USA...USA...USA

World cup '06 starts today. Am I interested, yes, will it consume my every waking moment, no in the least. Will I watch some of the games.... Probably, if time permits I will watch the US games and maybe a couple of the other interesting matchups.

Good article in the Chronicle Sports section about the US world cup team and their history against the Europeans. Mission Possible is what they are calling their goals for this year tournament. Now it will not be easy as we have the following teams in our group Ghana, Italy and Czech Republic.

Italy has always been a top 10 team, the Czech Republic is a solid club which could suprise team not prepared, then you have Ghana, the historical whipping boy, however this whipping boy is no pushover. All of the experts have this group as the deepest and most tallented from top to bottom. That alone should make for some interesting games. The US plays the following group games

• Mon, 6/12 12 p.m. United States vs. Czech Republic Gelsenkirchen
• Sat, 6/17 3 p.m. Italy vs. United States Kaiserslautern
• Thu, 6/22 10 a.m. Ghana vs. United States Nuremberg

For the US to advance the team needs to end up with at worst a 1-1-1 record but the best results would be 3-0-0. I seem to think that if the US gets by the Czech Republic, they will probably be 2-1-0 and advance. This article on Fox Sports talks about the US and thier chances very well. So here is to the Yanks, Stars and Stripes, and Red White and Blue moving on to the Quarterfinals or beyond.

Good Luck Gentlemen