July 2010

World Cup Final Week: How US Soccer Writers See It

One of the sadder realities of humanity is that a single human life rarely involves more than twenty World Cups. Without question, South Africa 2010 has been a memorable one, no matter how you feel about the hornet’s nest noise emanating from your television. As a blog, this is our first go round covering a World Cup, and we look forward to many more. A great reward that accompanied the hard work we’ve put into making this site a reliable, fun and interesting look at the game we love has been the people we’ve met and the friends we’ve made along the way. The US soccer community is a growing community and the blogs and sportswriters that cover this team and the sport in Europe are, I think, worthy of what little portion of the credit belongs to something more than the game itself. We’re fortunate to have met and in many ways have the opportunity to work with some extremely talented, hard-working, fun and passionate people. This piece was an effort to involve some of those folks. With that in mind, we offer predictions on the rest of the tournament, with the lion’s share of the credit going to our very talented friends from The Shin Guardian, Free Beer Movement and of course Keith Hickey of Yanks Are Coming fame but doing fine things at Goal.com. Jason Davis of Match Fit USA and Eric Beard of A Football Report still have open invitations to get in on the action, but Jason is probably busy writing love letters to the vuvuzela or simply running a first-class site, and Eric is doing the same while at the same time being painfully smarter than most all of us.

 Onto the picks!!! If you are a “Hup, Holland, Hup” kind of guy or gal—don’t read on…we see a dark future.

 Matthew, The Shin Guardian

Quarterfinals: 

Uruguay over Ghana

Brazil over Holland

Spain over Paraguay

Argentina over Germany

 Semis:

Brazil over Uruguay

Argentina/Spain ??

Golden Ball (Best Player): Luis Fabiano, Brazil

Golden Gloves (Goalie): Iker Casillas, Spain

 

Keith Hickey, Goal.com

 

Quarterfinals:

Uruguay over Ghana

Brazil over Holland

Germany over Argentina

Spain over Paraguay

Semifinals:

Brazil over Uruguay

Spain over Germany

FINAL: Spain over Brazil

Third-Place: Germany

Golden Ball: David Villa, Spain

Golden Gloves: Julio Cesar, Brazil

Best Young Player: Mesut Ozil, Germany

 

Puck, The Yanks Are Coming

Quarterfinals:

Uruguay over Ghana

Brazil over Holland

Spain over Paraguay

Argentina over Germany

Semis:

Brazil over Uruguay

Argentina over Spain

FINAL: Argentina over Brazil

Golden Ball: Leo Messi, Argentina

Golden Gloves: Fernando Muslera, Uruguay

Mister Tuesday, The Shin Guardian

Quarterfinals:

Ghana over Uruguay

Brazil over Holland

Spain over Paraguay

Germany over Argentina

Semifinals:

Brazil over Ghana

Spain over Germany

FINAL: Spain over Brazil

Golden Ball: David Villa, Spain

Silver Ball: Maicon, Brazil

Bronze Ball: Ozil, Germany

Golden Gloves: Richard KIngson, Ghana

 

Neil W. Blackmon, The Yanks Are Coming

Quarterfinals:

Ghana over Uruguay

Brazil over Holland

Argentina over Germany

Spain over Paraguay

Semifinals:

Brazil over Ghana

Spain over Argentina

FINAL: Brazil over Spain

Golden Ball: Luis Fabiano, Brazil

Silver Ball: David Villa, Spain

Bronze Ball: Leo Messi, Argentina

Golden Gloves: Richard Kingson, Ghana

The Free Beer Movement

Quarterfinals:

We’re going to add these to the comments section… but Free Beer Movement picks there will be. Enjoy.