
The last World Cup Brazil hosted, in 1950, is regarded as the global dawn of the modern soccer. Brazil made it to the final as heavy favorites, but blew it in agonizing, last-minute fashion. The nation took it spectacularly hard, but the trauma of the defeat (the game even has a name, “the Maracanazo,” after the famous Rio de Janeiro stadium it took place in), had an incredible upside: Brazil, chastened and hungry, went on to win back-to back cups in ’58 and ’62 with a young Pele.
They desperately want to win this, and anything less will be … trouble. There’s a tendency to interpret the Seleção’s performances as reflective of the strengths and weaknesses of the culture as a whole, so things will undoubtedly be interesting, one way or the other. It’s also complicated, and there’ve been widespread domestic protests against the huge expenditure of the tournament: more pressing social needs are going unaddressed.
The team itself isn’t as star-studded as it has been in its recent past. Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has left out aging stars (Kaka, Ronaldinho) in favor of a younger, more cohesive group that plays well as a unit. They’re not entirely proven, but they did win last year’s Confederations Cup, a sort of dry run for this summer.
Key Player:
Neymar: This scrawny attacker is where their goals will come from. He’s young, wildly talented, and flamboyant in his play. The crowds love him. His past year- his first for superclub Barcelona- has been a little disappointing, but he’s been good for the national side, and looks to be hitting form. He’s a superstar now; he has the potential to be iconic in a few weeks.
Spain
The Spanish team, after six unprecedented years of greatness, is still, well, great. They’re the first international side to win three consecutive major tournaments: Euro 2008, the 2010 World Cup, and Euro 2012. If Spain isn’t getting quite as much attention as they were a couple years ago, it’s because people are kind of sick of them winning. There’s a sense that the team, after a historical peak, is now declining, but this could very well be a misperception as they’ve got incredible depth: fantastic playmakers like Santi Cazorla and Juan Mata may well spend much of their time on the bench. This combined with the experience of leaders like Xavi, Sergio Ramos, and Iker Casillas makes them unusually powerful.
Key Player:
Andres Iniesta: While his Barcelona teammate Xavi has recently shown some signs of age, Iniesta is as an ebullient, insuppressible player as ever. His passing, movement, and close play are all nearly perfect. Iniesta may look like a prematurely balding postman, but he’s one of the most elegant athletes in the world.
Germany
German soccer has undergone a renaissance in the past decade. The current national team is comprised of a kind of golden age of Teutonic footballers: athletic and disciplined as well as creative. The Bundesliga, Germany’s domestic league long considered second tier in Europe, is now firmly among the elite, and the time is ripe for the national side to make its mark as well. The team is mainly comprised of players from the country’s two biggest clubs, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, and is similar in this way to the Spanish side which has drawn heavily from Real Madrid and Barcelona. The players’ familiarity with one another, so long as they find a way to leave rivalry behind, is a strength that shouldn’t be downplayed.
Key Player:
Mesut Özil: If Özil is on, Germany will be able to break down any defense. A player who lives for the assist, who builds play rather than finishes it, and who drifts across the field with a kind of laconic intelligence, Özil is a one-off, and frequently misunderstood. If he doesn’t find form, he’ll disappear. If he finds it, he will still be almost invisible, but Germany will be winning.
Argentina
It’ll be messy if Argentina win in Brazil. Sorry. The Argentine team has an unholy array of attacking power. In their forward line up they’ve got Ezequiel Lavezzi, Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero, and of course Lionel Messi. There aren’t many, or really any, who can withstand that kind of diverse and awe-inspiring talent. World Cups, of course, tend to bury one or two of the initial, star studded favorites: like anyone else, they’ll need to click, keep their focus, and have a bit of luck on their side.
Key Player:
Lionel Messi
There’s not much to say about Messi that hasn’t already been said. A contemporary candidate for all-time greatest player, the only remaining feather he needs in his cap to compete with Maradona and Pele is World Cup glory. This is, however, a big ask. He hasn’t been at his best this past year, but his best is so otherworldly it’s hard to fault him: he’s still much better than virtually everyone else. Perhaps he’s been saving himself for the tournament.
Our Underdog: The USMNT
USA (USA! USA!)
Soccer has never been so popular in the states as it is now, and it’s not just cresting: there’s an incredible future out there before us. It would be nice if at this moment, which seems to be a watershed for the sport domestically, if the US had landed an easier group. Instead, they got Germany (insanely good), Portugal (Cristiano Ronaldo plus ten less talented but much more likeable human beings), and Ghana (perpetual bogey team). It would be nice if it seemed like we had more than a chance in hell.
Nobody really expects us to get out of our group, and that includes our coach, Jurgen Klinsmann. This is despite the team having more depth than ever. Klinsmann even had the confidence to drop the team’s most famous player, and all-time leading USMNT scorer, Landon Donovan (if we do poorly, this’ll be seen as a ridiculous misstep, while if we over-perform, it’ll be praised as genius).
All that said, every World Cup a super power or two just totally eats it. Often right at the starting line. Some bratty megastar will play badly, the defense will fall apart suddenly and inexplicably, and the ninety minutes will be up. Salvation, the pundits will say, is right around the corner. Wait until the next game. A couple of own goals later, the big team is sent home weeping.
Perhaps the US will be the benefactor or catalyst of this kind of collapse. Maybe, even better, we’ll outplay the big dogs. It’s not impossible. And getting out of the group stage will feel like an incredible victory.
Key Player:
Michael Bradley: A fantastic American playmaker. Hallelujah! Along with Clint Dempsey, Bradley returned to the MLS from playing in Europe this past year. If he plays well in the World Cup, people won’t much care. If he doesn’t, and the same goes for Dempsey, it’ll be seen as a regression or retreat. I think he’s going to play very well.
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