THE BIG PICTURE
It’s the country with the biggest population in the World Cup vs the smallest. The 300+ million of the USA, vs the roughly two million of Slovenian. Both teams had excellent first results thanks to horrendous a combination of ballsy performances and opposition goalkeeper errors.
USA claimed that famous 1-1 draw with Robert Green England. USA keeper Tim Howard has recovered from the rib ouchy Emile Heskey gave him in that game, and everyone else is fit at time of writing. Clint Dempsey is looking forward to shooting again, just to see what happens this time. More at the USA blog.
Slovenia opened with a 1-0 win over Algeria, in which captain Robert Korean both bossed the game from midfield and scored the winner thanks to a Green-seque mistake from from Algeria keeper Faouzi Chaouchi. So Koren and Slovenia will be feeling pretty good about life. More at the Slovenia blog.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
Though the draw against England was a great result, it was only worth one point. Slovenia’s win over Algeria was worth three. So USA is under pressure here and really needs to take all three points. A draw would mean trailing Slovenia by two points going into the final game.
Which would obviously suit Slovenia. So it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see Slovenia take a less attacking approach, invite the USA to try and break them down, and then try to score on the counter. Let the Group C calculations begin…
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