***Note: I am writing this immediately BEFORE the World Cup draw***

FIFA is a patently corrupt organization. What other organization would make a habit of announcing the rules for a competition DURING that competition, which is exactly what FIFA does by determining the rules for the World Cup draw AFTER the qualified teams have been determined.

The draw happens in about an hour, and US fans are patiently awaiting our quadrennial screwing. But US fans should know: the screwing has already begun! And I can prove it with statistics! Here’s my logic…

It not only matters which names get drawn out of the pot – it matters into which pot you are placed. A quick primer for the uninitiated:

-         There are eight groups in the World Cup, each with four teams. Those four teams are determined by drawing one ball each from four “pots”. Long story short: you will play one team from each of the other three pots, and you will play none of the teams from your own pot.

The first pot contains what FIFA determines (after the fact…sorry, France!) to be the best eight teams in the tournament. The US isn’t in that pot, and we don’t deserve to be. The fourth pot is the rest of the European teams. That leaves two pots for North America, South America (minus Brazil and Argentina), Africa (minus South Africa), Asia, and New Zealand.

Let’s use FIFA’s October rankings (which are notoriously weird, but are frankly as good as any other ranking system out there) to determine the relative strength of each federation. Please note: these are the same rankings that FIFA used to determine the seeded teams. It turns out that North America, South America, and Africa are virtually equally good:

North American teams’ average ranking: 22.3

South American teams’ average ranking (minus Brazil and Argentina, who are seeded): 22.0

African teams’ average ranking (minus South Africa, who are seeded): 22.8

The weak sister in the group is clearly Asia: the average ranking of the Asian teams is 50. New Zealand is ranked #77, and after watching the Confederations Cup and the playoff with Bahrain, I can’t believe that they’re ranked that high.

So, whichever team gets thrown in the same pot with the weaker Asian teams is at a huge disadvantage. It could have been any of the three equally strong federations, but it was us. Why is this a screw job? Because it was us last time, too.

Yes, CONCACAF (minus Mexico, who were seeded even though the US had a higher FIFA ranking) was also in the Asian pot in 2006. I’d say that it’s somebody else’s turn.

But wait! The screwing’s not quite over! FIFA also made out pot Pot 2. Why is this a screw job? Because it means that we will play the seeded team in our group first. You always want to play the seeded team in your group third: there is a good chance that the seeded team will have already qualified by the third game, at which point they will be playing second-stringers, and those second-stringers will be playing half-assed (mathematically, that’s one-fourth of the strength of the original squad). Being in Pot 2, we won’t have that opportunity. Shennanigans, I say!

Enough whining – I’m off to watch the draw. For the record, here’s how I rank each Pot:

Pot 1:

1 – Brazil

2 – Spain

3 – Germany

4 – England

5 – Netherlands

6 – Italy

7 – Argentina

8 – South Africa

Pot 2:

1 – US

2 – Mexico

3 – Australia

4 – South Korea

5 – Japan

6 – Honduras

7 – North Korea

8 – New Zealand

Pot 3:

1 – Ivory Coast

2 – Paraguay

3 – Chile

4 – Ghana

5 – Cameroon

6 – Nigeria

7 – Uruguay

8 – Nigeria

Pot 4:

1 – France

2 – Portugal

3 – Serbia

4 – Denmark

5 – Greece

6 – Switzerland

7 – Slovakia

8 – Slovenia

After the draw, I’m going to add up the rankings of each team. An average draw for the US would be a total of 13.5 (impossible, but you get the idea). Anything higher than that is a good draw; anything lower than that is a bad draw. Frankly, as long as we avoid France, Portugal, and Ivory Coast, I’ll be pretty happy.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 11:40 AM EST

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  Friendly number 2 of 3 against quality opponents is today. The first one, against England, went badly. My post last week covered seven things I'd like to see against England, so I'd like to revisit those seven things:

1. Eddie Johnson on the bench. Nope - he played 90 minutes, and, to be fair, I thought he played better than normal. Which is to say: he still did not play very well.

2. A decent scoreline. This was probably the big victory, if there was one. 3-0 or maybe even 4-0 would have also been fair scorelines.

3. A good game for Bocanegra. Actually, I thought that he - and the entire back line, actually, played pretty well; they were just under pressure the entire game. The one criticism I have is that they didn't play the ball forward extremely well, which contributed to them being under pressure the entire game. Bocanegra probably didn't help himself much in the eyes of most Premiership managers, but he probably didn't hurt himself much, either.

4. A good game for Freddy Adu. I thought he was fine, but it's not like he made an irrefutable case for more playing time to Benfica's new manager. I think he'll get a shot today against Spain; with Donovan out, a creative option is sorely needed, and he's the only other name on the roster who fits that description.

5. A good game for Beckham. Yep, pretty good. Better than Gareth Barry, in my opinion. Now that I'm seeing Beckham play on a regular basis, my opinion of Beckham is this: without his right foot, Beckham is a good player. Not a great player by any stretch, but a solid, quality player with good technique and a decent work rate. But his right foot is absolutely atomic. It bumps him up from good to world class. I can't think of any player who can strike the ball as accurately and with as much pace as consistently as Beckham. Roberto Carlos has a laser beam free kick, but he can't play the bending ball that Beckham plays all the time. Juninho and Nakamura are probably Beckham's equivalent as far as scoring from free kicks is concerned, but Beckham is probably the better crosser both from dead balls and the run of play. If Beckham got hurt and could only take free kicks, it would probably make sense for the Galaxy to just play with 10 and then trot him out there for each dead ball. He's that good.

