Real Salt Lake Wins?

USA World Cup Jerseys

The US will dawn throw backs for the 2010 World Cup. The design is inspired by the 1950 US World Cup team which shocked the world by beating England 1-nil in Brazil. That one game is still considered one of the biggest upsets in Cup play and one of the greatest moments for the US national team. The game was labeled the Miracle on Grass by Sports Illustrated. British Newspapers thought the score line was a typo and printed headlines that England had won 10-0. Nike has done an excellent job by keeping it simple and tipping their hat to history. After the 1950 World Cup the US would not qualify again for forty years. So tell us what you think of the 2010 uniforms.

The 32 Nations of the 2010 World Cup

This is a list of the 32 nations that have qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. On December 4th, the world's attention will be drawn to Cape Town, South Africa as the Final Draw is held and we see how these teams will be grouped. We will keep you posted on where and when to watch the draw live. You will notcie some results are in bold, these are past cup winners and the amount the amount of Cups won. Something to note that all the nations who have previouly won a world cup have qualified for 2010.

AFC

• Australia
• Japan
• North Korea
• South Korea

CAF

• Algeria
• Ivory Coast
• Ghana
• Nigeria
• South Africa

CONCACAF

• Honduras
• Mexico
• United States

CONMEBOL

• Argentina 2
• Brazil 5
• Chile
• Paraguay
• Uruguay 2

OFC

• New Zealand

UEFA

• Denmark
• England 1
• France 1
• Germany 3
• Greece
• Italy 4
• Netherlands
• Portugal
• Serbia
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Switzerland

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
-Winston Churchill

Portland Timbers Open Tryouts

Put down that cheeseburger, drop the milkshake, and quit eating those oreos, because for the second year in a row the Timbers are holding open tryouts January 23-24th.

From the Timbers Front Office...
Players must be 18 years of age or older to participate and can sign up online; space is limited. Timbers coaches will select the top players from the open tryout to participate in the invite-only combine the following weekend. The registration fee for the open tryout is $65, and it will increase to $85 starting January 15.

2010 World Cup South Africa Qualification

Over the past few days four more teams qualified for the 2010 World Cup hosted by South Africa. Cameroon a fan favorite is in, New Zealand qualified for only it 2nd WC ever, Nigeria is an African powerhouse and Algeria knocked off Egypt to qualify for the first time since 1986. A total of 32 nations will play in the WC, and we will keep you updated as this list grows.

• South Africa
• Japan
• Australia
• South Korea
  
• Netherlands
• North Korea
  
• Brazil
• Ghana
• England
• Spain
• Paraguay
• Ivory Coast
  
• Germany
• Denmark
• Serbia
• Italy
• Chile
• Mexico
• United States
• Slovakia
• Argentina
• Honduras
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• Cameroon
  
• Algeria
  

The Soccer Power Index

Nate Silver, the guy behind the political stats site FiveThirtyEight as well as a system that forecasts baseball statistics, has taken aim at soccer. He joined up with ESPN to produce the Soccer Power Index (SPI), which attempts to accurately rank international soccer teams.

Unlike other soccer ratings systems, SPI is explicitly designed to be predictive -- so a team like Argentina, which in fact struggled to qualify for the World Cup, won't be penalized that much provided the system is convinced that the talent is still there. The two main innovations in the SPI are to incorporate results from club play -- if Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto'o scores a goal for Inter Milan, it will (marginally) help Cameroon's rating -- as well as to incorporate a "competitiveness coefficient" based on the actual lineups that each team used in each match. The latter is important because international soccer clubs play a lot of matches -- friendlies, some second-tier international tournaments -- in which they're essentially sending their taxi squads in, which tell us very little about the teams that will actually be on the field in South Africa next year.

Check out the SPI at ESPN and read the details if you want even more information on how it works.

Team USA is ranked #14, the highest in CONCACAF (Fifa has them #11), Brazil is #1 and American Samoa is last at #211. For all our Mozambique Dropping Timber fans, you guys got #94.