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I don't think the United States is the best country or anything, far from a contender right now, but maybe the 2002 World Cup wasn't the perennial good countries performing poorly, maybe it was the rest of the world catching up a little bit. I mean with all due respect, many of the top players in the premiership aren't English, so you can't really base anything off of how good the club leagues are. Obviously the Premiership is primarily English players, so England will always be a great team, but when enough players lesser football countries get in there it advances them just as much. A country with 11 great players is just as good as a country with 111.
I really don't know if USA will get out of the first round of the World Cup next year, but teams like them will. Turkey in 2002, Croatia in 1998, if you can get your 11 good players you can compete.
That being said, soccer is the only sport in which I can actually still support the United States in. It's no use in basketball, bronze medal or not we are undisputed the top in the world, thats no fun. International hockey has too many tournaments it seems, and even though the US isn't the top team there, I've gotton kind of sick of the old players like Brett Hull and stuff. Soccer is the only sport that we are a developing nation at, and the sense of being an underdog is more fun.
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