World Cup Update

As always, I either have nothing going on or all the fun stuff happening at once. On Saturday morning I was on the golf course, so I missed the US vs. Ghana. Luckily there was a replay on ESPN 2 when I got home, unfortunately the US lost that one too. It was a tough way to go out as I really felt like the US was the better team. That said, I read that the US only lead for three minutes in all their games in this year's World Cup. That is not a great statistic. Their slow starts were killing them. The team that scored first had won 35 of 40 games, which seems to prove, it is hard to come back and win at this level.

The tough question is where the US goes from here? The hope was that they'd get into the quarter or semi-finals and that this breakthrough would final popularize the game at home. Now another mediocre performance will have the casual US fans tuning out for the rest of the games, which is a shame as there are some amazing teams left in this Wold Cup.

At this point I would have to say Germany is the favorite to win it all, as they destroyed a good England team. Argentina is also a serious contender as the mad genius Maradona seems to be working some kind of magic with the three best front men in the game and a dodgy defense. South America's perennial powerhouse Brazil, can not be left out of this discussion either. They may not be the glamorous team of years gone by, but they can score in an instant and play good defense.

Should be an exciting couple of weeks, I only wish the US was still part of it.