And whaddayouknow, here comes Cruzin bragging about Mexico's youth teams again.

I'll bet you (in advance) of evens vs Switzerland, England, Portugal, Bosnia, Croatia, Russia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana.

I mean Bosnia make for a good story and all and I'm all for rooting for them and they have DZEKO but... lolbosnia.

Good god man.

Neutral field in 10 matches I'd expect 4 England wins, 4 draws and 2 USA wins or thereabout.

We'd be about +250-300 to qualify from this group.

Jesus ****ing christ.

This is beyond delusional, and I say that as the biggest Michael Bradley jocker around.

Then join in with the Eurohaters and bet me evens. Show some USA patriotism man, only CHARDER is backing up the 'MURICA cause with me.

Bobbo just giving away free money

You basically forfeited the right to be taken seriously in any soccer post for at least 6 months, or until Jozy scores in the Prem, whichever comes first.

Ok maybe that one was a bit much.

Bosnia, Croatia, Russia, Ivory Coast are all arguable. If it wasn't for past results, I might add Ghana to this group. Switzerland seem to be in a real peak period, but I wonder how much of that is temporary? High teens seems like about the right spot, which makes sense, given that rational expectations are R16 with a chip and a chair.

I want to hear a real substantive argument for Merica 12/13.

Looking at the players they just dont exist.

Agree. To listen to the Euros, we're lucky FIFA is even extending CONCACAF a World Cup berth(s). !!!

Um, we are able to look at team rosters. Imagine that.

I mean putting them there would necessarily place them above England so I get why you're defensive.

As I said before homerism in any sporting thread gets harshly jumped on, given its at all time elite levels itt and also there is extra precious passive aggressiveness thrown in for good measure.

You and OAFK11 should lock yourselves in a room and have a false dichotomy-off.

Is that really your best effort, dont jump aboard the tard train with Bobbo.

If you read any of my posts about the England team the majority (there are exceptions) of them could be cliffed as such: Why do I have to support a team that plays such AIDS football. I am as far removed from an England homer as it could possibly be.

That said even though we play AIDS we are still >>>>>>USA though. Based on any kind of logical break down of player roster, of course there is always the legendary USA WIM.

To get back on track a little, I think something that is being missed by many on the pro-USA side is how much stronger this WC field seems to be than recent iterations, starting from the fact that the (seeded) host is Brazil instead of South Africa and/or Japan/SK. Teams like Slovakia, Slovenia and Greece aren't there. It seems like at least 4 of the African teams will be severely threatening.

Also, many of the "midlevel" euros that have qualified are in really good periods in terms of talent (Belgium, Switzerland, etc...)

I mean, if you look just a few posts about, you'll see that I'd put the US at ~18, but I'm not totally optimistic about our chances going into next summer, partially due to the likely difficulty of our draw/overall strength of the tourney and partially due to the fact that a lot of our improvement stems from greater depth rather than great additions of true top end talent. I think Bradley is significantly better than he was in 2010, but Dempsey has already dropped a little and Donovan, who knows? We still have some time for a few others to separate themselves (Diskerud, Bedoya and Johannson seem the most likely candidates). But the fact remains that we're better because we won't be starting Rico Clark or Jeff Agoos equivalents any more, which is nice, but we're still primarily a functional side, just with moments of fluency mixed in now and then.

Would you also agree that in terms of talent:effectiveness ratio, the USA closes a great deal of the raw talent gap between them and England? I mean you can't spell "less than the sum of their parts" without "Lampard and Gerrard can't play together"

I think the things you mention, the hiring of Klinsmann, etc. are at least evidence of some willingness to move in the right direction. But read this thread and one can see that a certain myopia is still very common. It's amazing to see people care about FIFA rankings. It's amazing to see people who think Concacaf is not the weakest or second weakest of the WC qualifying regions. It's amazing to see how excited people get about winning friendlies. Folks seem to think Landon Donovan is a great striker. Have to get past that. He's done what he's done, and certainly he's suffered from the European prejudice against US soccer players, but he's no Alvaro Negredo. For me, what the US needs is more Clint Dempseys. Good solid players. And a commitment to reinforce what this team has usually done, which is play above its talent level.

Well I never bought into that meme as much as most and to me it was just used to hide wider failings in the England squad and tactical system ala play 442 every game.

Now I think that starting Gerrard and Lampard is sub optimal but that is based purely on there level of play, would prefer to see Wilts/Carrick.

Think England is looking healthier than they have done for a while with some real danger up front with Rooney and Sturridge and an effective tactic that even England players can understand in feeding the space monkey that will be very productive against teams like the USA but will be shut down by the Spain et al teams.

Sounds like your talking yourself into Football is Coming Home, Summer 2014.