i care about the world cup, but since thi sis the first sport i have cared about i know not alot, can someone give me a primer ?

France won it last time, so ditto

France are also one of thefavourites to win this time, along with Argentina. Brazil usually do well also, but struggled to qualify this time. Ditto Germany.

For the first round, which will last a couple of weeks, countries have been placed in groups of four. For every group, each country will each play eachother once. The 'draw' for these groups was semi- random, however there was a seeding system so that the countries with a known track record were not all grouped together. Also, there was a bit of fixing to ensure countries from the same parts of the world did not end up drawn together (e.g. no more than two European countries in each group).

I assume it's three points for a win and one point for a drawn match in the group stage. The top two teams in each group will proceed to the next round. By then, you'll no doubt have the hang of it and have already picked the countries you want to cheer.

How's that?

Coming next: the offside rule!

Have many people outside the US even seen the best US players (Mathis, Donovan, Wolff-- NOT Reyna)? Or is this "US will make fools of themselves again" take just conventional ignorance, or a wind-up? Getting into knock-out play will be a challenge, with Portugal the near-lock to advance and games against host Korea and a defensively tough Poland, but more than a few people (Edgar Davids and Luis Figo for example) reckon the US will be the other team out of Group D. Frankly I don't think so (I expect 2 draws, 1 loss), but this team is far, far different than past US sides.

Hahaha. No, no, good grief no. Me poor old sides. The best ones do occasionally come over here and play for a reserve team or in a lower league. There is a big gulf in standard between the US league and those in England, Spain or Italy, say. US players make about as big a splash in European football as, say, English basketball players do in the NBA (Ameche, is it?). I'm afraid, Anthony, that the US are still better at football than Canada.

Speaking of Donovan-- yes, Donovan from San Jose-- Leverkusen, who loaned him out, wants him back to replace Michael Ballack next season. Mathis, Beasley, and Wolff have attracted transfer bids already. The New York Times reported specifically that Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Rangers have expressed interest in Mathis.

Why are any good American players in America at all? Because MLS is league that was largely designed to be profitable by developing young American players and selling them off. They're still in MLS because, essentially, they're about to graduate to better quality, better paying leagues.

Again, the question of Martin's ignorance vs a wind-up goes unresolved, but Tottenham, Blackburn, and Sunderland are hardly lower division, and US players are fairly well regarded first team regulars at each. I agree, it's bizarre that Lewis was selected despite playing one match for his Premiership club this year, and the worthwhileness of Joe Max Moore is questionable, but neither player would be Bruce Arena's first choice starter.

I doubt the US will get out of group, largely because they can't field a side that doesn't have just enough technically weak, unsophisticated players for good teams to skin alive. Two or three mediocre players can, and probably will, bring down the five or six quality players. A more astute manager could fix this problem, but I don't see anything to believe Arena is capable of anything out of the ordinary. But there's a bit of a difference between this point, and the yawn-inducing conventional stupidity stating aimply that 'Yanks are crap at football.'

Wow, I didn't know John Ameche was english. This can't be a fair comparison. Does England even field teams for international basketball tournaments? Surely there must be an American Dirk Nowitzki playing soccer somewhere? That's sort of what I'm after: who is considered the best American player and where does he play and how good is he? The idea that he could be starring for San Jose seems bizarre to me. Isn't there a great Japanese player playing in Europe? I think I read that somewhere. Is there a consensus choice for best soccer player in the world? That french guy with the persian name? Sorry for all the questions, I'm a bit like Anthony here.

As for why they're in the USA-- well, everyone has to start somewhere. Donovan, actually, was at a very well known club, Bayer Leverkusen, after he was named the top player at the 1999 Under 17 championship, but got caught up in the political turmoil at the club after the manager got sacked for doing cocaine and lying about it, and asked for a loan to his local team in California to get regular playing time.

Don't think that any of these players will ever be among the very best fifty or so footballers in the world. That's not to say they're not able players and could perform quite well in any league in the world-- but there's no American Figo or Zidane or Beckham now, and there won't be for many years if ever.

