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USA - Algeria from Andrew Silver on Vimeo.

Algeria Celebration

It should be noted that after our victory over Algeria, we celebrated. There is no footage or photographs from this endeavor, because every documentation device that we owned had died. That being said, we had a great time.

The venue: Eastfield's. Cover charge was 300 Rand, which I skillfully negotiated down to 250. Many beers were shared. As was some sort of BBQ food platter. Shots were involved. At one point I decided it was incredibly necessary to find a cigar. Which I achieved - and actually acquired a Cuban. It was delicious.

The American crowd was great, and as we saw our next opponent determined, many friends were made.

Eventually Noah showed up. More merriment was exchanged. And then we departed (see three grown men asleep in a car below).

This post is random; winning is great.

I have no idea what this means

but it sounds really good:

"Against England, though, Algeria coach Rabah Saadane reverted to a far more orthodox back three. One of the reasons 3-5-2 and its variants have largely gone out of fashion (although it seems to be making something of a comeback at this tournament) is the prevalence of 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1. Against a customary 4-4-2, two center backs mark two center forwards with a spare man, with the wing backs given the green light to advance, ideally pressing the opposing wide midfielders back onto their fullbacks. A team playing 3-5-2 overmans three-to-two in central midfield, the wing backs tend to be forced deep by opposing wingers, leaving three central defenders to deal with one center forward. One spare man is fine; two is redundancy, allowing the side playing the lone central striker to overman elsewhere, usually from the fullback positions. Of course, one of those two spare central defenders could push into midfield, but if he does that he may as well be a midfielder to start with."

for other insights into how we may be plotting to overthrow the algerian dictatorship of our win on wednesday, I really think this article is the shit.

if i can ever figure out what the hell he's talking about.

Why we can tie Slovenia (as long as we beat Algeria)

Consider the following scenarios:

If we tie Slovenia, and England beats Algeria, the standings are:
England 4
Slovenia 4
USA 2
Algeria 0

England won't want to finish second in the group, so they'll play hard against Slovenia, meaning that if we beat Algeria we'll qualify second:
England 7
USA 5
Slovenia 4
Algeria 0

Even if England ties Slovenia in their third game, we'd could be ok although we'd need some goal differential love:
England 5
Slovenia 5
USA 5
Algeria 0

Just saying, maybe we don't need to panic so much.