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What a day we've had so far! A resounding victory for the Germans with a Thomas Muller hat-trick and an unexpected clean sheet for our Iranian fillers means good points to go around to make up for the disappointing scores from the likes of Paul Pogba, Angel Di Maria and Sergio Aguero yesterday.
It appears as if the folks running the McDonald's FIFA game are starting to get their act together as well, with some features that look like they should have been included from the start slowly being rolled out. Maybe we'll get some clarification on how to set up our teams for Matchday 2 with Russia and South Korea playing their first game after Brazil and Mexico play their second. Maybe not, but one can hope!
With Germany's 4-0 demolition of Portugal earlier in the day, the United States will have even more motivation to get a result against their arch-rivals Ghana, who have defeated them in each of the previous two World Cups.
The Americans have kept the same starting lineup as in their final warm-up game against Nigeria, where they looked at their best and striker Jozy Altidore finally broke his goalscoring drought with a brace. He'll be one of the key men for the US tonight, along with Fabian Johnson, Jermaine Jones and Michael Bradley.
Ghana has stacked their left flank with the pace and power of Kwadwo Asamoah and Christian Atsu, so Johnson and right midfielder Alejandro Bedoya will need to be on top of their game to limit the attacking chances of the Black Stars.
It should be an electric match, and I can't wait. I'll be hoping for a USA win, but am going to go with a more conservative guess of a 2-2 draw for my prediction. What do you think will be the outcome?
My fantasy team is doing fairly well so far, and I've changed formation to 4-3-3 after the unexpected clean sheet for Pejman Montazeri to accomodate Fabian Johnson in my lineup. Bakhtiar Rahmani drops to the bench after not playing. Heading into this match, I've got 91 points with Johnson still to play. I'm planning on dropping Pogba for Eden Hazard, and I may also draft in Toby Alderweireld or Nabil Bentaleb ahead of tomorrow's matches. Russian pair Alan Dzagoev and Aleksandr Kokorin round out my bench options, so I'm confident of breaking 100 points before all is said and done for the first round.
How are you doing so far? Let's chat!