6. A good game from Michael Bradley. Nope - I thought he was pretty poor. He tackled well and didn't draw a red card, but that's about all. He really didn't play the ball forward well. He did poorly in tight spots. He didn't link up with the forwards, and didn't get forward much himself. Not an impressive showing. I think he'll be paired with Mastreoni today; maybe that will allow him to focus on offense a little bit more.

7. Minutes for Kenny Cooper. Okay, I really blew it on this one: Cooper wasn't on the roster. But I'm a comedian writing about soccer; I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to have even the vaguest idea what I'm talking about. 

Other thoughts from the England match, Larry King News & Notes style:

- I've felt this way for a long time: the national team really needs Landon Donovan. That doesn't bode well for today's match versus Spain, which Donovan will also sit out.

- Dempsey had a howler.

- I've never liked Josh Wolff much as a striker (he can't finish), and was not surprised when 1860 Munich started playing him on the right wing. I though that's where Bradley was going to put him against England, with Dempsey up top.

- The US striker pool is pathetic. When you can make a convincing argument why Nate Jaqua should be starting - and I think that you can - you've officially fallen on hard times.

- It's only a friendly, where you want to test out promising young players, and we still put Frankie Hejduk, Eddie Lewis, and Josh Wolff on the field. Nothing against those guys, but the fact that we can't replace them at the moment is a very bad sign.  

 Now on to today's game against Spain. I think we'll get a better performance based on the fact that our guys want to atone for the England match, but I really worry about the team that we'll be putting on the fied. For starters, we still have no strikers. Eddie Johnson is like a koala bear: the koala survived because it had no predators, and Eddie Johnson keeps getting minutes because there's no-one there to displace him. That being the case, here's the line that I think we'll see versus Spain, which also happens to be the lineup that I hope we'll see:

-------------------------Johnson----------

--------------Adu---------------------------

Beasley-------------------------Dempsey

---------Bradley------Mastreoni---------

Pearce---Boca-----Onyewu-------Dolo

----------------Howard--------------------

Yes, that's right: I am advocating a starting lineup that contains Eddie Johnson. Ugh. It's come to that. As I mentioned, a good argument can be made for Jaqua instead of Johnson, but I think that we'll have to defend and counter against Spain, and Jaqua isn't built for the counter attack.

Of course, the real solution to the striker problem should be obvious by now: Jozy Altidore must be sent into deep space, where he will age at a faster rate, a-la Planet of the Apes. He needs to be 22 now. World Cup qualifying starts in a few weeks; if we can't get Altidore on the field somehow, then somebody better get Brian McBride on the phone.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 1:05 PM EDT

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  Friendlies are like open mics: the result is less important that what you learn. Here's what I'm hoping for against England:

1. Eddie Johnson on the bench. I'm over him; he's not the guy. My worst fear is that he'll play and have a semi-decent game, which will subsequently earn him another ten games of back-passes and donkey touches that cause the commentators to say "he just needs to find his form..." He has found his form: his form is shit.  

Of course, it looks like Donovan might not play, which means that Johnson probably will.

2. A decent scoreline. I'd love it if the US won, but England are the stronger team and they have to be considered the favorites. If the US lose by two goals or one, that gets remembered as: "The US came to Wembley and England won." If we lose by three goals or more, that gets remembered as: "The US came to Wembley and got their asses kicked."

3. A good game for Bocanegra. He's out of contract with Fulham and is looking for a new team. He's proven that he's good enough to play in the Premiership; a good game here could help him latch on with a Premiership team. 

4. A good game for Freddy Adu. He's dominating at the U-20 and Olympic levels, and he's still only 18 (which seems impossible - shouldn't he be about 35 by now?). It's time to start giving him regular looks with the full national team. Benfica have a new coach and some good performances in high-profile matches should help Freddy get a look.

5. A good game for Beckham. If Beckham plays poorly, everyone in England will say: "His form is shit because he plays in MLS." We need a good game from Beckham in order to be spared that inane chorus. Of course, a good game from Beckham will not cause anyone in England to give MLS any credit whatsoever, but it will at least minimize the disparaging remarks.

6. A good game from Michael Bradley. Another guy who's basically on trial; he could all but cement a spot in the Premiership with a good game tonight. Most important for me: no brain farts in the closing moments of the game. He has a very bad habit of drawing stupid cards and committing stupid fouls after the 80th minute. 

7. Minutes for Kenny Cooper. He's the anti-Eddie Johnson: he's consistently good, and yet nobody seems to notice. I don't think he'll ever be a great national team player, but I could see him being a reliable, solid option, a la Jimmy Conrad. 

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 1:55 PM EDT

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The British press was freaking out last week about the end of the Premiership season. They were calling it the most exciting season in years, the closest Premiership race ever, etc. And, in a way, it was - it was only the fourth time in the history of the Premiership that the title came down to the final day. Here's the thing: I can't understand why I'm supposed to care about any of that.

I'm not a Chelsea fan or a Man U fan. I also don't cheer for Arsenal or Liverpool. Actually, I feel that any American who cheers for any of those four teams better have a damn good reason for doing so - there had better be some sort of family connection or other very good explanation. In the case of Chelsea, it's okay if you became a Chelsea fan before Roman Abromavich bought the team (Grant Wahl did this). But, barring those exceptions, for an American to pick any of those four teams as "their" team is blatant frontrunning.

I probably went too far in the other direction: I cheer for Fulham. I chose Fulham for obvious reasons: they're the team with the Americans. And now they're my team forever. I'm not changing. As I mentioned in the previous post, I will stay with this marriage no matter how bad it gets.

