Group of Death -- Damn You, Steve Sampson!!!

Yes, the worst has happened. While we avoided Brazil, Argentina and Germany, the US (#8 in the FIFA rankings) drew the fabled Group of Death: World #2 Czech Republic, World #12 Italy, and Ghana, the group patsy, World #50.

Even Sports Illustrated, which has belatedly discovered the existence of the world's most popular sport, agrees:

Yes, it's a Group of Death
U.S. got the short end of the stick with its Cup draw

Bobby McMahon, FoxSports: Who's buried in the 'Group of Death'?

Watching the pre-show I realized with horror that Steve Sampson, like a zombie reaching back from the grave, denied the US a seeding. Steve Sampson, the moron who dismissed John Harkes, the team captain, from the 1998 US team just before the World Cup, sending the team into a tailspin of disarray. Steve Sampson, the moron who brought in David Regis (a Frenchman with an American wife, played in only two qualifiers before the Cup, barely spoke English) at the last moment. Steve Sampson, who had the US play a 3-6-1 formation. For that alone he will be remembered with hatred and revulsion. (Are you getting a sense of my feelings about Steve Sampson????) And these brilliant coaching decisions of Sampson helped him coach his way to a dead last 32nd place finish. My god, we lost to Iran.

So why didn't the US get seeded in 2006? Because the FIFA formula for determining seeds took into account team performance at the 2002 and 1998 World Cups. Now in 2002 we finished in the quarterfinals, very respectably, and were a blatant handball and a hideous Scottish referee named Hugh Dallas away from the semifinals. But in 1998 we finished dead last. So in the FIFA system for 2006 we missed out on a seed by one point. And now, unprotected from the other seeded teams (each seeded team is in a separate group, so Brazil was protected from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, England, Mexico and Argentina, the other seeds) we're in the group of death.

Damn you Steve Sampson. Damn you.