2014 World Cup Draw

[Muskie]

Follow along on their Live Blog (http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/final-draw/draw.html) at Fifa.com (no streaming believe it or not).

[Muskie]

Official Match Ball (which I kind of like)
1310

[X-band '01]

Yikes. Germany AND Ghana?

[ballyhoohoo]

FIFA hates Uncle Sam

[nuts4xu]

Yikes. Germany AND Ghana?

and Portugal. That is brutal. I don't expect the US to last long in that pod.

[Titanxman04]

Two points in this group would be a miracle. One would be lovely. I truly expect the USA to bow out with zero though. BRUTAL draw for us. And Ghana?!? Our returning nightmare in WC play is Ghana. Here they are again.

[xumuskies08]

Group of Death + longest travel schedule of any country = WTF FIFA?

[GuyFawkes38]

Portugal often under performs. Who knows.

Group D is also tough.

[Porkopolis]

Brutal, brutal draw. Advancing from this group would rate as the greatest US performance ever.

[xubrew]

A part of me thinks that groups like this are only tough for the teams that aren't the reason the group is tough. For instance, Germany probably doesn't feel overwhelmed.

An even bigger part of me thinks this really sucks. Had we been drawn into Group E all the games would have been winnable, and being matched up with Group F in the knockout round would have created a somewhat winnable game in the round of 16. Just having Russia instead of Portugal would have been nice.

Switzerland is a decent soccer team, but they are expert numbers crunchers. I don't know how the FIFA rankings work exactly, but they do. Friendlies don't mean as much as qualifiers or other competitive games (Euros, Confed. Cup, etc), but apparently they mean enough so that a team can drastically sway the rankings if they schedule the right ones and win them.

Teams in basketball are often criticized for gaming the RPI. Switzerland gamed the FIFA rankings, and earned a seed. On top of that, they had the fortune of avoiding some very good teams in the draw that did not get a seed.

[Titanxman04]

A part of me thinks that groups like this are only tough for the teams that aren't the reason the group is tough. For instance, Germany probably doesn't feel overwhelmed.

An even bigger part of me thinks this really sucks. Had we been drawn into Group E all the games would have been winnable, and being matched up with Group F in the knockout round would have created a somewhat winnable game in the round of 16. Just having Russia instead of Portugal would have been nice.

Switzerland is a decent soccer team, but they are expert numbers crunchers. I don't know how the FIFA rankings work exactly, but they do. Friendlies don't mean as much as qualifiers or other competitive games (Euros, Confed. Cup, etc), but apparently they mean enough so that a team can drastically sway the rankings if they schedule the right ones and win them.

Teams in basketball are often criticized for gaming the RPI. Switzerland gamed the FIFA rankings, and earned a seed. On top of that, they had the fortune of avoiding some very good teams in the draw that did not get a seed.

It wasn't so long ago that USA was "ranked" 5th in the world. One of the teams from CONCACAF was in the top ten during the hexigon. It's BS. Their rankings are a joke.

[bleedXblue]

Kick in the nuts for the US. Wow!

Oh well, maybe we can knock off Ghana and then pull a surprise with either Germany or Portugal

[Porkopolis]

A part of me thinks that groups like this are only tough for the teams that aren't the reason the group is tough. For instance, Germany probably doesn't feel overwhelmed.

As someone with a German mother who routinely reads German sites, I can assure you they are flipping out. Every team in this group is Semifinalist material if the chips fall right for them. Someone else put it best: this isn't a group of death, it is a group of eternal torment.

[xubrew]

It wasn't so long ago that USA was "ranked" 5th in the world. One of the teams from CONCACAF was in the top ten during the hexigon. It's BS. Their rankings are a joke.

That was for most of 2005 and 2006 leading up to the WC. I think they actually got as high as #3 at one point.

I don't know how the rankings work. No idea. I see rankings on FIFA.com. I see points next to each team. I have no idea how they arrive at those point totals. All I know is that all games are factored in, but competitive games count for more than friendlies, but I guess if you play a bunch of friendlies and win them you can move up. Italy went out and lost numerous friendlies that they didn't take seriously because they had already qualified, and it apparently moved them down in the rankings.

[ammtd34]

I don't really think the rankings are a joke, but it's just impossible for them to be accurate because you only qualify (and play a tournament every two years) against your own confederation. It'd be like college basketball rankings only taking your conference schedule into consideration.

Using ESPN's power rankings, our group looks pretty tough. If you look only at average rank, we have the second toughest group. That's misleading, though, because Australia at 53 throws off group B. So if you throw out the highest and lowest teams in each group and take the average of the 2 middle teams, we have the 3rd toughest group behind B and D. I also wanted to find out which group would be most competitive top to bottom, so by taking the difference between the highest and lowest rated teams, we again have the second toughest group, with 20 spots separating Germany and Ghana.

Any way you look at it, we're not in really good shape. E, by the way, isn't even close to the easiest group. Brazil and Belgium have absolute cakewalks, and I don't think we really wanted to see the speed on the flanks that Ecuador has anyway.

[Caveat]

Brutal, brutal draw for the US side.

They'll be lucky to score a point in group play.

[sgarcia]

I would say group B is the worst group because you have the 2010 World Cup Champ and runner up along with Chile who is really good and whoever finishes 2nd in group B has the joy of playing Brazil in the round of 16. Good luck with that.

[_LH]

Looking forward to the games.

[GuyFawkes38]

It is frustrating that Mexico got such a great draw.

[bleedXblue]

If you think about it, this is an incredible opportunity. If they advance out of this group, they could change the way the world thinks of US Soccer. If we don't advance, well, we weren't supposed to anyway. Not much lost other than having to wait another 4 years.....

[Caveat]

If you think about it, this is an incredible opportunity. If they advance out of this group, they could change the way the world thinks of US Soccer. If we don't advance, well, we weren't supposed to anyway. Not much lost other than having to wait another 4 years.....

I don't know -- I feel like getting knocked out unceremoniously could be a big setback for the sport. This will likely be the most attention paid to a World Cup since it was actually played here. It'll be a tremendous opportunity to change the way people think about soccer and America's role in the world game. An uninspiring showing will lead to a lot of "Eh, same old same old" that will be tough to build on.

[Muskie]

I believe the US will advance. I'm calling it now.

[Caveat]

I think it'll take 5 points to advance. That makes beating Ghana a must for any hope of making it through.

The wild-card game is going to be the third one against Germany. If the Germans collect 6 points in their first 2 matches and are already through to the next stage, they could have a let-down game and let the US steal a result.

[SlimKibbles]

After seeing the US beat Spain in the '09 Confed Cup and seeing what the team has accomplished under Klinsmann, I don't see why they can't get at least 6 points. They're capable of beating all three teams. I don't think they will but they're capable. I'm eager to see how they do. I love the a World Cup. In my top 3 favorite sporting events.