The World Cup is coming

Are you ready? It's only days away. If you're not pumped yet, you will be after you check this video out. Pardon the crappy music.



The 2006 FIFA World Cup is being hosted by Germany this year, and is a 32 team tournament that lasts a month and is held every 4 years. It starts on June 9th and runs for a month until finally, on July 9th, the champion is crowned. The seeding is based on both FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Rankings and the performance of the team in the previous 2 World Cups. Teams compete in groups of 4 initially, and then the top 2 teams of each group are placed in a 16-team single elimination bracket. Brazil is the top seed, as they have been for, well, ever pretty much, but surprisingly team USA is ranked 5th! We have a legitimate shot at doing some damage this year. There may be some bad news though, because we have a 50/50 chance of playing Brazil in the first round of the single elimination tournament. If we are 1st in our group and they are 2nd in theirs, we play them, and vice versa. The only way to get out of playing them then is to have both teams place 1st in their groups or both place 2nd. If that happens, we would meet them in the semifinals (final 4 teams), which is very good for us. How amazing would it be if team USA won the World Cup? As Americans, we would show very little support I imagine, due to our lack of interest in the biggest sport in the world! Plus, every other country would hate us for the very reason that we don't care. Soccer is a joke here to them, and it would piss everyone off if we won.

Actually, on the soccer is a joke here thought, Ronaldo reportedly just turned down a contract offered by the New York Red Bulls (yeah, the Red Bull) for $120 million. That's a lot of money, but it's probably worth more to NOT play in the MLS. Plus, Nike pays him like crazy, so he doesn't need it.

Anyways, the clear favorite this year is Brazil. If you have Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and Roberto Carlos on one team, you're pretty much money in the bank. This is like, Magic, Bird, and Jordan playing on the Dream Team (back when it actually was the Dream Team). Nobody could touch these guys, and nobody will touch Brazil. Still though, gotta be rooting for the USA.

I'll leave you with another video, this time with a bit more enjoyable music.