Pundits are the opinion that the United States will not progress to the knockout stages of the World Cup 2014, since they are in a very tough group containing the likes of Germany and Portugal. This is often billed as the group of death, but the US manager Jurgen Klinsmann says that he is confident of beating either Germany or Portugal to the final knockout stage qualification spots. Ghana, as the other opponents in the group, are also considered as one of the strong teams after having done exceedingly well in recent African tournaments.

Klinsmann says that the US have proved themselves over a tough qualifying group. Hence, it does not think Germany and Portugal are going to be any better in this regard. Klinsmann has a great record of achieving well in major tournaments. He led the German national team to clinch a semifinal spot in the 2006 World Cup. The former Tottenham midfielder has also dismissed suggestions that the US players are at a disadvantage since they have to travel huge distances.

According to him, all the players are well taken care of with chartered flights and other amenities. He says tiredness also should not be an excuse for such professionals, who earn huge amounts of money.

“Our team has matured a lot over the last couple of years and we are going to give them a big, big fight. We are expecting to go to the knockout stage, that means Germany, Portugal and Ghana will have to fight it out for the other spot (from Group G). We’ve come through a tough qualifying process where we proved our capability. We have a lot of good players. We are going to have the biggest fan group ever from the US going to Brazil,” said Klinsmann in a pre-World Cup workshop.