World Cup update

It's been a while since the last World Cup post, after the US came through as group champions. On Friday, we'll find out who the US will have to go through to get to the second round of World Cup play, but we've got some clues, as the seedings have been announced.

The top eight seeds (for the eight groups) are Germany, Brazil, Spain, England, Mexico, France, Argentina and Italy. That means the US will be paired with one of these teams.

I'm not shocked that the US is not included in that group. However, what is surprising is that US is not included while Mexico is. In case you forgot, US won the CONCACAF group over Mexico, have dominated them over the last several years, and beat them in the last World Cup. And before you think that the difference must then be their FIFA rankings, the second and third ranked teams did not get #1 seeds.

So that makes the US road slightly more difficult. But we do know that the US won't be matched up with any of the following teams: Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago.

Great. So it will be the US with one of the #1 seeds, a European squad, and an African or South American side. We could realistically be in a group with France, Ecuador, and the Czech Republic (the second ranked team in the world). Or, we could be in a group with Spain, Toga, and the Ukraine.

Fingers crossed.