The United States is in a very tough group for this World Cup, labeled as the dreaded "Group of Death" that every World Cup tournament seems to have.
The United States National Team will have their hands full later this month, when they face the all-powerful German team, as well as the always explosive Portugese team, and even the strong Ghana national team.
Ghana may be the weakest of those opponents, yet they are a pretty strong team in their own right. The United States will have a very difficult time of it in this World Cup, with not a single opponent that they can afford to make even a single mistake against.
Yet, the teams that they are training against are ill-prepared to really get the American team ready to meet that challenge. The US has faced Azerbaijan (currently ranked number 85), Turkey (currently ranked 39th), and Nigeria (currently ranked 44th).
Those are not exactly the teams that will prepare you for the speed and efficiency of the truly elite teams in the sport that the US is set to meet in Brazil the next few weeks, not that it's anyone's fault in particular.
This is a source of concern for the national team, although certainly not something that they feel they need to panic about.
"You're trying to find the best teams that suit you. It's not that easy anymore," Jurgen Klinsmann said, the former star player on Germany's World Cup championship squad in 1990, and currently the head coach for the US National Team.
He tried to get some tougher opponents on the schedule for the US to prepare for the upcoming World Cup tournament, but it was not happening.
"Has to do a little bit with our results of the last two years," Klinsmann said.
Still, the US ended up winning all three games, defeating Nigeria this past Saturday in their final preparation match before the big tournament. The win against Nigeria was important, Klinsmann suggested, because there are some similarities between them and Ghana:
"Very fit, very physical. It will give us a bit of a wakeup call, which is at this point what we really need. It will be a little bit of an indication of how to approach Ghana, and how to beat Ghana."
And there may be evidence that the United States will actually benefit from some breaks for this tournament, which means that the "Group of Death" might just not be all that it's cracked up to be. Portugal's star player, Cristiano Ronaldo, has been suffering from a nagging knee injury. And Germany lost midfielder Marco Reus, one of their best players, due to an ankle injury. Those injuries, which are, of course, part of the sport, should weaken those generally stronger and deeper teams, and that should help the United States.
That does not mean that anything is guaranteed, of course. But it is a good sign that the United States should not be so easily and automatically dismissed as perhaps most people thought a short while ago!
US lacks toughest opponents in World Cup warmups by Ronald Blum of the Associated Press, May 31, 2014:
http://news.yahoo.com/us-lacks-toughest-opponents-world-cup-warmups-193054375--spt.html
Group of Death not looking as daunting for U.S. just days before World Cup by Eric Adelson of Yahoo Sports, June 8, 2014:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/group-of-death-not-looking-as-formidable-for-u-s--these-days-021823838-soccer.html
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