A Rant Y'all Don't Care About

Pardon me while I rant about soccer for a while.

Why in the ever-loving hell were the U.S. and the Netherlands left out of the top seeds for the World Cup groups in favor of Spain and Mexico? Is there some sort of Spanish-speaking Mafia out there controlling the draw? The other seeds I can understand. Brazil, Argentina, England... yeah. Italy, France, Germany... okay, I'll deal with it, even though the French aren't that good. Mexico? Might I remind you that the U.S. finished ahead of Mexico in qualifying? And won the Gold Cup? And beat the Mexicans in the second round of the '02 Cup? And Spain might be good, but can they possibly be better than a Dutch team that's ranked, like, #3 in the world? And did everyone completely forget about the Czechs, who were #1 up until recently?

But that doesn't bother me as much as the group that the U.S. is lumped into for the draw. You'd think we'd be in with all the second-tier teams, seeing as how we're ranked #8 in the world. No, we're in with Saudi Arabia and Iran. Jesus Archibald Christ. Yes, I know Iran beat us in the '98 Cup. I don't care. We're the only contender in our pot. Which means we get the obnoxiously difficult group that will require us beating Brazil or something to get to the second round. We beat Portugal in '02 so it's possible... but still.

Okay, that's done now.