Regarding the English press, perhaps you're right CFP; it might be a case of selective memory. I follow football via the Guardian and their coverage is certainly balanced (if not overly cynical and self-deprecating).
Personally, I don't put much stock in the rankings as set by FIFA number crunching; it may have been the last World Cup (or the one before) that the USA was ranked 5 or 6.
(this was a week before or after seeding). By FIFA's measuring, the gap between no. 2 (Spain) and no. 3 (Portugal)
is the same as between Portugal and no. 17 Mexico. Surely the top two teams are not that much better than the others rounding out the top 20. In case of interest:
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ra...llranking.html
Football is football as noted by master Johan Cruyff - essentially, due to the characteristics of the game, chances for upsets are numerous when compared with other sports (perhaps) (although the list of Champions seems to show that it's the most solid teams that raise the Cup).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup
I think England have a chance of course as do all of the good teams, it's just that I don't see them measuring up position for position against the best teams. At this point, I'm thinking Brazil, Spain, Argentina, Holland. After that, it's a free for all 20 teams deep with a couple of general layers.
My out-of-nowhere semifinalist is Slovenia, qualifying first out of Group C, followed by England.
ron, thanks for the update. If the US remains without those players (Dempsey in particular, who seems to know how to score), it could be a bleak trip to South Africa.
Does anyone know of a good online bracket that we could use to host an AppleNova pool (should anyone be interested)?