Best and Worst Case Scenarios For The United States World Cup Draw

By now most of you should have seen the pots for the World Cup 2014 draw. If you haven't you can view the pots and the reasons teams ended up in what pots here.

Many, like myself, looked at the pots and thought, well this could either go terribly wrong or amazingly well for the United States. The USA has the possibility of drawing a very daunting group of death, but also the possibility of drawing a group they should cruise out of. Here are the best and worst case scenarios.

Best: The best draw for the US would come with them ending up in a group comprised of Switzerland, Algeria, USA, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Switzerland is easily identified as the weakest of the Pot 1 teams and every country in the other pots will be itching to have them drawn into theirs. Algeria is ranked 26th in the world and look to be this years whipping boys out of the tournament. The USMNT has already defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina recently and that was not on US soil. So their chances of coming up big against them again are very high. That group would give the US the best chance of getting out of the group stage on top. Alternates for a good draw for the US out of each pot are Colombia out of Pot 1. Nigeria, Cameroon, or Ecuador out of Pot 2. Croatia or Greece out of Pot 4.

Worst: Now comes the part every United States fan is dreading will not happen, the USMNT drawing the group of death. Lets start with Pot 1. Basically every team besides Switzerland and possibly Colombia in this pot will cause huge problems for the USMNT. It's evident the United States doesn't have the talent to match those teams at full strength, so drawing Spain, Germany, Brazil, Belgium, Argentina, or Uruguay could spell a sure loss in the games they play against them. Out of Pot 2 it has to be Ghana. The USMNT could find themselves in yet another matchup against Ghana, and that team is one that will haunt the USMNT. The US will also want to avoid the Ivory Coast. While vastly underachieving in the big tournaments so far, they are a team full of talent and capable of being a dark horse in the tournament. From Pot 4 its Italy, Netherlands, and Ronaldo...I mean Portugal. All three of those teams have deep squads and the ability to go deep in the tournament. The US would do well to avoid them if possible.

Now with that over I must say this, the best and worst draws are all in your own opinion. The USMNT is a scrappy team, they like to play the underdog role. In my opinion those are the best and worst scenarios for the USMNT. Yes, they are capable of showing up at any given moment and producing a win for a ages against a top team, but in the World Cup everyone is playing at their absolute highest level. No harm in the USMNT to want to avoid some of the more dangerous countries and watch them knock each other off.

What do you think? What are the best and worst draws the USMNT could get?

USMNT Recap

This past week the USMNT continued it's push to qualify for the World Cup with games against Costa Rica and Mexico.

The United States came out with 4 points and put themselves into second in the group for the time being. Having to deal with reports that some national team squad members were unhappy with the way coach Jurgen Klinsmann was running things, this seemed like it might be a terrible few games for the United States. The United States was without many key players too, Carlos Bocanegra, Tim Howard, and Landon Donovan were all either unpicked or unavailable for the United States.

The game against Costa Rica was a sloppy one, played in (basically) a blizzard the United States scored an early goal off a Clint Dempsey put back and it proved to be enough to guide them to victory. Truth be told, after that goal, the United States looked like it had no real attacking threats, when they pushed forward there was no creativity, and they were reverting back to the usual "give it to Clint and see what he can do" method that they have seemed to adopt as of late. Costa Rica had it's chances, and to be fair to them, if the game had been in better conditions I'm not sure the United States would have escaped with any points, as Costa Rica looked threatening on the attack after halftime.

Then came Mexico, the game most fans were looking forward to. The first time the United States was travelling to the Azteca since their victory in a friendly in 2012. But the chances of a US victory or even a tie looked slim as the United States had only ever taken a point in Mexico during World Cup qualifying once. Mexico came out guns blazing, and their pressure never let up. Massive amounts of pressure was heaped onto the inexperienced back line of the United States and interim goalkeeper Brad Guzan. The defense was up to the task though, stymieing the Mexico attack more often than not. Chicharito failed to put away 3 or 4 sure goals, and it seemed luck was on the American's side. But as well as the defense played, the same could not be said for the offense. Clint Dempsey was invisible on the field, playing like he was in over his head and obviously feeling the pressure of the stage. Altidore was just as bad, mustering no real chances for himself in what continues to be a disappointing campaign for him. Graham Zusi and Herculez Gomez looked good at times out on the wings, but the lack of pace against the pacy Mexico team was evident. Maurice Edu played admirably, but didn't do anything really exciting, and Michael Bradley played like, well, Michael Bradley. Consistently good and not having to worry if he would show up or not.

The United States will have to figure out a way to remedy the woeful attack it has at the moment, and maybe with Landon Donovan returning from a leave of absence and the readdition of Brek Shea to the squad the United States will be able to try out different attackers. One things for sure, if they don't fix it soon, and the back line starts to dip in performance the United States will find it difficult to qualify for the upcoming World Cup.

How do you think the USMNT did? Will they have trouble going forward?

Match fixing on the biggest stages?

Europol, the European Union police organization, uncovered more than 380 cases of match fixing that included games in the World Cup, European Championship, and Champions League. The evidence linked the crimes to a Singapore based crime group.

"This is a sad day for European football," Rob Wainwright, head of Europol, said. The probe uncovered over 8 million euros ($10.9 million) in profits from betting and 2 million euros ($2.7 million) in bribes to various players and officials.

More info on this is sure to come soon.