World Cup
Comments
If you have cable, you’ll be able to catch basically any of the games you want. SoccerTV has a schedule that includes the TV station airing the game, which is usually ESPN or ESPN2, though regular ABC will be carrying some of the “bigger” matches. The SoccerTV site is kind of ugly and doesn’t have the best layout, but it’s a nice, concise listing of when games are and where they’ll be shown, so it’s certainly useful for US audiences.
BTW, speaking of “sick days”, Hisham, check out the “Sick Days” ESPN video/commercial you can view here. Of course, I like the “Anthem” one better, but that doesn’t fit with your earlier comment!
Half-time presently on the Ghana vs. Czech match, and...oh wait. I can’t post about live news because some of us here don’t watch most of their sports live. 
If the US is currently (or perhaps “was”, by the time I am posting this) 5th in the World then surely it is a quirk of the ranking system. For example it would be hard to see the US qualifying for the World Cup out of another region (eg. South America) except for perhaps Asia.
Within FIFA’s ranking system, both regional strength and the weakness of opponent is factored in. No one’s going to say that it’s perfect, but it is a very comprehensive system. Perhaps a major factor in FIFA’s current ranking for the U.S. team is the weight given to recent success, and in the last World Cup. World Cup matches are given greater weight than other games, and the U.S.’s strong 2002 performance is a major contributor to the U.S.’s current score of 756 points.
Here comes the four-yearly marketing blitz that batters these here parts. Plus the number of sick leaves in the country because of the overnight matches thanks to the time zone differences will go through the roof, just as it did in 2002 and before.
By Khairul Hisham on May 24, 2006 at 02:31am link