So, obviously, my attention last week was with my team. And it was a great week; they won and, against all odds stayed up. Which means that Fulham's 2009 relegation-avoidance campaign will be broadcast in the US. Hooray?

Here's the thing: because I don't cheer for one of the big four, my team will never, EVER win the title. Never. I could live to be 100, and Fulham will never win the Premiership. They're already 0 for 129 years, and their highest finish ever is - drum roll please - ninth. Cheering for Fulham is different than cheering for any American team in that I don't know exactly what the ultimate goal is. In the US, the ultimate goal is always to win a championship. For Fulham, and many teams like them, the goal is...what...? Avoiding relegation again? So, 17th place is a victory?

Fulham aren't the only team in this position - not by a long shot. Pretty much any team in the Premiership outside of the big four can't aspire to more than a UEFA cup spot, and a few can maybe hope for a place in the Champions League (where they will be promptly dispatched by a G-14 team). Everton, Newcastle, Tottenham, and a few others might consider themselves title contenders, but they're kidding themselves: they are not close to even sniffing the title. Realistically, they are competing for fifth place.

I would be willing to bet that no team outside of the Big Four will win the Premiership in the next 20 years (unless a team undergoes some sort of Chelsea-esque financial infusion). Already, only four teams have ever won the Premiership in its 16 year history. The one break from Big Four dominance came when Blackburn won in 1995, and that's looking like more and more of a fluke. In the past 13 years, it's been only Chelsea, Arsenal, and Man U. The Big Four have finished in the top four spots for the last three years. And every year that they earn more Champions League money only widens the gap between the Big Four and the rest of the league.

If I haven't started caring about the Red Sox or Yankees after all these years, then I'm not likely to start caring about the Big Four, either. I care about my team. And my team is never involved in the title race, nor will they ever be unless something changes. I think that some people in England are starting to realize that the lack of parity is a growing problem; as money becomes more prevalent in soccer, the gap between the rich teams and the poor teams becomes more apparent on the field. This might - one day - lead England to adopt a very American solution: the dreaded salary cap.

Of course, there won't be a salary cap any time soon. The very fact that the US pioneered the idea probably pushes it back by at least two decades. So, in the meantime, the Premiership is basically a four team league, or maybe even a two-team league. And that's not very exciting to me. Don't get me wrong - I'll keep following the Premiership, but I'll be following the bottom of the league, where my team plays. The top of the table is just boring to me.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 4:40 PM EDT

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Fulham are going down. Probably. They've still got a chance, but it's not looking good. Like many Americans, I am a Fulham fan. And, like many Americans, I have never been through this before.

Relegation pain is unique. It's gradual and incremental, with flashes of hope that only prolong the suffering. It's more like a gutshot than a bullet to the brain - the suffering unfolds slowly, in stages, with the outcome becoming more apparent with each passing moment.

I can't explain this condition to my non-soccer-loving friends. It's an experience that Bill Simmons hasn't documented. I feel a need to record my symptoms so that Americans can understand this affliction that the Europeans have brought over. Maybe Nicholas Kristof will chronicle my plight. Mabye little rubber bracelets will draw attention to the horrors of this condition. Bono might get involved (though maybe not - he supports Celtic). I must speak. The world must know:

The Seven Stages of Relegation:

Stage 1: Naive Optimism.  Soccer players are a bit like race horses - they're evaluated largely by pedigree. Fulham's opening day roster had some pedigree. Danny Murphy is ex-Liverpool, who are politely included in the Big Four. David Healy holds the record for most goals scored in European qualifying, and no one ever went wrong in soccer basing their evaluations on goal-scoring statistics, right? The manager, Lawrie Sanchez, had great success managing Wycome Wanderers - they absolutely tore apart my rec team (they were winning 4-1 when we had to clear the field for marching band practice). And we avoided relegation last year by one whole point! Who else here has their sights set on European football in 2008!?!

Stage 2: Tinkering. A few weeks into the season, it was clear that the team needed...let's say "adjustments". Specifically, Brian McBride's tibia needed to be adjusted to be roughly in line with his femur. Also, it was not yet clear whether Stephen Davis should be played in the center, played on the wing, or shot into deep space. Still, there was time, and reinforcements were coming from, um, Crystal Palace, and with Lawrie Sanchez applying the same deft tactics that helped Northern Ireland almost not fail to qualify for Euro 2008, the ship would still be righted, right? Right?

Stage 3: Hatred of Chris Baird. Is Chris Baird's dad really powerful or something? Does he possess compromising photos of important people? What I'm asking is: what was it that kept this man on the field for so long? Was it the same thing that's keeping Andy Rooney on TV? With all of Fulham's contacts with America, why didn't they just pick any - literally any- right back from MLS? They're all better than Chris Baird.

Stage 4: Denial/False Hope. I don't think that Mohamed Al-Fayed celebrates Christmas, but I sure celebrated when he fired Lawrie Sanchez in December. With that act alone, things started looking up. After all, surely the new coach wouldn't make the same mistake that Sanchez had made: buying players based on reputation alone, then sticking with those players for too long in a stubborn attempt to avoid admitting a mistake. Besides, Bullard and McBride were coming back, and Bolton was horrible, and Derby was already down, and Wigan is a rugby town, so there's nothing to worry about, right? Right?

Stage 5: Xenophobia. You know who's fault this all is? Foreigners. Specifically those filthy fucking Irish: Baird and Healy and Davis and Aaron Hughes...they're the ones to blame. They come here and they take jobs away from hard working Americans, and look what happens. None of this is the Americans' fault. Bocanegra, Dempsey, and Keller aren't seeing enough minutes, and it's all because of their sneaky English coach. The English have always favored the Irish.

