Tough to decide who to root for here. The plucky underdog or Messi and the potential Brazil/Argentina semi?
I’m going with the latter. Would be insane to see Messi finally ship and dispatching Brazil on the way.
Also, the underwhelming Dutch need to finally face someone tough. They luckboxed the Qatar group and then having USA/AUS in the first 2 KO matches would just be unfair.
A brazil/arg semi would be the biggest game I can remember in a very long time.
Everyone should be rooting for that
Already did this at the Copa. Not the same of course, but at least the monkey is sort of off his back.
Keep underestimating the Dutch in a tournament where all the other teams have lost or drew against terrible teams and we will take it home.
Of all the great Dutch teams, if this is the one that ships, that will be something.
France and Brazil losing means nothing, they threw out reserve sides and didn’t care. England hardly cared against USA, knew the group was a wrap with a draw. Argentina had a bunch of goals a fraction offside vs. SA and then SA converts 2 goals on like .2 xG.
Those results hardly mean anything.
If Argentina win, I hope they overrate the Dutch side and give a good price on Arg, but I’m pretty sure Arg will be sizable faves.
Right, but I wouldn’t call that finishing. Just splitting hairs.
Argentina for sure, would love to see Messi win here.
Have way too much on Argentina to win, arg to nil, Messi to score/win
Let’s go
Dat goal
World Cup underdog rooting is tricky business because you don’t really want a team with little chance to win the whole thing like Australia to knock out a team like Argentina. So I end up rooting for mid tier underdogs and favorites.
Who qualifies as a “mid-tier underdog”?
Sometimes an underdog has a really fun style or player.
Not a ton of that this time.
Denmark, Japan, USA imo. Teams good enough to qualify but usually dogs to win a KO game.
I’d say from this Sweet 16 it’d be teams like Croatia, Japan, England.
Uruguay?
Elite trolling in this thread.
My buddy bet the farm on England, Argentina, France and Brazil to qualify at 1.8
No, I’m bi
USMNT needs to watch that Messi goal on repeat. Much better to just take a shot like that, which gets blocked a lot than to dribble aimlessly and never threaten anything.