Shinji Ono though, he looks rather good.

Saw Nakata at Parma's last game of the season and he did look rather good to me, but they were playing a meaningless game against already- relegated Venezia. We went on the pitch at the end, which was fun.

Not as much fun as watching Exeter lose to Luton, Ben. Wished you were there. Until you beat us and then I was glad you weren't there.

Nakata looks wonderful and world class in about every fifth game, in my experience. And as for my dismissive comments about the US players, it was deliberate exaggeration as a wind-up, yes. But not major exaggeration, of course.

They also have a misguided history of signing Yank goalkeepers. Ian Feuer forever!

if you were thinking you could get Tim to hate Plymouth any more than he already did then you were wrong. A for effort though.

I want to know what strange twist of fate lead Ned Raggett to support Gillingham.

It was that FA Cup run a couple of seasons back when they were still in the Second Division. I just thought, "Hell, ya gotta love teams like that." And they've lurked merrily in the First Division since, though I wonder about the future.

FIFA use a ranking system that defies belief, and succeeds in its main task of making the rankings a story to get the sponsor in the news. Hence USA are 13th, which is better than the truth, which is no- one knows who is better and lets wait and see at the World Cup.

But even then, it doesn't help. I think France are over-rated, and Argentina aren't all that. But what do I know? I've tipped Spain to make the semis, saying to myself, as some fool does every time, 'this year could be the year that they don't implode and fulfil their potential. Yeah right...

The actual rankings methodology is here

UEFA x 1.00
CONMEBOL x 1.00
AFC x 0.90
CONCACAF x 0.86
CAF x 0.84
OFC x 0.84

The thing is inconsistent. According to the overview in Section 2, 'strength of the opponent' is one of the six factors. The most important thing, you'd have thought. But there is no mention of it in the details of Section 3 - it goes straight from 'importance of the match' to 'regional strength'. So the above weightings appear to be the only way in which an opponent's strength is measured. Am I missing something or is it indeed a crock of shit? Surely these regional weightings aren't... heavy enough. I can't make the whole thing out. In

The US, and moreover Mexico, who are no better than the US but stand at #7, profit in the FIFA rankings by the relative weights of types of matches. The US very rarely loses World Cup qualifiers, so even against weak teams on the order of Barbados, they gain more than France does in a friendly against a good team. Winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup this year-- against the likes of South Korea, Honduras, Canada, Ecuador, and Mexico-- brought them up a few places. (A win against weak opposition in the CONCACAF championship doesn't count as much as a win against good opposition on the European championship, but it's not that far away in relative weight, and the fact that the CONCACAF tournament has, at least in the past, been played every two years, distorts the rankings further.)

There's also the Confederations Cup-- a weak confederation like the Asian one or CONCACAF is equally as entitled to representation as a strong one like South America or UEFA, so there's a distortion in favor of teams from weak confederations. That's provided they can get points off the better teams, as the US did when they beat Germany at that tournament a couple years ago.

All that said, the US has had good results in the eight year time period that the FIFA rankings evaluate-- a third place finish in the Copa America, a results against higher placed teams in friendlies, etc. It could be said that in the minds of people who don't pay much attention to football outside Europe, the World Cup finals distort the actual picture, and as bad as the US were in France 98, the team was in total chaos at the time, with past-it, arrogant old players and a fool for a manager, and played the worst it has in the last fifteen years. For me, the best test in the world cup is against Poland, a second or third-tier European team who have been on a horrible run of form for the last several months. A loss in that game and the team as a whole is still as woeful as it ever has been.

I think that's the way they try to account for relative strength of individual teams. The big jumps in the past for the US in rankings have come from key wins against teams from other confederations in competitive tournaments (respected ones or not)-- beating Argentina in Copa America, beating Brazil and Ecuador in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, beating Germany in the Confederations Cup-- and not losing many games in tournaments, except, of course, the 1998 debacle.

To be honest, the most laughable ranking of all is Colombia in fourth. I've seen a lot of Colombia, who play more in New York than in Bogota, and they really don't belong in the top 25.