Oh, how I’d like to predict a US win. The US are good, currently ranked 14 to England’s 8, and there are plenty of individual stars on the team: Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Oguchi Onyewu, Tim Howard. They shocked everybody by getting to the finals in last year’s Confederations Cup and nearly toppling Brazil. Nevertheless, the team didn’t seem to gel in the recent tune-up matches, and the defense in particular seemed to struggle, a weakness that Wayne Rooney could exploit to great advantage.
On the other hand, England are not as good as they think they are. They’re especially weak in goal and in defense, with only John Terry a strong and healthy presence there. I’m a big fan of English midfielders Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, but the two don’t work together particularly well, and the US play a physical style at midfield that is very similar to England’s. It will be interesting to see whether Italian manager Fabio Capello has trained the English to play with a more elegant and tactical style, rather than their traditional approach of bashing the ball straight up the pitch to their target man.
So, my heart is with the US, and I’ll hustle back and delete this post if they pull off the upset, but I predict this match and Group C to go to England. (They better enjoy it, because I think Ghana will knock them off in the Round of 16.)
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