As you probably already know, the pots for the 2010 World Cup were released today, and like a lot of you, I was interested in seeing who the USMNT would draw, and just how their draw could wind up. It can really go a couple of ways. The US could get totally screwed or theycould come out with the luckiest draw ever, but in actuallity it’ll probably land somewhere in between.
I decided to run through the teams and give some possible scenarios for the US pot by pot to see where we want the US to land with regards to the other teams in their group.
Pot 1: Argentina, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain.
Outside of South Africa the US is kinda screwed here for obvious reasons. If I had to pick a non South Africa team from this pot for the US to get paired up with it’d probably be Argentina simply because of their struggles over the last year, even still it’s Argentina and they’re nothing to laugh at. I think the US could potentially get at least a draw against Argentina, Italy, or the Netherlands, but thats a lot to ask out of this team.
Other than South Africa I don’t expect the US to score any points against any of these teams, and they shouldn’t be expected to. It’s really the other teams the US needs to worry about.
Pot 2: Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Honduras, Mexico, United States, New Zealand.
That’s the USMNT’s pot and obviously they don’t get to play anyone out of it, which is a shame because this is a pretty weak pot.
Pot 3: Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay.
If the US were to happen to draw South Africa they can’t play any of the rest of the African teams, which would be a huge sigh of relief. Africa might not seem like much, but a lot of their teams are extremely strong, their teams are littered with top flight players. Algeria is probably the easiest of the 5, if only because they don’t have a vast number of players in top flight leagues and I’m not that familiar with them, but they could very well be top class.
On the South American side of this draw, I’m a little concerned. Half of Chile’s players play for Colo Colo, which means that these guys are together 90% of the time and have great chemistry. I don’t see the US doing well if they’re paired up with Chile. Paraguay seems like a much more defensive team, but doesn’t seem to have a big time striker, so they’d probably be easier for the US as they seem to like to give up stupid goals. The US can probably remain competitive with Uruguay as they seem to have played each of their World Cup qualifiers pretty close, and padded their goal differential with blowouts against bottom dwellers Peru and Bolivia.
Pot 4: Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland.
This is where the US could get screwed. France and Portugal have had their issues but they’re still world class teams that could win the World Cup. We all know that Denmark beat up the US 3-1 in a friendly a few weeks back, in addition they lost to Slovakia 1-0 that same week. Greece or Switzerland would probably be the best teams to get matched up with as they both come from the weakest overall group from UEFA. There isn’t anything thats really scary about Switzerland to me, and Greece is totally beatable even though they rely on the often sneaky 10 guys behind the ball and counter attack strategy that seems to win them a good number of games.
Regardless of the draw I think it’ll be a hard World Cup for the USMNT, save for getting really lucky. In 2006, 5 points was the average amount needed to get to the next round and 4 was the minimum. Picking up 5 points will always assure you passage into the knockout stage, and 4 can usually see you through so the US would need to pull off a win and sqeak out two draws (losing to the top team in the group would probably also work, provided they win all 3 games). The draw comes on Friday, so keep your fingers crossed.
My ideal group for the US plays out like this:
South Africa
USMNT
Parguay
Greece
but the “group of death” looks something like this:
Brazil/England/Spain
USMNT
Ivory Coast/Ghana
France/Portugal
Who do you want to see the US face? Who do you really hope they avoid?
1) South Africa
2) U.S.
3) Paraguay
4) Serbia
We can get out of that group; I think Greece and Paraguay would leave out of your group. Greece is like the world champion of killing off games; they won Euro 2004 without anybody. It’s all tactical, and Bob Bradley’s not really tactical enough to handle them.
I want Slovenia or Switzerland from the Europe pot. I want no part of Greece and their anti-football. I also think we could take Denmark if we put a full-strength team on the pitch, which we certainly did not a few weeks back. I agree that if we get SA, Paraguay is probably the best case. I also had Brazil-Ivory Coast-Portugal as my group of death. While I don’t want England or Spain, I feel better about those than Brazil. I think the memory of giving up a 2-goal lead would haunt USMNT in a Brazil match and we’d likely get hammered. We obviously could have some confidence v. Spain and I could easily see them flaming out at WC10. Expectations are high for Spain, but they’re a bit like my Gunners: full of talent and skill, but lacking a physical presence and stiff defense, both of which usually are critical in the WC. I see England also having trouble dealing with mammoth expectations – even though Rooney is a better strike option for me in WC play than Villa & Torres, and perhaps Capello has brought some of the old catenaccio to the English. Every one in England seems to think they’re going to run away with the Cup after their Q run, and in the wake of missing Euro 08, there’s an awful lot riding on 2010 for them. All that said, I think we can take a point from England or Spain. I think Argentina or Germany present more problems for the US. Can’t wait for Friday; come on Yanks!