I've disagreed with your stance on future world cup locations... but your assessments of the yanks heading into next month haven't been wrong.

Nobody is arguing Spector or Demerit are anything more than fringe Premiership/Championship level defenders. We just hope Bradley can come up with something that will make the sum of the back line better than the whole of its parts. It could be argued that Demerit was MOTM against Spain, so there is some precedent there.

There is hope that Jozy has some more help in this mf than he does at Hull. He has shown an ability to finish when given an opening on the international circuit. Agreed his goal vs Spain was fairly lucky... but the others really haven't been.

Yeah our defense is easily the weakest link in the team. A healthy Gooch helps because of his physicality. But our FB's are pretty weak and in general our CB's aren't good either. Pretty sad to think we haven't really developed any good ones lately. It should be the "perfect" position for the US to develop really good talent.

If any of you have kept up to date with the british media btw. The Mail on Sunday basically single handedly destroyed England's 2018 hosting chances through one of the most diabolical pieces of journalism I have ever come across. USA I know aren't close to favourites behind England but it still increases your chances somewhat. Englands bid is obviously still on but it has been damaged.

It was beautiful on their own webpage with a headline something like "Meet the Woman who has Wrecked Englands WC hosting chances", then hundreds of comments from their own readers vilifying the paper, calling for a boycott and vowing never to read the piece of trash again.

raz, link to the mail article?

I believe its related to this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...iesman-remarks

lol yeah that was pretty ****ty.

Basically, the reporter secretly taped the head of the bid committee saying some stupid ****, and then published it.

Not giving one of those two WCs to the US would be ******ed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-referees.html

hahaha that article is hilarious. LOL England.

The comments are worth reading.

I'm aware that you've said you're supporting the US in the WC, but I still don't see how you can argue that you continually make some pretty dumb comments. As far as "contributing to the thread" I certainly have posted plenty of useful things, but I don't exactly post a lot as you can see by my reg date and post count. Also I dunno what geng means or what a spacktard is, but ok.

casual poster out, carry on

lol

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8688155.stm

FWIW Scottish and irish people are finding this all hilarious. Both that the press would behave in this way and the same for the lord. English fans are only thinking of point number one since they are so invested in the bid.

Sick video.

World Cup 2010 - Wavin Flag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMoph...layer_embedded

Really interesting tidbit that I just read on ESPN, but haven't heard anything else about...

I like it personally. Although 12 teams seems crazy, maybe more like 10 (like conmebol) would be doable.

From a selfish standpoint, it would be more competitive WC qualifiers (and as a fan, I <3 WC qualifiers), as well as decreasing variance and thus increasing our chances of qualifying every year.

Has anyone else heard this mentioned?

USA fans should love it. It locks up your position at the WC even harder.

about potentially losing the best named tournament in the world

Agreed... saw this a few weeks ago and got pumped. Anybody know how to go about making a gif of Dempsey's Ghana celebration dance at 1:42-1:44?

And by "go about" I mean make one. Preferably for me.

So it turned out that gingers are evil after all...

I don't think it increases US chances fwiw. I'm still of the opinion that 2022 will be either USA or Australia.

What it does do is increase Russia's chances for 2018 immensely.

Sounds like a great way for every concacaf team to make more money too.

team 24 to 17 play a game, the winner goes through to the 2nd qualifying round with the other 16, easy game.
The other option is to have 8 triangulars.

I like it too.

True, makes it super easy for the US and Mexico. It also takes a huge dump on Canada ever qualifying (LOL Canada).

Not sure its great for all the CONCACAF teams, but its good for those at the top.

I'd enjoy for the same reasons but it just seems bizarre if it takes 22 games to qualify out of CONCACAF when UEFA takes 8 or 10 and CAF and AFC are something like 12-14... wouldn't it raise issues finding fixture dates? I don't know if CONMEBOL already has this problem.

In case anyone hasn't seen it, here's the Jozy ESPN ad.

Concacaf already takes a minimum of 18 games to qualify and it has been OK.