Stage 6: Bitterness/clinging to God, guns. This is all a test. The penalty kick against Newcastle, the hand ball goal against West Ham...it seems like everyone is out to screw us right now - and they undeniably are - but you know how we can get through this? Faith. A little good, old-fashioned, faith - you know, the kind of faith that causes God to give you stuff. You've read snippets of the bible - ask and it shall be given unto you. Well, God, if you're listening, I would like to hold onto a one-goal lead. And if we can't, I'm going to get a gun and shoot Chris Baird in both knees.

Stage 6: Aethism. Thanks a pantload, God. Or, should I say: "god". There is no hope - life is meaningless. We are born, we suffer, and then we die. Soccer is like life: a random series of chance encounters over which we have no control. All we can do is watch where the ball bounces and hope for a quick and relatively painless death. The sky is grey. The orb is spinning. I retire. Silence.

Stage 7: Manchester United. They are the Death Star of English soccer. They are big and powerful and have a gravity that draws you inward. Yes, they are evil, and they exist to squash the hope of smaller civilizations throughout the galaxy, leaving only the blackness of space...but, damn it, they win. Maybe I should stop being such a martyr and go over to the dark side.

But no...I've already decided: if Fulham go down, I'm going down with my team. Hell, I'm part Irish myself: I'll stick with this marriage forever no matter how bad it gets. Actually, after the comeback win at Man City last week, I'm starting to think they could stay up. Which either means that we've either begun Chapter IV: A New Hope, or that I've cycled back to Stage 4 and still have stages 5, 6, and 7 ahead of me.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 2:18 PM EDT

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  Everyone over at Soccer by Ives is wondering why Eddie Johnson isn't playing at Fulham.

  I'll tell you why he isn't playing: it's because he isn't good at soccer. At all. He is the one American player whom I do not want to see on the field for Fulham, and it's because he's just not good. At soccer. Not even a little.

  Maybe this will help people understand...

Eddie Johnson cannot play,

He sucks in many, many ways;

He cannot shoot, he cannot pass,

He often falls down on the grass;

His touches often take him wide,

He's always, ALWAYS caught offside;

He does not work, he can't defend,

He does not get from end to end;

He is not good with back to goal,

He is not good in any role!

He can't play high or on the wing,

He is not good at anything!

He is not good when with his club,

He is not good used as a sub;

His is not good when with the Nats,

He is not good and that is that!

He's played his first and last World Cup,

US fans should give it up!

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 12:01 AM EDT

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  This past weekend, sports fans in this country were thrilled by one of the most remarkable games in recent memory: the U.S. under-20's 5-0 win over Panama. Nobody at work can stop talking about it.

  I watched all three US games in the qualifying tournament, which was played on what can't possibly be the best field in Panama (come on, Panama - you have professional teams. Do they all play on high-school-quality fields with dirt patches and potholes?) My thoughts on each player are below, because soccer fans everywhere are dying for the opinions of federal employee-comedians who last played competitive soccer in high school. I also scored each player twice on a scale of 1-10. The first score is how well that player played in the tournament. The second score is how much potential I think that player has in the long run. Please note: the second number will almost certainly look comically wrong if we were to look back at it in a couple of years.

- Chris Seitz (GK) - 7, 9 - Barely had anything to do in any of the games. The only goal he gave up was a penalty kick against Haiti, which he probably should have saved. He gets the seven mostly because he looks like a good 'keeper, i.e., he's big and has a shaved head (why are all American goalkeepers bald?). His positioning was okay, though not perfect, and he made a couple nice saves against Panama. I'm eager to see if he can win the starting spot in Salt Lake if Scott Garlick goes into a slump.

- Quavas Kirk (D) - 4, 9 - Probably the biggest disappointment of the tournament from my perspective. I've been pretty optimistic about this guy since I saw him run the right flank against DC, but he didn't have a good tournament. He showed a lot of speed and a willingness to get forward, but his defense was lacking and he was frequently caught out of position. He also gave Haiti their PK by unnecessarily tugging a Hatian player's shirt. I still think that he shows a lot of promise, but I wonder if his future is more as a right mid than as a right back.

- Julian Valentin - 5.5, 6 - Solid defensive work, though his distrubition was a bit lacking. Maybe it was because of the rough field, but the defense as a whole often seemed very slow to play the ball out of their third. Still, Valentin showed good composure for a kid and was rarely caught out of position, which is what you want from a central defender.

- Nathan Sturgis - 5.5, 6 - Pretty much identical to Valentin - good defense, good composure, could have been a bit better playing the ball forward. He, like most of the American players, definitely benefitted from a considerable size advantage over his opponents.

- Tim Ward - 5.5, 6 - A mixed bag: showed a good willingness to get forward and had some nice moments, but had some bad giveaways as well. It seems like he maybe has the tools to be a solid MLS left back, but not much beyond that.

- Danny Sztela - 8, 8 - I never quite understood what everyone sees in this kid; I always thought he was unimpressive with the U-17s and with Columbus. But I finally started to see it this time - I thought he had the best tournament of any American player. He controlled the midfield well, which was important because he often didn't receive much help in a three-man midfield. He distributed the ball pretty well and played at a quick pace. He also looked a lot bigger than he looked previously, which makes me think that he might eventually turn into a pretty effective midfield destroyer.

- Tony Beltran - 5, 5 - Solid, though not spectacular. Didn't make too many mistakes, but didn't do much to distinguish himself, either. Played defensive mid in the third game and was a more stabalizing influence in that role than Anthony Wallace.

