Germany delivered a commanding performance against a generally awful Portugal. Cristiano Ronaldo was more or less anonymous, and their whole offense was similarly poor. Like Brazil, they really don't have an effective center forward and have to resort to wingers to provide the bite in attack. Germany didn't do anything particularly spectacular, but their constant onslaught was effective; Thomas Muller, my man of the match, was the chief beneficiary and assisted picked up a hat trick. Most of their relentlessness was down to Portugal being at 10 men for most of the game, due to a stupid red card by Pepe (surprise!).
Make no mistake, team USA should not have beaten Ghana. Dempsey's early goal was a great finish, but for most of the rest of the match they were terrible. No single player, other than goalkeeper Tim Howard, was particularly impressive after the initial surge. I was disappointed to see the return of the midfield diamond, as it meant that Jermaine Jones was played (out of position) as a left midfielder and Kyle Beckerman was played centrally as a defensive midfielder. To make up for Beckerman's lack of quality on the ball, Bradley had to drop all the way into defense to pick up the ball. I hope that they re-shift to play Jermaine Jones in DM alongside Beckerman (but preferably anyone else) to help shield against Portugal's counter-attack. The rest of USA's crappiness was down to Altidore's injury, which fundamentally changed team USA's gameplan. Instead of a target center forward to hold up play and slow down the game, USA had to resort to counter-attacking against a Ghanian team who were MUCH faster on offense and defense. USA was forced to park the bus and try to protect their lead, but eventually Ghana scored a well deserved goal. Team USA showed off their true American spirit to regain the lead, and squeaked through the last few minutes to pick up a HUGE three points.
We watched the game at the restaurant across the street from our hotel in our ridiculous American outfits along with a couple other USA fans, a lot of Mexico fans, and a bunch of Brazil fans.
The Brazil fans were pro-America because they would do just about anything anti-Mexican ahead of the Brazil-Mexico game tomorrow. With a belly full of caipirinhas and 'Sun Meat', a strange meat dish that comes with delicious rice/beans, we were ready to antagonize the Mexico fans sitting behind us who were rooting for Ghana; we managed to resist until America went up 2-1, at which point we rubbed it in a bit. We did, however, almost get in trouble while shopping for Brazil gear to wear at tomorrow's public Brazil-Mexico viewing; one of us made an uncouth comment loud enough for all of the Mexicans around us to hear, and simple enough for them to understand. These colors may not run, but they do walk away quickly when outnumbered.
