The World Cup 2014 schedule has Germany and Portugal kicking things off on Monday and the match is live on ESPN and streaming with a live stream from the WatchESPN website and it starts up at 12 pm noon ET from Salvador and comes ahead of the United States and Ghana in Group G from Natal later in the day in the marquee match.
Germany is one of the teams that is favored to get out of the group stage and could make a deep run and they are starting off against Portugal, who has Cristiano Ronaldo and he may not be at 100 percent for the tournament. Ronaldo is the key for Portugal and he comes in a day after Lionel Messi lit things up for Argentina in their match against Bosnia and now he has the chance to try and match his performance and this will be a crucial game for both teams. Portugal and the United States national team plays against each other in the next game and that will be from Manaus in the Amazon stadium.
Paulo Bento has Ronaldo as his main star and the team is kept together by him and he is the most talented player in the tournament along with Lionel Messi and now Portugal is trying to open with a win. The Netherlands started off strong and they won 5-1 against Spain and that came after a great game from Robin Van Persie and they are one of the teams that could be a spoiler and is now in position to make it out of the group stages. The United States plays Ghana in their first match and this will be a huge game for both teams.
Brazil is a team that is considered to be one of the best and they are a favored team along with Germany and Argentina and Spain is also a favorite, but they started off with a tough loss and now need to rebound. Brazil plays against Mexico next and England comes in after a loss to Italy and matches up with Uruguay in their next game. Germany opens with Portugal before playing against Ghana and then the team plays the United States, while Portugal plays the US and then Ghana for their group matchups.
Portugal has their history against top teams after winning against Spain in the past and they also made a semifinals run in the last Euros and they come in after finishing second in their Europe group with six wins and 21 points. Portugal made the World Cup in dramatic fashion after playing against Sweden in a home and home series and Ronaldo performed very well while scoring all four goals for his team and they won four to two on aggregate and now they are in the group of death. This is the sixth appearance for the team and they finished fourth in 2006 and they have now been to the tournament three straight times and they will be a team that could make a run if Ronaldo is healthy.
Check here for the Germany and Portugal live coverage from the ESPN World Cup streaming website.
