World Cup preview

I studied the draw for the C.d M. quite closely when it came out some months ago and have been tryingto forget it since. There are two groups of death--the USA's, withItaly, Czech, and Ghana; and the even tougherArgentina/Holland/Ivory Coast/Serbia. The USA got screwed, especially viz. its rival Mexico, while (it's 90% likely that) Brazil is waiting for USA group's second-place team (so you don'twant to be there). Italy has a history of coasting through the first round and barely squeezing through, but I expect this time to be different--they will make a special effort to finish first (which means playing to win all three games), and then they'll be able to coast later for a couple of rounds. The ability to coast a little is very important to a team with championship aspirations; this tournament is coming at the end of a very long season, and seven games in three weeks is quite a lot.

I'd say the USA's chances ofmaking it past the second round are about 10%, which is too bad: I like their team. It's sort of like how I feel about Russ Feingold.

Spain is the proverbial dark horse; the team that consistently proves the adage that "it doesn't matter how good your league is when you're in the World Cup". There's no doubt that Spain now has the best league in the world; we will see what that gets them (usually it's a bitter, early exit). In a similarly trite vein, for some reason, "nobody new rarely gets to the finals, and if they do, they don't win." (It's only hard to understand because, in a single four-year-period, teams have about 80% turnover, including coaches. Tradition alone doesn't explain it, or England would win.) That logic says that the final two will be Brazil and Somebody, Somebody probably being Italy, Germany, or Argentina. I think these outcomesare all bad bets, though.

It's not a betting interest, but I'm pulling for Gli Azzurri (italy)and their striker Luca Toni, who's basically come from nowhere thisyear on Fiorentina, a team that has almost literally come back from the dead--they were bankrupt and forced to drop into something likethe Fourth Division a few years ago due to mismanagement. Doesn't that name--Luca Toni--nothwithstanding its appearance of having two first names, sound like Destiny to you?

That is, I'll be rooting for them after the first round, of course: I'm a patriot. Nationalism is integral to this competition, which is OK for me because there is plenty of globalization in the day-to-day game, so it's actually a change of fare.

Perhaps those hoping for an underdog can hope that Ronaldinho will follow the past of his predecessor Ronaldo and turn up inexplicably lame in the final. Some skeptics have suggested that Ronaldo's Gimp(in Paris, 1998) was some kind of Corsican Mafia death threat thing,but he certainly had the leg problems later to back up his alibi.

For me, the key team in this tourney that I'm not rooting for (my loyalties are, in order, the USA, Italy, Holland, and Brazil) is the Czech Republic. The USA plays them first, and they need to get at least a draw to have a decent chance to advance. Then, assuming the Czechs will finish second in the group, they would face Brazil (assuming it wins its group). I think the Czechs can beat Brazil if they get lucky: they have the best goalie around (Chelsea's Petr Cech) and some other real talent.