GOALKEEPERS (3): Earl Edwards (Nomads SC; San Diego, Calif.), Justin Luthy (Boston College) Dublin, Ohio), Spencer Richey (Crossfire Premier; Seattle, Wash.)

DEFENDERS (12) Gale Agbossoumonde (Miami FC; Syracuse, N.Y.), Paolo Del Piccolo (Louisville; Lakewood, Colo.), Moises Hernandez (FC Dallas Juniors; Dallas), Zachary Herold (West Pines United; Port St. Lucie, Fla.), Perry Kitchen (Chicago Magic; Indianapolis, Ind.), Tyler Polak (CSA Legacy; Lincoln, Neb.), Kofi Sarkodie (Akron; Huber Heights, Ohio), Zarek Valentin (Akron; Lancaster, Pa.), Jared Watts (North Meck SC; Statesville, N.C.), Ethan White (Maryland; Kensington, Md.), Cesar Zamora (Chivas USA; Sylmar, Calif.), Eriq Zavaleta (FC Pride; Westfield, Ind.)

MIDFIELDERS (13): Jose Altamirano (San Diego State; San Diego), Christian Castaneda (Hertha Berlin; Lutz, Fla.), Marlon Duran (Latino Americana; Duncanville, Texas), Luis Gil (Pateadores; Garden Grove, Calif.), Sebastian Lletget (West Ham United; San Francisco), Andrew Lubahn (Wake Forest; Erie, Pa.), Carlos Martinez (Wilmington Jrs.; San Pedro, Calif.), Colin Murphy (Boston College; Guilderland, N.Y.), Amobi Okugo (UCLA; Sacramento, Calif.), Will Packwood (Birmingham City; Concord, Mass.), Nicholas Palodichuk (Washington Premier FC; Battleground, Wash.), Fabrice Picault (Cagliari Calcio; Miami), Dillon Powers (Notre Dame; Plano, Texas)

FORWARDS (8): Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls; Barnegat, N.J.), Will Bates (Virginia; Chester, Va.), Tristan Bowen (Los Angeles Galaxy; Van Nuys, Calif.), Victor Chavez (Real So Cal; Fontana, Calif.), Ryan Finley (Duke; Lumberton, N.J.), Stefan Jerome (West Pines United; Davie, Fla.), Jack McInerney (Cobb SC; Alpharetta, Ga.), Dominick Sarle (BW Gottschee; Huntington, N.Y.)

From NY Times:

“They beat us in the Confederations Cup and it was, I think, not the real thing so we had 27 shots on target but we couldn’t score,” said Spain and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres. “But it will be nice to play against them.”

I’m a Liverpool fan and I’ve always liked Torres, but this really irks me. I know it wasn’t a world cup, but we did beat them in a tournament they were taking fairly seriously.

Soccer By Ives is reporting that the Landon Donovan short-term loan to Everton is complete. It will last three months and Donovan will return to the Galaxy in time for the start of the MLS season. I wish this deal was for longer, but I think it’s a great move for him.

The Guardian reports that Landon Donovan is being linked with a January loan move to Everton. No word on whether this would extend to the start of the MLS season or the end of the English season.

Daily Mail is reporting the Fulham are looking to unload striker Eddie Johnson during the January transfer window. Nothing surprising here. Will there be any takers?

I scrambled to get that post about the draw out earlier, so I thought I’d come back after sitting on it for a while and offer a few more post-draw thoughts.

-I don’t think the US could have asked for a much better draw than the one they got. And yes, I am including the possibility of drawing South Africa. Just look what happened to Mexico. They drew South Africa, followed by the best possible draw from Pot 3, Uruguay (since Algeria was now out of the picture). In their last draw, they got France–concensus “please God no” team from Pot 4. So even though they got what was regarded as the best possible seeded opponent and the best possible draw from South America, they are still left with a group that could give them trouble. France are…well, they’re France. Uruguay are a decent team that won in Costa Rica during their playoff. South Africa are the hosts. I hate to say it, but I would not be that surprised if Mexico failed to make it out of their group. We, on the other hand, have a difficult opener against England, followed by two very winnable games. I like our chances better than those of El Tri.

-I’d hate to jinx the team, but it’s only natural to look at who we might play in round two (if we were to make it through, of course). Unfortunately, it looks like we’d end up meeting one of the winners from Group D. This group contains Germany, Australia, Serbia, and Ghana. None of those teams are a nightmare, but there is also no chance of lucking out and getting an easy matchup with a return to the quarter-finals on the line.