- Freddy Adu - 6, 9 - I've seen a lot of Freddy over the past three years with DC United, so I pretty much know what to expect: outstanding vision, excellent through balls, disappointingly difficult square balls, the occasional brilliant touch, the occasional stupid giveaway in an attempt to execute a brilliant touch, the occasional great finish, the occasional shot that misses the goal by 40 yards, excellent dead balls and free kicks, great runs capped by completely losing composure and dribbling right into a defender, a wildly fluctuating work rate, an ever-improving ability to hold and distribute the ball, and absolutely, positively, under no circumstances, any right foot whatsoever. I did notice two encouraging things about Freddy's play that I haven't really seen before: 1) When on the ball, he seemed to be playing at a quicker pace than most of the other players. I guess that's the professional experience paying off. 2) He had some decent attempts on goal from free kicks. These are positive aspects from his game that he seems to be developing.
  If I'm John Ellinger (Real Salt Lake's coach), I make Freddy practice using only his right foot two days a week.

Johann Smith - 6, 8.5 - I was exited to see this guy for the first time, and he showed some moments of really good soccer - he created the first goal against Panama all by himself. He had a few chances to showcase his speed (he ran the 100 in 10.4 in high school), but it was mostly while chasing down long balls played into the corner. He showed decent touch and skill, but his passing and decision-making wasn't always the greatest. Still, since there appear to be two wide-open forward slots on the full national team, I'll be watching his progress whenever I get a chance.

Robbie Rogers - 4, 4.5 - This was the first time that I've seen this guy as well, and I came away a bit disappointed. He didn't show a great deal of speed or skill; his main asset seemed to be his crossing ability, which was apparent but inconsistent. He also seems to be able to play a good cross with either foot, which is a plus. Still, I felt that his contribution to the attack was less than stellar.

Josmer Altidore - 6, 9 - Like Quavas Kirk and Freddy, I'm really optimistic about this guy, and his undeniable skill was unapparent at times. He showed a lot of speed and trickery, though the U-20 World Cup Finals will be a much better measure of his talents. On the negative side, his first touch let him down sometimes, and I felt that he did a subpar job of creating space for himself. It's also worth mentioning that he was apparently sick throughout this tournament, and he missed the whole first game and half of the second.
  One thing (among many) the the announcers didn't notice: he slapped the ball out of a Guatemalan player's hand before a free kick when he was already carrying a yellow card. Not smart. Although the team kept their composure pretty well on the whole for a bunch of 19-year-olds.

Jonathan Villanueva - 4.5, 4.5 - This is the guy who beat out Dax McCarthy for a roster spot, and it wasn't entirely clear to me why. He wasn't horrible, but I didn't see a whole lot of skill, pace, or vision. It should be pointed out that Haiti was absolutely terrible in the first game, and we should have scored even more than the four goals that we did. Subpar attacking play, part of which was Villanueva, is, in my opinion, the reason why we didn't score more.

Sal Zizzo - 4, 6 - Showed a good work rate and decent passing ability, but failed to make the most of his opportunities in the final third. Another one of the attacking players in the Haiti game whom I though didn't play all that well.

Anthony Wallace - 4.5, 5.5 - Very inconsistent - made some good plays, but probably had more poor first touches and unforced giveaways than any other player. He got into the attack a lot at some points, but it often came at the expense of leaving Sztela stranded in the defensive midfield.

Andre Akpan - 4.5, 4 - This is probably a harsh judgement for a guy who was credited with a hat trick in the only full game he played (though the second goal was actually an own-goal), but his goals were pretty much tap-ins, and I actually though he should have done better on a couple of occasions. Also, he didn't show the speed or skill that some of the other forwards demonstrated. The attack was a lot more dangerous when Altidore and Smith entered the game.

Didn't play enough for a rating: Ofori Sarkodie (which is too bad; he played well for the U-17s), Bryan Arguez (also too bad; he was DC United's top draft pick), Preston Zimmerman, Amaechi Igwe, Brian Perk.

Also, here are my thoughts (in a much briefer form) on the US players who played against Denmark:

Reis: Very poor but got away with it
Albright: Below his standard
Conrad: Pretty good, one moment of ball-watching
Boswell: Calm and controlled as always, a few mistakes, should be capped again
Bornstein: Completely schizophrenic in a nonetheless promising way. Cap him again and see what happens.
Pearce: Wish he had played more
Namoff: A little jittery, did a good job (as always) of knowing when to stay home
Clark: Pretty good, would like to see more
Mastreoni: As always, extremely tough but occasionally brainless
Donovan: Good, everyone wants him to be great
Rolfe: Poor as a mid, good as a forward
Mapp: Great run for the second goal, fundamentals could use some work. Cap him again against Mexico.
Johnson: Complete crap - what happened to this guy?
Nate Jaqua: Not too good, though he spent a lot of his time chasing down long balls, which is not really his game.
Kenny Cooper: pretty good. I'm optimistic about this guy.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 12:01 AM EST

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  Observant readers will notice that this blog is not actually about soccer - it's about the other football. But the BCS has bugged me for a long time now, so I figured I'd go ahead and put my thoughts in writing.

   Tonight is the college football National Championship Game, so now is also a good time to express my hatred of the Byzantine, arbitrary, completely moronic system known as the Bowl Championship Series.

  Here's the only iron-clad lock in sports: the college football champion will be controversial. Several teams will claim that they deserved to be in the BCS title game, and they will have a point. However, the teams who actually do play in the BCS title game (it's the Rose Bowl this year) will also have a legitimate claim to their spot in the game. There will be no satisfactory conclusion. This will lead to a level of whining and bitching that no other sport – figure skating included – would tolerate.

