Back in August, I wrote a post on how big the end of 2009 could for American soccer. At the time, I focused on the MLS CBA negotiations, possible MLS expansion, and the World Cup draw; little did I know at the time that second division drama would trump all but one of those.


So here we are, with 2009 just about done and dusted, and a review seems to be in order. Of my three chosen happenings, only one actually came to pass, the one we knew for sure would; the World Cup draw. As it turned out, it was everything we could have hope for and more, thanks both to a group from which the US is capable of advancing, as well as the bonus of a high-profile opening match with world class England.


The buzz for the USA-England match has faded just a bit in recent days, and will probably chug along at a low hum for at least the first three months of 2009; but as the World Cup creeps closer, and the two nations media complexes (obviously that applies to England more than the US) get into full hype mode, you might need earplugs to block out the noise. Everything, and I mean everything from a USMNT standpoint, hinged on that draw. In more ways than one, it did not disappoint.


Unfortunately, the other two areas I pointed out as important for '09 won't be sorted until '10. The CBA negotiations, which are ongoing even as we get very little in terms of actual updates, don't appear to be close to a resolution. Both sides still have heels dug firmly into their respective grounds, and since both belief their ground is high, the stalemate show no signs of breaking. The current CBA expires on January 31st of next year, so the likelihood that the league will be operating without one for at least a short period of time is rising with each passing day. Remember too, that the league won't announce salary cap and roster guidelines until after the CBA has established the basic framework for player compensation.


Expansion, while not as imperative to the health of MLS as the new CBA will be, is nonetheless still a hot topic. Don Garber's recent visit to Montreal to speak with Joey Saputo and local officials makes it seem as though the Impacts "promotion" to MLS is imminent. There's no reason to believe that isn't true, but again, with only a few weeks left in 2009, Montreal's official announcement is likely to happen in 2010.


Meanwhile, the USL/NASL fight has risen to a place of prominence on the list of concerns heading into 2010. The USSF has yet to decide on the status of the newly formed NASL, and it will be that action which dictates the direction that battle will take. If the USSF sanctions NASL, then at least we'll know that those clubs signed up with the new league will definitely play in 2010; with the amount of time, effort, and money they've put into their new endeavor, it would be a pity to have it go any other way. The USL lawsuit, naming three NASL-committed teams (Rochester, Tampa Bay, and CP Baltimore) will linger no matter the USSF ruling, and will also need to be sorted out. A peek at the Hillsborough County court website indicates that a hearing has been scheduled for early March.


In retrospect, the expansion and CBA questions were long shots for answers in 2009. It's 2010, with both club and country being in the news, that will ultimately be when those answers will come.

The American Soccer Show World Cup draw special edition is now available for download. The show included calls by Ginge, Adam Soucie (Captain Positive), Max Zeger (Goal.com), Travis Clark (Covering the Pitch), Graham Bell of CSRN, and Shane Evans (Goal.com).

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Not just England, of course, but I expect much of the buildup to the World Cup in 2010 will revolve around the Yanks opening match with their colonial cousins.


Here is the full World Cup group draw:


Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay,France

Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece

Group C: England, USA, Algeria, Slovenia

Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana

Group E: Holland, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon

Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia

Group G: Brazil, Korea DPR, Ivory Coast, Portugal

Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile


Focus will be on the opening match with England (June 12th in Rustenburg), but Bob Bradley and his team will need to give proper respect to Algeria and Slovenia if they hope to progress to the knockout round.


Share your thoughts on the American draw here.

Landon Donovan will be in New York tomorrow, where he will particpate in a live webcast with post-draw reaction at 4 PM ET. Donovan's National Team teammates Clint Dempsey, Robbie Rogers, and Jonathan Bornstein will also be involves via UStream, and the group with take questions from local area soccer youth and viewers via the Nike Football Facebook page and Twitter messages @nikesoccer tagged #livewithlandon.


So after you listen to the special American Soccer Show post-draw edition from 3-4 ET, head over to www.facebook.com/nikefootball to watch the Donovan and friends webcast.

Just a heads up for those of you that enjoy the audio content as much (or more) than the written stuff:


The American Soccer Show will be on the air live for a special post-World Cup draw edition starting tomorrow at 3 PM EST.