-I’d like to retract my earlier statement that Group D–the one mentioned above–is this year’s Group of Death. I stand by the assertion that it is the most talented, top-to-bottom, but the fire-power of Group G is unparalleled. Brazil are arguably the best team in the world. The Ivory Coast are the best team out of Pot 3. Portugal are the highest ranked team not to be seeded. Korea DPR are the team most likely to walk away from this tournament with zero points and a double-digit goal differential in the red.

-This must be the first time we’ve ever been favored to make it out of our group. Surpising as that may sound, we’ve always had at least two teams in our group that were supposedly better than us. That said, we shouldn’t take advancing for granted. A word of advice to our team: Let’s be careful out there.

-Finally, we came across this brief article in the Times (London). It states:

The first opponent to emerge was one we hoped to avoid, the United States. Still, their high ranking is more about that they play the Leeward Islands more often than they play Brazil.

The first sentence is a little flattering. We were actually one of the strongest–if not the strongest–teams in our pot. The second sentence, on the other hand, is not only disrespectful, but factually incorrect. First of all, playing the minnows of CONCACAF is more risk than it’s worth. There is this misconception that “a win’s a win” in the FIFA rankings. It’s not. If that were the case, New Zealand would be (and Australia would have been) on top of the world with its constant abuse of the Oceanic countries. Because of the system’s weighting, beating St. Kitts would do absolutely nothing for us. Falling asleep and losing, however, would be devastating. Secondly–and more importantly–I reviewed our match results back to 1998 (as far back as the USMNT website goes) and we have not played any of the Leeward Islands during this time. We have, however, played Brazil seven times. I understand the spirit of the comment–we play a lot of “weaker” countries from CONCACAF–but it’s not as bad as most outsiders seem to think. The last time we played a truly horrible team–Andorra or Faroe Islands bad, in UEFA terms–was Barbados in June of ‘08. This year, outside of World Cup qualifying and the Gold Cup, we have played Sweden, two UEFA qualifying group winners, the two-time reigning African champions, the reigning world champions, the reigning European champions, and Brazil twice. I can admit that our climb up the rankings prior to World Cup ‘06 was ridiculous, but we are currently 14th in the world. Is that really such a stretch? How many teams could there possibly be sitting behind us that are “definitely better”. What bugs me most is you never hear this argument directed towards Mexico. Despite the fact that we consistently beat them and won CONCACAF’s qualifying hexagonal over them, their ranking is deserved and ours is an unwanted byproduct of the FIFA ranking system. Why can’t the rest of the world wrap their heads around the fact that we’re just not that bad anymore?

The draw is over. The results are in. And the US has a real shot at making out of the group stage. Here are the groups:

Group A:  South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France

Group B:  Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic, Greece

Group C:  England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia

Group D:  Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana

Group E:  Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon

Group F:  Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia

Group G:  Brazil, Korea DPR, Ivory Coast, Portugal

Group H:  Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile

Let me rephrase what I said above: we have no excuse not to make it out of our group. I’m not saying it will be easy, but anything less will certainly be a failure.

Group of death? We’re going to have to say Group D–Germany, Australia, Serbia, and Ghana. All of these teams would have legitimate shots of moving on from average groups–two are going home after three games. The other contender is Group G–Brazil, Korea DPR, Ivory Coast, and Portugal. Korea DPR are the obvious weak link, but Brazil is arguably the best team in the world, Ivory Coast is a dark-horse favorite and the best team out of Pot 3, and Portugal are the highest ranked unseeded team. Expect fireworks from that group.

The USA kick off the World Cup on June 12th against England. That’s all for now. Everybody take a deep sigh of relief.

Now that our rant about the draw is out of the way, it’s time to get pumped! The Cup is near and the draw is here! There isn’t much going on this morning before the draw, so let’s take some time to look at the pots and discuss what we would/would not like to see this afternoon.