  This will happen because college football is organized by people too ignorant to recognize this obvious truth: any championship format that involves voting will be viewed by some as illegitimate. Let's review how things are presently done:

-         Each team plays between 11 and 14 games.

-         The quality of opponents varies considerably, with teams in the six "major" conferences playing significantly tougher schedules than teams in the five "minor" conferences.

-         Some conferences have title games, which pit the two top teams against each other. Others do not.

-         Teams schedule their own non-conference games. National championship contenders frequently schedule games against teams in the lower divisions of college football, which, for some reason, is allowed.

-         From this clusterfuck, the BCS rankings are determined. The BCS rankings consist of three factors:

1.      The Harris Interactive Poll. The Harris poll is compiled by sports writers and former players. All of these people have jobs and can't possibly watch every game in college football. Furthermore, practically all of them went to college, including many of the colleges involved in the poll.

2.      The Coaches Poll. This poll is compiled by coaches who were obviously coaching their own fucking game while the other teams in the poll were playing. These coaches have a greater incentive than anyone else in the world to cast self-interested votes. It is commonly known that athletic directors, assistant coaches, and, in some cases, equipment managers actually submit the "coach's" rankings.

3.      Computer poll average. Six computer polls are averaged out to create a single computer poll average. These rankings are completely objective and calculated according to pre-determined, result-oriented criteria, making them immune to skewed perceptions and sentimental factors. Nonetheless, after every season, meathead sports commentators will claim that the computers – and not the shit-for-brains coaches and reporters – got it wrong.

The BCS used to factor in strength of schedule and quality wins, but these criteria were dropped after the objective determinations of mathematics failed to reflect the subjective determinations of idiot football coaches. The system now is almost identical to the failed system that led to the creation of the BCS in the first place. The top two teams in the BCS poll at the end of the season play in the National Championship Game. This game rotes among the four BCS bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta), completely fucking up the sacred bowl traditions (i.e., the Rose Bowl has the Big Ten and Pac Ten champs) that are ostensibly one of the main reasons why we don't have a playoff. The winner of the National Championship Game is declared the National Champion, but this is almost always disputed, as nobody agreed on which teams should be in the game in the first place. Even in relatively non-controversial years (such as last year, when the only two undefeated teams in the country met in the title game), it is easy to argue that good teams were not given a fair shot at the title.

So, that's how it is now. Let's review the pros of this system:

-         It's better than the old system.

Okay, now the cons:

-         You're comparing apples and oranges. How can you compare two teams who quite possibly didn't have a single common opponent? And how do you compare the quality of various conferences when there are only a handful of inter-conference games? With that being true, how can you compare a 12-0 team to an 11-1 team from another conference? Maybe the 11-1 team had a much tougher schedule. But, you can't punish the 12-0 team, can you? Furthermore, how do you compare an 11-0 team to a 13-1 team? Isn't it possible that the 11-0 team would have lost if they had played those extra games? And given that there are only a handful of really tough games, how do you factor in home field advantage (or disadvantage) in those games? How does head-to-head competition factor in? Also, what are we actually voting on? Are we looking for the best team, or are we looking for the team that had the best season? If it's the first, then why even bother playing the games? But it can't be the second, because many teams have identical seasons. Also, are we looking for the best team now, or the best team over the course of the season? Which brings up the question: should we factor in margin of victory? It seems like we shouldn't, because that makes close victories into losses, and it rewards teams for running up the score. But, on the other hand, if you had teams with identical records and schedules, wouldn't margin of victory be the tie-breaker?

There are no answers to these questions, which is why any system that involves voting will never work.

-         It's ruined the bowl traditions. The biggest argument against a playoff used to be that the bowl traditions are sacred. The Pac 10 always played the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl, and it had been that way since the '30s. Anything that disrupted that system was a non-starter. Yet, in their infinite stupidity, the NCAA managed to institute a system that destroyed these traditions without solving the fundamental problem. This is why ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Oregon was denied a chance to win their first Rose Bowl in more than fifty years despite winning the PAC 10 in 1999.

-         The other bowls mean nothing. It used to be that Michigan would be thrilled to end up in the Rose Bowl. This year, however, they were pissed, because it meant that they were denied a chance of playing for the national title. Every game except for the title game is nothing more than an exhibition.

-         Reputations matter. When several teams end the season with identical records – as often happens in college football – tie-breakers are important. In practice, reputation is one of the most important tie-breakers in college football. Traditional powerhouses, such as Notre Dame, Penn State, and Florida State, are almost always overrated. Remember, people are making these rankings based on how good they think these teams are. And the inflated reputations of the perennial powerhouses mean that when you've got two teams with identical records, the powerhouse team will often be given the benefit of the doubt.

-         When you lose matters. You hear this logic a lot in college football: "they won, so they shouldn't move down." On one hand, this makes sense: a team shouldn't ever be punished for winning. However, it ignores the fact that the initial rankings were a guess based on no results, and therefore shouldn't mean anything at all. Furthermore, teams that lose late in the season are often pushed behind teams with identical records who lost early in the season (see, for example, the fact that Oklahoma are ranked above USC). People have started to get wise to this flaw in recent years, but it still matters.

-         Small teams have no chance. If you are not in a major conference, you will never win the national championship. Those aren't the formal rules, but that's the way it works in practice. If you're in one of the five "minor" conferences, your title dreams are gone before you stepped on the field. There are no Cinderellas in college football - no '06 George Mason, no '84 Villanova. This year, Boise State won every game on its schedule, including a thrilling 43-42 win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. For that they win…nothing at all. The best they'll get at the end of the season is a number three ranking, behind a couple of teams with one loss (including the potential national champion, if Florida wins tonight). They don't even get a chance to keep playing until someone beats them. Where's the excitement in that?