Head over to the American Soccer Show website for more details, and make sure you bookmark the page to listen in live tomorrow. The show will be up in podcast form sometime Friday evening as well.

Three days. Three days until the US National Team learns their group-mates for the opening round of World Cup 2010. Three days until hand-wringing stage two begins. For some, three days until Bob Bradley's team's fate is sealed. Forget June: by Friday afternoon it will decided just how far the US will advance in the world's biggest sporting event.


Well, not really, though you wouldn't know it from some of the noise echoing around the American soccer community. It's all about the draw, we're told, with the implication being that a difficult group immediately, and without a ball being kicked, precludes the Americans from advancing to the knockout stages of the tournament.


It began back in October, when the US beat Honduras to qualify. Most reveled in the accomplishment, and the win away in Central America certainly made it more satisfying; but since qualification was never really in doubt and because the Americans would be heading to their sixth straight tournament, many (MANY) fans reverted to that oh-so-natural state of self-loathing with stern pronouncements of diminished expectations.


A group populated with three strong teams lowers the American chances of advancing, that much is not debatable. Injuries have weakened the team, and a Bob Bradley's job has become even more difficult. The projected procedure (though we don't yet know for sure) for the draw makes it likely the Americans will face a tough path to knockout football. Call it bleak, or call it the reality of international competition for a country that is still in the ascendancy; there are reasons to be down on American chances. But to dismiss any possibility of advancement is ridiculous and runs counter to the essence of being a fan. Why ruin the fun of it before the tournament even starts?


In the span of four years, the US performed at both ends of the expectation spectrum. In 2002 the Americans shocked most when they made a quarterfinal run on the strength of an upset over Portugal and a defeat of Mexico. In 2006 they fell flat on their faces with a draw and two losses, finishing last in their very difficult group. Perhaps it's because the worse of the two showings came more recently that general opinion is so down on American World Cup prospects, or perhaps its the uneven 2009 the team put in; no matter why, it depressing to see so many fans throw in the towel so early.


You're ruining it for the rest of us.


So on Friday, when the FIFA honchos get together in Cape Town to seal the fate of the USMNT seven months before the World Cup kicks off, remember that a little hope, or at the very least keeping your fatalistic viewpoint to yourself, is not such a bad thing.


Then again, if it's as bad as it could be, I might just join the pessimism parade.

Guest Post by Matt - US Soccer Daily


Though it’s not yet official, there seems to be general consensus in the international soccer community that the pots used in next Friday’s World Cup draw will look like this:

POT 1-Brazil, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Italy, Germany, South Africa

POT 2- Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Slovenia, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia, Switzerland

POT 3- USA, Mexico, Honduras, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand

POT 4- Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria


As USMNT fans know from recent experience, the draw can and usually does have a huge impact on a team’s odds of advancing to the knockout stages of the tournament. The way the above pots are set up gives each team a shot at finding themselves in the easiest group or the Group of Death. I’m not going to go through a mock draw; instead I’ll just give some possible groups of interest for USMNT and international fans alike.


1. USMNT Group of Death: As if Group E in the 2006 World Cup wasn’t bad enough (Italy, Czech Republic, Ghana), the US could find themselves in an even tougher group come Saturday:

Brazil
Netherlands
USA
Ivory Coast

The US would be fortunate to win any of these games, making a top two finish in the group unlikely. Brazil has shown their class this summer in CONMEBOL qualifying and the Confederations Cup, while the Netherlands once again bring a very talented team to the tournament that waltzed through UEFA qualification. Didier Drogba and Ivory Coast, meanwhile, are being touted by a fair share of pundits as having a good chance at becoming the first World Cup champions from Africa. The US did manage to make their way out of their difficult Confederations Cup group, but this one would be a whole other level.


2. Group of Karma: More than a few people are a little irked out how France made it to the World Cup, with Thierry Henry’s controversial winner and FIFA’s not-so-subtle efforts to help Les Bleus with the playoff seeding system. So justice would be served if Raymond Domenech’s side found themselves in this group:

France
Netherlands
Mexico
Ivory Coast

France has had a lackluster qualifying campaign and at this point does not look like a team capable of winning this tournament. With that much talent, however, things can click at the right time to give them a chance at the title. Even if that were to happen, the above group would make it extremely difficult just to make it to the round of 16, with all three teams capable of taking down the 2006 World Cup runners-up.

