US - Ghana preview

So Uruguay are the first team through to the QF stage, and they await the winner of the next game - US v Ghana.  Uruguay become the first South American team (other than Argentina and Brazil) to reach the Quarter Final stage since 1970.

Apparently, as you'll notice repeatedly in this video, the US are 'champions' of Group C.  I wasn't aware that was an award that FIFA handed out, but here in the US, everything in sports needs to be exaggerated slightly!  Superbowl World Champions - Lakers World Champions - Baseball World Series - Need I say more!  So rather than the team that 'topped' Group C as we would say, the CHAMPIONS of Group C have a great chance of advancing to the Quarter Finals...listen to what Ruud Gullit thinks of their chances...  

16 down...

So we're down to the round of 16 - 48 matches played, 16 games to go... starting with the two games today...including the big one on this side of the pond, the US v Ghana. However exciting that will be, and we will be watching it and cheering on the US on Saturday afternoon, the big day in this household is Sunday, when my Argentine wife and German Shepherd dog will be ganging up against me and the England boys...

Saturday

Uruguay (16) v South Korea (47)

United States (14) v Ghana (32)

Sunday 

Germany (6) v England (8)

Argentina (7) v Mexico (17)

Monday

Netherlands (4) v Slovakia (34)

Brazil (1) v Chile (18)

Tuesday

Paraguay (31) v Japan (45)

Spain (2) v Portugal (3)

I picked only 11 of these 16 teams to make it this far, and I only got 5 of the 8 group winners right, so I'm not going to put my neck out and pick winners here!

If you were wondering what the goals per game ratio has climbed to - see my earlier post - well this is still on course to be the lowest scoring World Cup ever. After 48 games, we've had 101 goals - that's 2.10 goals per game. That's lower than Italia 90 - the previous lowest scoring tournament.  Portugal and Argentina are the leading scorers with 7 each (although Portugal got their 7 in 1 game against North Korea so I'm not sure if that counts)

In preparation for the US game later; here's ESPN's preview of the US v Ghana.