  Obviously, the current system is arbitrary and unfair. A playoff is required, as just about anyone who follows the sport will agree. All of the old arguments against a playoff – it will add too many games, it will destroy traditions, it will distract players from their academics – have been torpedoed by the NCAA's own expansion and distortion of regular season and bowl schedule. The last argument – that a playoff would distract student-athletes from their studies – doesn't even pass the laugh test, especially considering the fact that Division II, which includes the Ivy Leagues, has a playoff.

  Most proponents of a playoff advocate basically the same format as the NCAA basketball tournament, only with eight teams instead of 64. While this would be better than the current system, there is still a major problem: voting would still play a major role. Look at what would have happened this year: Boise State, one of only two undefeated teams in the country, would be out. 10-2 LSU, an SEC team, would be in, while 10-2 Auburn, also an SEC team who beat LSU, would be out. Two-loss teams Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Rutgers, and Wake Forest would be out in spite of the fact that three two-loss teams would be in. Also, there would have been no drama in the fourth quarter of the Michigan-Ohio State game, as both teams would have known that they at least made the game close enough to avoid dropping out of the top eight. My point is this: If we simply put the top eight teams into a playoff, we'll still have many of the same problems that we have now. We need to get rid of voting altogether.

  Here's how we do that: First, fold the five small conferences into four (this isn't so far-fetched due to the restructuring in the ACC and Big East in the past few years). Conference USA disappears (or the MAC disappears – it doesn't matter for these purposes). Notre Dame joins the Big 10; sorry, Notre Dame, we're not going to force a crappy system on all of college football so that you can have your undeserved BCS bowl payday (note: I am a lifelong Notre Dame fan. It is the last vestige of the days when my family was Catholic). Then the bowl games get structured like this:

-         WAC champ vs. Mountain West champ, winner goes to Fiesta Bowl

-         MAC champ vs. Sunbelt champ, winner goes to Fiesta Bowl

-         Fiesta Bowl: WAC/Mountain West champ vs. MAC/Sunbelt champ

-         Rose Bowl: PAC 10 Champ vs. Big 10 Champ

-         Orange Bowl: Big East Champ vs. ACC Champ

-         Sugar Bowl: SEC Champ vs. Big 12 Champ

  These games take place on January 1, as used to be the tradition. Then, there are two more rounds until there is a winner. The matchups would change every year (Sugar vs. Orange winner one year, Sugar vs. Fiesta winner the next) so that no one conference always ends up playing the Fiesta Bowl champ, which will arguably be the weakest team in the final four.

  The logic behind this system is the same logic that lies behind the playoff system in every pro sport: you play your way in. There's no voting, no subjectivity. The path is laid out, and if you keep winning, you will be the champ. Also, if you claim to be the best team in the country, then you have to at least prove that you're the best team in the division.

  The main drawback that I see in this system is that non-conference games don't mean as much as they do now. But non-conference games would still serve three purposes: 1) They'd be tie-breakers for teams with identical conference records (as they are now), 2) They'd be important for the non-playoff bowls (which would still exist, as they do now), and 3) A points system based entirely on non-conference games could be used to determine home-field advantage for the semi-final and final, which would provide an incentive to actually schedule games against tough teams. Also, I'd like to point out that it would be extremely difficult to make non-conference games more boring than they already are, as the big teams have taken to beating up on the Eastern Michigans of the world in order to avoid a potentially crippling loss.

  The advantages of this system are this:

-         There's no voting

-         It restores the bowl traditions and enhances inter-conference rivalries in those games

-         It doesn't add too many games

-         It intensifies in-conference rivalries

-         Teams get to actually play the teams competing with them for a playoff spot

-         It creates semi-final and final games with an actual home-field advantage, which will be much more exciting than bowl games at neutral sites (note: if they can play NFL games in Green Bay in January, then they can play college games in Michigan in January)

-         The small colleges have a chance to win it all

  That's it. I'm surprised you read this far.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 1:56 PM EST

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  Some random thoughts on sports, Larry King News & Notes style…

  The Freddy Adu trade:

  If nothing else, my team just got a little less exciting for the moment. As much as Freddy had his down spells, he would also have moments that would make you think "maybe he deserved all the hype." In MLS, where you can wrap up a playoff spot with 2/3 of the season left to play, I liked having a player on the team who made the game worth watching all by himself. I'm also a little bummed that he won't be referred to as "the former DC United man" when he plays in Europe.

  That being said, this has the potential to be a great trade or a terrible trade. The DCenters says that waiting and seeing is a cheap answer, but it's my answer anyway. There are just too many unknown variables at this point.

  If Freddy leaves in June, this could be a great trade – we will have essentially traded some cash and a bit of quality in our backup keeper for an allocation. That's a good deal. However, the other variable in this equation is the quality of the player that we sign using that allocation. If we sign another Christian Gomez, we fleeced them. If we sign another Lucio Filomino, they fleeced us. I hope that DC is acting on a bit of insider information on both of these counts.