POT 1

Our opponent out of Pot 1 is going to be difficult no matter who we draw. Even if we’re lucky enough to land South Africa, we’re not getting a free pass. Keep in mind, no host country has ever failed to make it out of the group stage. While one could make the argument that South Africa is the worst host nation ever, their home-field advantage (10% fans, 90% vuvuzelas) shouldn’t be underestimated. Because of this, Pot 1 isn’t as much about who we’d like to draw as it is about who we’d like to avoid–Spain and Brazil. After the obvious, we’d most like to see Argentina or Italy, but simply avoiding the big two would be good enough for us. Our rankings of Pot 1 (organized from most favorable draw to least):

1. South Africa
2. Argentina
3. Italy
4. The Netherlands
5. Germany
6. England
7. Spain
8. Brazil

Pot 3

UEFA’s pot is normally the second scariest behind the seeds. This time around, Pot 3–the pot for Africa and South America–is giving them a run for their money. While Pot 3’s bottom–Algeria and Uruguay–is lower than Pot 4’s , we’re actually more afraid of drawing the Ivory Coast than any team from Europe. African soccer continues to grow, and if there was ever a time for its teams to make some noise, this would be it. Chile and Paraguay could also be dangerous opponents and should not be overlooked. Our rankings of Pot 3:

1. Algeria
2. Uruguay
3. Nigeria
4. Cameroon
5. Chile
6. Paraguay
7. Ghana
8. Ivory Coast

Pot 4

Pot 4 is tough. There aren’t any teams that strike fear into our hearts, but there are no pushovers, either. Obviously we’d like to avoid France and Portugal. Both are strong teams, though they lack the quality we’ve seen in years past. Serbia is the dark horse of the group. They are a talented, young team that we could see making a deep run in South Africa. Slovakia and Slovenia are probably the most desirable draws, but neither is a guaranteed three points (if our friendly was any indication). Our rankings of Pot 4

1. Slovakia
2. Slovenia
3. Switzerland
4. Greece
5. Denmark
6. Portugal
7. Serbia
8. France

Based on our rankings, we’d most like to see South Africa, Uruguay, and Slovakia. (note: Since South Africa is in the group, we cannot draw a second African team. Therefore, Algeria is not an option.) On the opposite end of the spectrum–the group that would make us want to gouge our eyes out–is Brazil/Spain, Ivory Coast, and France.

That’s our take. Let us know what you’d most/least like to see this afternoon. Expect another post after the draw.

In the lead-up to Friday’s World Cup draw, there has been plenty of speculation about the seeds, pots, and best- and worst-case scenarios.  While doing my best to take part in the guessing game, it dawned on me: the World Cup draw is an inherently unfair system.  Not just “kind of unfair”–the kind of unfair one could justify for the sake of geographical diversity–but really, blatantly, unforgivably unfair.  Which teams suffer most?  Those from non-European regions.

The current draw is organized in the following manner:  Pot 1 is composed of eight seeded teams–the host and seven others determined by a formula weighing FIFA rankings and past World Cup performances (which, in fact, is already a component of the FIFA ranking formula, but that’s another story).  This formula is not made known to the public until after the final World Cup qualifier is played (if at all), which conveniently allows FIFA to unseed the undesirables (see USA (ranked #4) in 2006, France (hand ball) in 2010).  The other three pots are determined solely by geography.  UEFA gets an entire pot to itself.  The other four or five regions are divided amongst the last two pots, keeping all teams from like regions in the same pot (for example, all CONCACAF teams are in Pot 2 and all CAF teams are in Pot 3).  This is done to ensure that no more than two European teams end up in a single World Cup group, and no teams from smaller regions are forced to play a team they already went through two years of qualifying with.  One team is drawn from each of four pots and presto! you have your group stage set.

On the surface, this may seem fair enough–the desire for geographical diversity in the group stage seems innocent enough, and I can’t pretend that ending up in Mexico or Honduras’ group wouldn’t be somewhat disheartening–but the de facto outcome of the draw is a seeding system based on region rather than merit.  In the case of the 2010 draw, a team that has accomplished much by FIFA’s standards–enough to earn them the ranking of #14 (USA)–is at a significant disadvantage to less accomplished team from a more favorable region, like Slovakia (ranked #34).  While FIFA might point to past World Cup performances as justification for grouping confederations as they have, the smaller regions have always had the cards stacked against them in these draws–the playing field is not level.

