[KDawgCometh]

I was watching FOx Football Friday, and the hosts brought up a very good point that will negatively effect the US. Italy normally has a bad game in their first match in big competitions, well, guess what, the US is the second game. What this means is that the US will have to play the game of their lives against the czech rep.

One thing that I have forgotten though is that Nedved is retired from international play. This is huge if he doesn't come back for the WC. Rosiscky isn't anywhere near the player that nedved is, and they will be relying on Jan Koller to get their goals, and IMO Koller isn't that strong of a striker. THe main problem for the US in that game will getting anything past petr cech. Look at his play for Chelsea and how he has done on the internation scene.

If only the US had played some more competetive friendlies in the past few years or had gone to the last Copa America we would be seeded as we only lost out on it by a measly point. The USSF is fully to blame for this, instead of programing matches against Cuba et al then we'd be talking about who the US would be facing in the 2nd rd and if they would be possibly going to the quarters. I think that the US can still advance, but, a lot of factors will have to come into play, and in the end, the talent gap might not be closed through great team play