  The ongoing US National Team coach hunt:

  I wanted two things in a coach: 1) Success at the highest levels of competition, and 2) A working knowledge of American soccer and its players. There was only one candidate who had both of those qualifications, and he removed himself from consideration last week. So, looking through the remaining candidates, here is my order of preference:

1. Gus Hiddink (head coach, Russia, formerly of PSV Eindhoven and Australia) – He has won everywhere he goes (although Russia isn't going great guns right now), and he definitely got the maximum out of the Australian team. He had an American player in Damarcus Beasley at PSV. Unfortunately, he is under contract with Russia for two more years, so I doubt he's available.
2. Gerard Houlier (head coach, Lyon) – I'll confess: I have only seen Lyon play a few times, and the coaching decisions didn't make any impression on me. However, what he's done at Lyon is remarkable: they've won 5 straight league titles and are 14 points clear in their quest for a sixth. They're also playing very well in the Champions League, and should have knocked out AC Milan last year. He also has a good record of developing young players.
3. Carlos Queiroz (Manchester United assistant coach, head coach of the Metrostars in 1996) – He's got experience in MLS and has experience as an assistant at the highest levels. That's close. I've never seen him coach, but I've read a lot of good things about his personality and his intelligence.
4. Sigi Schmid (head coach, Columbus Crew, formerly of the LA Galaxy and the US U-20s) – He's extremely underrated. He had a team that was rebuilding this year, and then they got hit with a hurricane of injuries – that's why Columbus sucked so hard this year. It wasn't Sigi's fault. He never should have been canned as LA's coach in the first place. Also, when he was with the U-20's he coached a lot of the guys who are candidates to make the team in 2010.
5. Bob Bradley (head coach, Chivas USA, formerly of the Metrostars and Fire, present interim coach) – From what I can tell, he's a good coach and a smart guy. His record of success is interrupted only by his time with the (then) Metrostars, but from what I remember he never had a quality striker and a quality defender on that team at the same time. We'll know a lot more about him in the next couple months.
6. Frank Yallop (head coach, LA Galaxy, formerly of San Jose and Canada) – Landon Donovan likes him and has played well under him. That's an asset if you think that will translate to the national team, but it's a liability if you think someone needs to motivate Donovan to play at a higher level. I think it's probably an asset, but I'm not convinced. My main problem with Yallop is his complete and total failure to get Canada anywhere close to qualification for the '06 World Cup.
7. Jose Peckerman (Argentina head coach during '06 World Cup, Argentine U-20s coach before that) – I aired my problems with Peckerman in a previous blog. Still, Ryan's right: three Youth World Cups is pretty good. Let me point this out, though: he doesn't speak English. Also, it took the goal of the tournament to beat Mexico in extra time, so I think we should put the quality of the '06 Argentina team in perspective.
8. Peter Nowak (head coach, DC United) – My problems with Peter go beyond his handling of Freddy Adu (which, now is a good time to point out, was never very good). My problem is that he is so incredibly rigid. I'm a big fan of the 3-5-2, but is it really the right situation against every team in every game? Also, it takes him a very long time to change his mind. It took a full year for him to realize that Christian Gomez is the linchpin of this team and doesn't need to always be subbed out in the 65^th minute. He was the last person in DC to realize that Boswell and Erpen should both be in the back line. He never did admit what nobody wants to admit: Jaime Moreno's skills are deteriorating. Add that to some other bizarre decisions (why the right-footed Josh Gros on the left and the left-footed Freddy Adu on the right? Neither had a cutback goal all year) and substitutions, and I just don't have a whole lot of confidence in this guy.
9. Sven Goran-Erikkson – This guy is an egomaniac and a crappy coach. He got the absolute minimum out of that English team and created problems along the way. I don't see a whole lot of positives in this guy.

  For now, I'm willing to give Bob Bradley the benefit of the doubt. He seems like a good guy, and I'm willing to be convinced. Also, I kind of have to root for a guy who was no-one's first choice.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 1:57 PM EST

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  Jurgen Klinsmann will not be the next coach of the U.S. National Team. Damn it. That sucks. He's definitely the guy I wanted. He really seemed to have just about everything you'd want.

  Apparently, Klinsmann and US Soccer didn't disagree about money so much as "executive control." I have no idea what that means. Control over what? I don't know nearly enough about the actual job of being a national team coach to imagine what issues executive control covers. But I hope the US Soccer weighed the value of having the optimal coach with too much control against the value of having a sub-opitimal coach with the right amount of control.

  Chivas USA coach Bob Bradley is the interim coach. The search must be going really poorly if we're six months in and have to name an interim coach just to get through our January friendlies. Bob Bradley is a good coach, but if you're going to go with a quality MLS coach who doesn't have much of a reputation outside of the US, why not just stick with Bruce Arena? The down side of any American coach is that they can't help but internalize a lot of the conventional wisdom about the team. I like the idea of bringing in someone with a fresh perspective who might challenge some of the orthodoxy surrounding this team. I'd like to see someone ask: "Would a 4-3-3 suit this team?" Or "Does Damarcus Beasley really deserve a spot on this team right now?" Even if the answers to those questions are "no" and "yes," I'd like to see someone brought in who'd be willing to re-evaluate the whole program.

  If Jose Peckerman ends up getting the job, I'm going to be pissed. When I think of Jose Peckerman, I think of Lionel Messi on the bench. Messi on the bench versus Germany in the World Cup, and Messi on the bench versus the US in the first game of the U-20 championships. Argentina lost both of those games. Who leaves Messi on the bench? And who inserts Julio Cruz - a striker - when you're trying to hold a 1 goal lead? I'm not going to judge a coach on a few games alone, but it certainly does raise questions about his competence. And, yes, he's had tons of success at the youth level, but it's not like he had that success with Lichtenstein. That would be impressive. Coaching success, in my mind, is not proved by results alone. People always say Joe Torre is a great coach, and he may be, but I could have coached that '98 team to a World Series. Successful coaches shouldn't get credit unless we can point to specific things about their technique and decisions that suggest that they maximized the team's potnetial. The same goes for Peckerman. As it stands, I have seen no evidence that would convince me that he is a good coach.

Posted by jeffmaurer1980 at 1:58 PM EST

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