This group would also double as a Group of Death for Mexico. USMNT fans would be quite happy to see Mexico get this group after El Tri were given a very favorable draw in the 2006 World Cup (Portugal, Iran, Angola).


3. Best group for the USMNT: It’s no secret that hosts South Africa are the weakest team by far in the seeded pot (Pot 1), so Bob Bradley and company would love to find themselves in a group with Bafana Bafana. The Yanks will have good odds of returning to the knockout stage for the first time since their quarterfinal run in 2002 if they find themselves in the following group:

South Africa
Greece
USMNT
Uruguay

Despite the fact that South Africa will have their vuvuzela-wielding fans out in full force, the potential home-field advantage is outweighed by the fact that they have been fairly unimpressive for the last year or so. Their best performances of late were nothing more than moral victories, with two close losses to Brazil and Spain, while they have struggled in games against significantly lesser sides.


Greece, meanwhile, favor a strongly defensive style that would allow the US to control possession and the tempo of the game. The Greeks hardly looked impenetrable in their playoff with Ukraine and could very well have found themselves on the outside looking in if the Ukrainians were able to finish. Out of the last pot, Uruguay is probably the weakest team.


Overall, this group would be a dream come true for USMNT fans, and could very well happen if the US finds themselves in the hosts’ group. Never before has a host side failed to advance out of the group stage, and FIFA likely do not want that streak to end (insert conspiracy theory here). That would mean that South Africa’s group would likely be the easiest, giving them the best chance of moving on. So, come next Friday, pray that the US finds themselves alongside Carlos Parreira’s side.


With only a few exceptions (New Zealand, North Korea), almost all of the teams in South Africa next summer would provide the US with a solid test. Bring an end to all your worrying and tune in to ESPN2 on Friday at 12:00 PM ET to catch the draw live and see what exactly the USMNT will have to go up against next summer.

By Jason Kuenle

Germany, Serbia, Ecuador. December 4th is a day I’m dreading. It is the day of the World Cup draw, and those three teams are the average group that the USMNT would be drawn into. Throw in the USA and you have current FIFA ranks 4, 11, 13, and 36. The worst case scenario is Brazil, Netherlands, Australia or 1, 3, and 14. That first group is close to a group of death, the second one surely is.

Wins by the Yanks, combined with losses by Honduras and Costa Rica have given the United States breathing room in qualification. With qualification looking more likely, here’s a not so quick look at the finals draw. The draw is really a two step process, formulating the four “pots” that the draw will come from and then drawing from those pots. While this second step is random, the first step is not. The USMNT can escape the group of death by luck in during either step. I will warn you that is written below is filled with conjecture and while I will state my assumptions as such, it does not make any of this absolute fact.

In every WC since it expanded to 32 teams, FIFA has created a seeded pot which includes the host country/countries and the teams with the highest rating from a seeding formula to fill the remaining spots in the pot. The other pots have been done by confederation; attempting to place confederations with higher average FIFA rankings for their unseeded teams together in pots without breaking up confederations unnecessarily. I will assume that these trends will continue.

I assume FIFA will use the same formula for filling Pot A as it did for WC 2006. FIFA used similar formulas for WC 1998 and WC 2002 and any slight tweak should not disrupt this analysis in any appreciable way.

Using this seeding formula, there are 11 teams that if they qualify would be ahead of the US for those 7 spots. Those 11 teams are, in order, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain, England, Argentina, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Mexico, and Croatia. Of these Brazil, Spain, England, and Netherlands have already qualified. Italy, with 4 point advantage and a game remaining against Cyprus look like a lock to qualify.

Likewise, Mexico with a home game against El Salvador and a road game in Trinidad looks to have a clear path to the top three in CONCACAF. With those two added in, the US would need Germany, Argentina, France, Portugal, and Croatia all not to qualify to be seeded. This is a possibility. A German loss in Russia will likely send them to the second place UEFA knockout along with France and Croatia, while Portugal may not make it that far, and Argentina is sitting in the playoff spot in CONMEBOL. If all this happens, the US should rejoice because it means they’ll have to play none of these teams in the group stage which will make passage to the knockout stage of the World Cup much easier.

