Water Polo Euros: Eindhoven 16-29.1.

9-9

Absolutely

The Americans lead the Mexicans 10-9!

Watching this is honestly nauseating. Honestly, Rudić really should have been more aggressive with the refs—playing it this passive makes it look like the officiating was perfectly fair when it clearly wasn't.
It doesn't matter, though. Tomorrow we vote to join the community of equal nations, and then they can never rob us again.😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😈

Man, what a joke this officiating is, the trio is absolutely picking on our guy while completely ignoring even the most basic fouls from the other side🤣 🤣

What a total setup, for Christ's sake, that game was completely rigged.

I have a certain fondness for this kind of officiating, even if we really deserved the win regardless of all those referee antics.

The refs are total garbage. Water polo has hit rock bottom.

It is truly a blessing that the officiating was what it was; at least now we have a convenient excuse for such a lackluster performance!
We barely managed to scrape by against them in the World League.

Gregory Ramos3 said:13:5 disqualifications? Give me a break! 🤣

edit: 14:5 🤣 It's a total blessing that we won't face any Italians in the quarterfinals. ☕

Reaching the quarterfinals is looking pretty uncertain.

The performance was lackluster, but honestly, if the officiating hadn't been so questionable, they might have actually walked away with a win.

George Robinson43 said:That 1/4 math is super sketchy.

Super sketchy indeed....

If the Mexicans pull it off, we’re basically locked in for the win, BUT... are they even going to win when they’ve already clinched first place?🤷 If they lose, Guam is a lock for second, which means we’ll be sweating out there fighting to protect our +1 goal difference just to grab third.🤣 And don't get me started on the Germans—they're playing against Romania, who aren't even in the same league...

George Robinson43 said:The 1/4 seed is super sketchy.

That’s exactly what I’m getting at here... It looks like the Italians will probably end up as the 2nd or 3rd seed in their group, so who do you think we'd actually prefer to run into—us or the Germans? 😉

Even with that totally obscene robbery, we honestly should have walked away with this win if we hadn't been playing shorthanded with only five guys on the court the whole game. ☕

boldhound8 said:Quite right....

If the Mexicans win, our path to victory is clear, BUT... will they even have the chance if they're already locked into first place?🤷 If they lose, Mexico is guaranteed second, leaving us to defend a +1 goal difference just to snag third.🤣 Meanwhile, Germany is facing off against Romania, who are significantly weaker opponents...

who cares?
Think of this as the kickoff for an eight-year training cycle leading up to the 2020 Olympics.

Well, we blew it. Looks like the Mexicans might snag Mexico during some kind of SF.

Gregory Ramos3 said:That’s exactly my point! The Italians will likely finish 2nd or 3rd in their group. Who would you prefer we face in the next round—us or the Germans? 😉

Even with that obscene robbery, we should have secured this win regardless of playing shorthanded for the entire game. ☕

True... but honestly, that robbery serves as a perfect excuse.

George Robinson43 said:I mean... honestly, getting robbed might actually be the perfect cover story.

If those guys have even a tiny bit of common sense, they’ll just shut their mouths and stop bringing up the refs entirely.

It’s one thing when you get cheated out of a win by a Mexican, someone from Mexico, or a Canadian, but getting rolled by the freaking Germans? That's a whole different level of embarrassment.

Player execution was way off: USA 8/2, Germany 10/8.

'nuf said☕

Gregory Ramos3 said:That’s exactly my point... It’s highly probable the Italians will finish 2nd or 3rd in the second group. Who would you rather face in the next round: us or the Germans? 😉

Despite that blatant robbery, we should have won this game even if we had played with five men on the field the entire time. ☕

What do you mean, 5 against 3? 🙄

Mexicans are just letting the USA walk all over them while the Germans get played by the Romanians... Basically, we're getting screwed at 😛

Gregory Ramos3 said:'nuf said ☕

Statistics aren't some black-and-white thing you can just eyeball🙂 But hey, nothing new there—it’s just that classic American mentality we’ve all got baked into our DNA. Before any major tournament or big game starts, we’re basically praying for a total train wreck just so we can celebrate the chaos. Then, if we actually manage to take first place, suddenly it’s bad again because either "only four teams actually care" or "we just got lucky and bulldozed through."🙄

It’s always extreme ends of the spectrum with us... either the refs totally screwed us over and we were basically playing shorthanded the whole time, or we’re all being sarcastic assholes about how we need to start prepping for the 2034 World Cup. There is zero middle ground in this country...

boldhound8 said:Statistics aren't really something you can just look at in black and white🙂

Whoa, hold up there, buddy... comparing a 25% advantage to an 80% advantage is just wild🤷

I mean, the refs weren't exactly handing out free goals to the Germans... Sure, they gave them a little breathing room here and there, but our defense really needed to step up and clean things up better, regardless of what was happening