World Cup! Counting down...

The great sports competition known as the world's greatest after the Olympics cycles toward its next final round of play. I will never forget being in the Stadium in San Jose with tens of thousands of others to watch Brazil play Cameroon back in the 90s. Nothing else like it. So we make plans to tape games, select which of the many games are worth seeing, and jigger our schedules to be able to watch. Clubmates talk of flying to Germany sans tickets just to be able to stand in the public squares with thousands of other football fans and watch the unfolding play on giant screens. We log in to websites devoted to following the friendlies in preparation. We mull over who's healthy and who's off their form. World Cup....
The question I find myself coming back to, though, is how did our guys, the US of A, get ranked 5th? What did we do to deserve being higher on the pecking order than such powers as Argentina, Germany, England, and Italy? Somehow this seems to be a bad karmic setup. I don't understand how FIFA's ranking points are acquired, and I don't mean to minimize the accomplishments of the Yanks, but it still seems like a dangerous place to be at the start of the tournament. I'm particularly pleased to see Keeler in the goal. As a Portland Homeboy, he's done us proud. June 12th we'll see what we've got. Nedved and the Czechs...wow.

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