Soccer World Cup Semi-Finals Brazil vs. Germany

Soccer World Cup Play: Brazil vs. Germany

This contest is probably the toughest game to handicap in this tournament and rightfully so, the odds offered are almost a pure 50/50 proposition.

We have two teams with complete different styles going against each other…

While Germany wants to play a slow-paced patient passing style in which they control the ball possession (we can consider their style as an adapted version of Pepe Guardiola’s Tiki-Taka style), Brazil wants to play in a frenetic tempo w/ quick turnovers to use their good pace of their midfielders and wingers.

This preferred style of Brazil was well noticed in their last game vs. Colombia: they pressured pretty high on the field, they didn’t allow Colombia to generate build-up plays from behind and they completely controlled the game in the first 60 minutes of the game!

2 important conclusions from that game:

1)      Brazil was supper aggressive without the ball and committed the absurd number of 31 fouls but received "only" 2 yellow cards! It was remarkable to watch Fernandinho not receiving a single yellow card after some awful tackles against James Rodriguez! Why? Well, they were clearly protected by the referee who allowed them to be super physical. Oddly enough, it was Brazilian start Neymar who got injured in that game and is OUT of the competition.  This kind of “soft” refereeing was highlighted all over the world and we have a quick answer from FIFA: (http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/fifa-reject-claims-that-world-cup-referees-have-been-told-to-be-more-lenient-070814)

For this contest, I don’t think that the referee will be so “patient and soft” after that Colombia vs. Brazil game… I’m making a small play w/ OVER Bookings in here!

2)      Brazil’s pressure on the midfield was really impressive to start the game, they were literally everywhere! However, we could see that they didn’t have “legs” late in the game and this team really can’t control and protect a lead without putting themselves in some tough problems. Colombia controlled the game in the last 20 minutes of the game as the lack of stamina in several Brazilians’ players was well noticed. Brazil plays w/ a lot of heart and emotion but they seem to have some problems in managing the flow of the game.

Well, if Brazil plays w/ intensive passion, the Germans are a more cerebral team. Like Brazil, the Germans had the lead early in their last game against France. However, unlike Brazil, they simply didn’t allow the French side to do anything against them in the second half!

The absence of Thiago Silva is important for Brazil as Dante will replace him and will play @left-center back. Marcelo will be the left full-back and IMO, this Dante-Marcelo partnership on the left is the weakest link of Brazil’s defense, and the Germans have a potent right side w/ Lahm + Muller who will try to explore such potential weakness.

NOTE: I'll release a Premium Play for this contest, but first I want to confirm both teams' starting lineups for today, so the final update will be released around @3PM EST +/-.

Pick: 1.5 units ("Half" Single Dime Play) on Over 3.5 Bookings (Yellow Cards) @ +100 / 2.00 on Betonline