Walker

It's never too early to talk about the World Cup and now that qualifying is well-underway I'm curious to see who's following it. I know we have a lot of soccer/futbol fans on this site so I want to see yall's home country is doing and if there are other countries you follow and root for.

Obviously I follow the U.S. and I'm hoping for a better result than the 2006 WC as our only bright spot was the 1-1 tie to eventual champ Italy. So far the U.S. is 1-0-1 in qualifying after rallying from down 0-2 to El Salvador to earn 1 point with a 2-2 tie. We plat Trinidad and Tobago tonight.

The other main country I root for is Argentina who sits at 5-2-4 in qualifying and I'm still pissed over the quarter final loss to Germany in the last WC. I really thought they were going to take the Cup and I still can't believe the coach had them play strictly defensively in the last 10 minutes when they were controlling possession and playing much of the game on the German side. That allowed the late game tying goal.

So who's looking good so far and who isn't?

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ZeroPRIDE

Argentina got BLOWN out! Mexico lost to Honduras Next up for the US is playing in Saprissa which is going to be hell. 1 point would be a huge win for us.

e-thug

Man I cant believe how badly Argentina got blown out, personally I was real happy about it as I hate them.

My team is England, the perennial underachievers, however, I do have confidence that we are going in the right way under Capello. 5 wins out of 5 in qualifying is certainly a great start. With supporting a team like England though, dissapointment is only just around the corner!

Walker

Damn it- who did Argentina lose to? Me loves Argentina just under the US. USA looked bueno versus T&T and Joey Altidore has scored 6 goals in 9 caps after the hat trick- very nice.

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ZeroPRIDE

they lost to Bolivia...and Sven Goran has been fired as head coach of Mexico.

e-thug

Dude they got beat 6-1 by Bolivia (who aren't doing so well)...an absolute amazing result.

The US will qualify top of there group IMO, there just such a weird team in the actual world cup, I never really know what there gonna do.

ZeroPRIDE

as someone put it on a soccer board, they play the level of their opponent. Such as holding their own against Argentina(which people were saying we are going to lose by 5 goals),Italy Ghana ect..then look totally different against lesser clubs like El Salvador and the like.

im really looking forward to the Confed Cup coming up even though we have Italy and Brazil(not sure how good egypt is) in our group. this is the best competion we are going to get before the WC and should use this as a measureing stick.

Walker

Oh well for Argentina against Bolivia- just a qualifying match.

Yeah the US is inconsistent internationally at best but it's a HUGE improvement back when we couldn't even make the WC. Now we go each time but it's completely up and down. 1990, 1998 and 2006 were embarrassments and in 1994 we squeaked into the 2nd Round before losing to Brazil 1-0 and 2002 was our best showing making in to the quarters and playing tough against Germany. I'm really hoping for a decent showing in 2010.

The Confed Cup should a great test with Italy and Brazil just to see if we've improved or not and it depends on the squads they bring to play.

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Owen

Wasn't expecting to see this on here.

I'm following it as always, Rep. of Ireland had a horrible showing against Bulgaria at home last weekend. The motivation didn't seem to be there, but on Wednesday night they dominated Italy away and etched a 1-1 draw.

Anyone see the game? The ref sent off an Italy player because of an unintentional elbow a few mins in but seemed to be on their side the rest of the night.

Ireland are still in a great position for the play-offs.

JReader

I don't really follow it up until the actual tournament.
Can someone tell me if England is in or not? or do they have more matches to win to get into it.