OT: USMNT Is Going To Get Boned On Friday

Submitted by Brian on

Why? Because it's the World Cup. Leave me alone.

Landon Donovan in the USA's new home kit. bone

The World Cup draw is Friday, and FIFA has finally ditched its really unbelievably complicated seeding scheme for straight FIFA rankings, which screw you Sepp Blatter. In 2006 the USA would have received a seed if they'd gone with that.

Anyway, here's a hypothetically totally fair draw with each team given a seed corresponding to its FIFA ranking, with the team's Soccer Power Index (a Nate Silver joint) in parens afterwards:

Seed Team A SPI Seed Team B SPI Seed Team C SPI Seed Team D SPI Avg
1 Spain 2 16 Switzerland 31 17 Uruguay 10 32 South Africa 65 32.5
2 Brazil 1 15 Chile 8 18 Serbia 13 31 North Korea 92 39
3 Holland 4 14 Ivory Coast 9 19 Australia 22 30 New Zealand 91 38.5
4 Italy 12 13 Mexico 19 20 Nigeria 33 29 South Korea 42 26
5 Portugal 7 12 USA 16 21 Denmark 20 28 Japan 35 24
6 Germany 6 11 Greece 34 22 Algeria 46 27 Honduras 25 21.25
7 France 11 10 Cameroon 15 23 Paraguay 18 26 Ghana 37 24
8 Argentina 5 9 England 3 24 Slovenia 36 25 Slovakia 50 27

The USA is in the second-worst group but even that group seems far more doable and  balanced than what they got in '06 and what they're staring down on Friday. The Silver average reveals everyone's main desire: get drawn in the same group as South Africa, New Zealand, and/or North Korea. Those teams are all horrendous relative to the field.

Unfortunately, That's not happening unless the USA pulls the 1-in-8 longshot and slips into the South Africa group:

Pot 1 will consist of the eight seeded teams and will be drawn into groups at the outset of the Friday's event.

Pot 2 consists of CONCACAF, Asia and Oceania and will be drawn, next with no restrictions as to where those eight teams can be drawn.

The USA cannot draw in with Australia, North Korea, New Zealand, or South Korea, the #19, 28, 29, 30, and 31 teams in the tournament according to FIFA.  Nor can they get in with #27 Honduras, but we knew that already. In sum: YAY. There is one team in its pot that the US wouldn't want to get drawn with: Mexico. The other six teams are the weakest in the field with the exception of Australia. The CONCACAF powers are worse off than any other team with a chance of advancing to the second round.

Why don't the World Cup doyens do it like this anyway? There's only one group that has an overload of one federation—Group 8 has three UEFA teams—and that can be fixed by flipping Ghana and Slovakia. If you want to separate Chile and Brazil you can just flip Chile with the Ivory Coast. You get geographical dispersion, seriously reduced chances at Groups of Death, and a fairer tournament all around.

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Comments

jgunnip

December 2nd, 2009 at 6:56 PM ^

At least Altidore is finally cracking the starting lineup at Hull. Hopefully he starts finding the back of the net soon. Without Davies we are sadly short on capable strikers and my hope is that Papa Bradley pairs up Altidore with Dempsey and inserts one of Holden/Castillo/Torres out wide. Defense (goalkeeping specifically) has never really been our problem, it has always been our inability to finish in the attacking third.

Joined: 12/08/2008

MGoPoints: 329

loosekanen

December 2nd, 2009 at 7:15 PM ^

My prediction: Argentina, Serbia, USA, Ghana... a group we could get out of, or lose all 3 embarrassingly. No WAY is FIFA putting us up against South Africa. FIFA is SO SHADY I will lay even money that Honduras ends up in the same group with South Africa. Just book it already.

Joined: 10/03/2009

MGoPoints: 923

jgunnip

December 4th, 2009 at 5:04 PM ^

That couldn't have gone any better. Still a tough group, but any group for us would have been difficult. Algeria are a strong team that has benefited from the new nationality rules, thus gaining players who have played for other nations' youth squads, not to mention winning a do-or-die playoff against favorites Egpyt last month. Slovenia should not be overlooked either. They finished 2nd in a tough qualifying group consisting of Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic and then upset heavily favored Russia in a home and away playoff. Slovenia have quality players throughout the european leagues. Oh, and there's that match against England to kick it all off in Rustenburg. This will be a good tournament for the US, one that they will be expected to advance out of the group stages.

Joined: 12/08/2008

MGoPoints: 329

SpartanDan

December 4th, 2009 at 9:33 PM ^

None of our groupmates are walkovers, obviously (all of those were in the same pot as us anyway), but when you consider what could have been (poor North Korea ... they'll be lucky to finish -10 on goal difference), I'm happy.

Joined: 08/20/2008

MGoPoints: 594