I’ll admit going in that the FIFA rankings are flawed and are not an ideal measure for comparison (for example, I think most people would agree that Cameroon (ranked #11) are not the strongest team in Pot 3, nor is Ghana (ranked #37) the weakest), but they do provide a rough gauge of strength and will do well enough to demonstrate my basic point.  With that in mind, let’s get to know the pots for the upcoming draw a little better:

POT 1 – Seeded teams
Best team: #1 (Spain)
Worst team: #86 (South Africa)
Average team: #14.9 (#4.7 if you exclude South Africa)

POT 2 – CONCACAF, AFC, OFC
Best team: #14 (USA)
Worst team: #84 (Korea DPR)
Average team: #43

POT 3 – CAF, CONMEBOL
Best team: #11 (Cameroon)
Worst team: #37 (Ghana)
Average team: #22.5

POT 4 – UEFA
Best team: #5 (Portugal)
Worst team: #34 (Slovakia)
Average team: #19.4

Pot 1 is by far the strongest, as it should be.  These teams were placed here based on merit and signficant home-field advantage (it remains to be seen if any team can handle the vuvuzela).  The problem is the rest of the pots are far from equal.  For all teams to have an equal chance, the non-seeded pots must have similar (technically, identical) average rankings.  In the case of this field, Pot 1 is effectively the first seed, Pot 4 is the second, Pot 3 is the third, and Pot 4 is a distant fourth.  Teams like Mexico, the United States, and Australia are at a significant disadvantage to teams of lower rank–like Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ghana–simply because we are from or grouped with unfavorable regions.  To clarify this point, let’s take a look at some possible draws:

TEAMS FROM POT 2
Best group (average team FIFA ranking, pot representative excluded): #52.3
Worst group: #5.7
Average group: #18.9

TEAMS FROM POT 3
Best group: 68
Worst group: 6.7
Average group: 25.8

TEAMS FROM POT 4
Best group: 69
Worst group: 8.7
Average group: 26.8

Our best-case, worst-case, and average draws are all significantly worse than the other pots’.  Our average opponent is ranked 7.9 spots higher than UEFA’s.  Even Uruguay–a team that had to beat CONCACAF’s fourth-place team just to make it into the World Cup–has a better chance at a favorable draw than we, the champions of CONCACAF.  Teams from Africa, South America, and Europe have a 50% chance of drawing an un-seeded team ranked below 40.  We have a 0% chance.  And not one of these teams is from our confederation.

So how do we fix this problem?  The way I see it, there are three possible solutions:

1. We seed every team in the tournament using a transparent formula that is established prior to qualifying.  Seeding every team in the tournament based on merit would ensure equal opportunity for teams with similar credentials (the top teams from the smaller regions are not at a disadvantage to the bottom teams from Europe).

2.  Seed only the top eight teams, draw everyone else from a common pot.  Yes, the Group of Death (no, not that Group of Death) gets taken to a whole new level, but every team, regardless of region or “strength” gets an equal opportunity with this system.

Neither of these systems takes into account confederation, but geographical diversity should never preclude giving all teams–not just the Europeans–a fair shake.  For those of you who just cannot bear to wind up in the same group as Mexico, option #3 is the one for you…

3. Create a complicated system that avoids regional repeats without arbitrarily linking the smaller confederations.  Let’s face it–the true crime here is that we have no chance of being drawn with the Asian and Oceanic countries.  (Devising this system seems simple enough, but it’s more difficult than you might think.  If you come up with an idea, please post it below–we’d love to hear it.)

What bothers me most about this draw is that it is conducted under the guise of complete fairness–only the eight most deserving candidates are seeded and everyone else has an equal opportunity.  The truth is, the draw is stacked to maintain the status quo.  And we all know if the roles were reversed–Pot 4 doomed to a tougher draw than Pots 2 and 3–FIFA would do something to fix it.  But since we, the non-soccer-loving countries, are the ones being tossed aside, everything is alright.

The USA is the #14 team in the world based on FIFA’s own criteria–the fifth highest of any non-seeded team–yet our draw is inherently more difficult than 20 teams ranked below us. FIFA either need to admit that this is a tiered system that is set up to favor the old guard (call me a pessimist, but I’m not sure the world would really care), or set up a balanced, fair system. Until that time, as much as I love the World Cup, it is quite simply a flawed tournament. And no, an “easy” draw for the US on Friday will not change my mind.

Pot 1: South Africa, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England. (No France, interestingly).

Pot 2: United States, Mexico, Honduras, Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and New Zealand.

Pot 3: Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Pot 4: Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland.FINFA