In the more likely event that the US is not seeded, the question is what will the other three pots look like? One will have the unseeded European teams, which we’ll call Pot B, and the other two will be confederation combinations of Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, and South America.

We know that there will be 5 unseeded African teams. We know that Asia will have the lowest average FIFA ranking of any multi-team confederation. We know that if New Zealand beats Bahrain, that Oceania will have the lowest FIFA ranking of any confederation. If Bahrain wins, Asia will have 5 unseeded teams. I assume that if New Zealand wins, they will likely be put in the same pot as the Asian teams. Therefore, Africa and Asia/Oceania will be the majority members of pots C and D respectively.

That leaves us with CONCACAF and CONMEBOL to fill in the holes. Two factors complicate this. The play-in game and the qualification status of Argentina. There are four possibilities, in the order I consider most likely: CONMEBOL wins and Argentina in, CONCACAF wins and Argentina in, CONCACAF wins and Argentina out, and CONMEBOL wins and Argentina out.



If a CONMEBOL team wins and Argentina is in, CONMEBOL will have two seeded teams and three unseeded teams. CONCACAF will also have three unseeded teams if Germany, France, or Portugal qualify. The unseeded FIFA average for CONMEBOL if the standings hold is 26.7, for CONCACAF, 25.7. This would match CONCACAF with Africa and CONMEBOL with Asia. However that difference is not substantial and could easily be flipped by the time that the pot determination occurs, dropping CONCACAF into the Asian pot.

If a CONCACAF team wins and Argentina is in, CONMEBOL will have two seeded teams and two unseeded teams. CONCACAF will have four unseeded teams. The FIFA averages would be, CONMEBOL 22, CONCACAF 29. CONMEBOL would be placed with Africa. CONCACAF would be placed with Asia, but there would be nine teams in the pot. In 2006, a special pot was designated when the unseeded European pot had 9 teams effectively moving Serbia and Montenegro out of the higher ranked European pot into the lower ranked CONCACAF and Asia pot based on their having the lowest FIFA ranking in the pot at the time. Assuming that FIFA would do the reverse, the highest FIFA ranked member of the CONCACAF and Asia pot would be moved to the higher ranked Africa and CONMEBOL pot. The US at 11 is currently the highest ranked of those teams.

If a CONCACAF team wins and Argentina is out, CONMEBOL would have one seeded team and three unseeded teams. The hole left by Argentina in the seeded pot would likely be filled by a European team, leaving Pot B one team short. FIFA averages CONMEBOL 26.7, CONCACAF 29. CONMEBOL would be placed with Africa, CONCACAF with Asia and the US moved up to the European Pot B. If the Argentine hole is instead filled by Mexico, the United States would remain with the rest of CONCACAF in the Asian pot.

If a CONMEBOL team wins and Argentina is out, CONMEBOL would have one seeded team and four unseeded teams, FIFA average 27. CONCACAF would have three unseeded teams, FIFA average 25.7. CONCACAF would be placed with Africa, CONMEBOL with Asia and Australia would be pulled out of Asia to fill the hole in the European pot or the Africa/CONCACAF pot is Mexico gets seeded.

If the US can get into the African pot, their chances of moving through to the knock-out round go up dramatically. First, it means that they would not have to play the unseeded African teams. Second, because you cannot have teams from the same confederation (except for Europe) in the same group, it means that there is a very good chance of being drawn into the South African group. Being drawn into the host group means no group matches against those top seeded teams. Finally, it means a 50-50 chance of drawing one of the weaker Asian teams. If the US is in the African pot, it means that there is as good of a chance of Brazil, Netherlands, Australia, as there is South Africa, Slovakia, North Korea.

In short, root for CONCACAF. Root for Mexico beating Columbia in a friendly at the end of the month. Root for whatever side goes up against CONMEBOL in the play-in games. Also for good measure, root for Bahrain, eliminating any possibility that FIFA might use the only Oceania team to plug holes that the US would like to fill.