The individual brilliance of the early matches was eventually neutralized by countries with better all-around squads and this was a World Cup that became reasonably predictable once we escaped the group stage. But every single minute was thrilling and worth it.
Ghana Front Office
The team at Cambridge scoured over 15,000 football-specific online sources to produce the following chart.
Lionel Messi headlines the WhoScored Best XI leading up to the World Cup Final with a rating of 8.77.
The United States have anywhere between a 76 percent and 80 percent chance of advancing to the Round of 16 following their 1-1 tie against Portugal.
The interest in the match was surely elevated by the impact on the chances of the United States advancing out of the group stage.