Okay, you politics board wonks might not know this but the USA was screwed out of a seed, and then drawn into the WC group of death. (The WC is a soccer tournament every four years, due up this summer.) The US was drawn into a group with Italy (the seed) and Czech Republic and Ghana. All 4 teams are strong, and realistically any could advance from group play into the knockout rounds. FIFA has often been accused of 'massaging' draws, and could it be? We are being worked for being so unpopular world wide due to the Iraq war and GWB's general bad PR worldwide. Or is it just 'luck of the draw'?
we weren't screwed. Considering we couldn't draw Mexico, ya gotta be more happy than upset with Italy. The Czechs...well, that was a tough break. Nobody knows anything about Ghana except they have Essien and they've never been to the World Cup. It's a tough group, but it's mostly because WE'RE there. Our pot was the most unbalanced, and was always going to be the biggest factor in determining which groups were toughest. Plus, like Sepp could give a ******** about Iraq or anything else. Sepp wants soccer to grow here so FIFA can make money off of us.
Hmmm, what are we supposed to say here? I mean, it's a choice between: - Yes, I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist who likes ideas backed up by nothing more than something I came up with in a vision while I was taking a dump after watching the draw and - No. Right?
You mean like "Do I have a notarized statement from Sepp?" No. My evidence is the group of death. You have no imagination. I suppose it makes life easier.
I have plenty of imagination. I also know that the group of death does not constitute evidence of what you say.
Arguing with conspiracy theorists is futile. Maybe we should all just ignore them. If nobody is listening maybe they'll re-examine their need to believe things are much more interesting than they really are.
Actually Northcal19 is right. But what he didn't realize is that the bad draw was all the brainchild of George Soros. Soros understands the power of soccer, so he paid thousands of millions of dollars to FIFA to screw the US at the World Cup, in the hope that the USA would finish last, and that this would create a great economic depresion in the country and cause a chain of events which would result in the USA becoming an amoral atheist socialist paradise overflowing with legalized drugs. Unfortunately the whole plan backfired when President Bush heard about the draw. It seems that the president had no idea what the FIFA World Cup was, and so when he heard the US was in a 'Group of Death' involving Italy, Czech Republic and Ghana, he panicked and he read some children's book over an over for about an hour. Then he calmed down and figured that it must be a serious military threat by some terrorist regime, and decided to show his leadership by taking action. After consulting with the CIA and the neocons, President Bush decided the best solution to this 'Group of Death' situation would be to invade Ghana. He talked Berlusconi into having Italy join the American coalition. Then he had US special forces capture Kofi Annan and send him to a secret jail in the Czech Republic to be tortured. While all this happened, most Americans remained mostly unaware of the whole incident, and continued to blissfully watch baseball on TV.
How about the jews? Nobody likes the gypsies, either, but they're more likely to steal a kid than engage in international conspiracies.
Steal a kid? I thought the gypsies were the ones that threw the baby at you and then picked your pockets as you were holding on to it? As for the question posed in this thread......Superdave got it spot on, IMO. It was luck of the draw and Sepp sees the U.S. as a huge cash cow and more than likely wouldn't want to "screw us."
Q: Did FIFA screw the USA in the WC Draw because of GWB? A: No, because the draw was not fixed. This is a stupid thread based on a stupid premise.
You play the game! If anyone got screwed it would be the Dutch and the Serbs. We can not cry over something that is beyond our control we play and win our matches simple.
If you watched the draw, you would know it wasn't a fix.... We could have easily been in any other group, we just happened to be drawn into Group E...
So, Freddy decides he wants in this cycle, signs up for the Ghanan team and his first WC match is against the U.S. I cant figure its rigged beyond the odds crunching which goes into setting the format and creating the pots. Does anyone really think Pele and Cryuff are going to take part in such a thing as finding the coldest ball when Group E is up? No way. Its all in the math. Now, the NBA draft lottery is a different matter.
To be the best, you need to beat the best. The US have the means, and hopefully the luck, to finish top of the group.
If anyone watch FFF on FSC, Nick and Steven had a take on the non-seeding of the USNT, mainly becuz the Yanks didn't play many difficult matches outside of qualifying. Grenada, Cuba, Haiti and Madagascar are not challenging friendlies. Maybe if the NT had played in the Copa America or scheduled a match with a team that qualified for WC 2006, but no!