Here are the facts (or as many facts as I can remember): The #1 and #2 ranked teams in the world are about to play a friendly in the future location of the 2011 Women’s World Cup. Germany recently won the Euros by destroying England 6-2 and if you caught that one on the internets, I don’t use the term “destroying” lightly. Oh, and it appears coach Pia is hell bent on switching the US squad over to this “possession football” thing since she’s bringing over an assload of midfielders plus Abby & A-Rod. And she’s also got a few newbies with her to boot. Gone are Angela Hucles (retirement) and Megan Rapinoe (injury) replaced with Ella Masar and Kacey White. And A-Rod arrived to training hella late (like 2 days ago) cause she apparently hasn’t graduated from USC yet? And a couple of days ago, the USWNT got their asses beat 9-1 by the Bayern Munich U17 boys team! (but to be fair, it was never made clear if the game was on FIFA10 or if it was live on the pitch) This is awesome! We are soooo gonna kick their asses!

As for the dramz, this game will be a matchup against arguably the top ranked goalkeepers in the world: Hope Solo and Nadine Angerer. On a side note, someone told me a story a while back where they were in line at a bank in Germany and Angerer was in front of them and when she got to the teller, the teller mistook for a man. But in my opinion, she really doesn’t look like a man, she just doesn’t have a neck. Seriously people, even if you have zero interest in women’s soccer, check this game out and get back to me on the neck thing. It’s a bit weird.

And, in the US, the game is not on television but thanks to the generosity of Cat Whitehill and her twitter, this link may for realsies be showing the game which starts on Oct 29 at 1pm ET.

p.s. One more thing…

(Thanks to Annie at ONTD Football for the enhanced picture. She’s got more pics in her post so go check ‘em out!)

It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these things, but coming off that massive 2-0 win over Mexico in the first match of this final round of World Cup qualifying, I figured this could be very important in keeping the momentum going as Bob’s boys make the trip to San Salvador. Or not.

The match will be Saturday at 7pm MT on ESPN2 in the States and will mark the first time since 1997 that the US MNT has played in El Salvador (that was also a WCQ and ended 1-1). Some fun facts about the home nation:

-In 1996 San Salvador was considered the second most dangerous city in the western hemisphere after the US deported thousands of Salvadoran MS13 gang members back to the country. Today, it is still a gang epicenter and boasts one of the highest murder rates in the world. Why all the violence? Let’s ask some local gentleman and see if we can gain some insight…

Ok, uh, let’s go ahead and skip that and just keep moving. Seriously — don’t look back. Run! Save yourselves! Let them have Landycakes and just save yourself!

…

As for El Salvador’s national team, they are coming off a 2-2 draw against Trinidad & Tobago where midfielder Osael Romero scored both goals for them in their first match of this round of qualifying. Their overall leading scorer is Rudis Corrales (7 goals — 5 of which came in that 12-0 obliteration of Anguilla), who is also one of just seven men to score 100 goals in the Salvadoran domestic league.

The US is 4-0-2 against El Salvador all time in World Cup qualifying and hasn’t allowed a goal against them in the last six matches they’ve played.

The US has four players who are one yellow card away from suspension (Jozy Altidore, Clint Dempsey, Frankie Hejduk, Oguchi Onyewu), while El Salvador has seven in the same situtation (Cristian Castillo, Salvador Coreas, Alexander Escobar, Miguel Montes, Alfredo Pacheco, Eliseo Quintanilla and William Romero).

The US will have 18 of the 22 players currently in camp suit up for this match, but judging by the MNT’s record against the Salvadorans, they might only need four or five. And if the squad runs into those lads from before, that might be all that’s left.

[Sources: USsoccer.com and Wikipedia]

This is an extra half-assed edition since I would much rather be playing FIFA 09 right now than writing one of these things (but I can’t do that because it turns out the game didn’t ship until today so it won’t be in stores until tomorrow, even though every advertisement says I should be playing it right now). So, let’s just pretend that everything from the last time we half-assedly previewed a match against Trinidad and Tobago still goes (except this time Roy Keane is letting glamour model impregnator Dwight Yorke participate). And if that’s not enough for you, then just read Rick Carlisle’s preview on Soccernet and leave me alone already.

But wait, what’s all this FIFA 09 nonsense about, you ask? Watch this (via Kotaku):

And yes, I agree that EA should be compensating me for all this promotion I’ve given them today. Now don’t forget the live blog tomorrow night (8 pm ET, game’s on ESPN). See you then.

Hear that? What could it be? Look! In the Potomac!

Yes, the Cuban national team has climbed aboard their failboat and held on for dear life all the way to Washington D.C. for Saturday’s World Cup Qualifier against the US (7 pm ET, ESPN Classic). The last time these two faced each other a little over a month ago, the US slogged through a 1-0 win off a Clint Dempsey goal. The pitch was wet, the lights were dim, but Bob’s boys got the job done and made it out of Cuba like Michael Corleone on New Year’s.

With three wins and no goals allowed so far in this World Cup Qualifying campaign, the US is now one win away from guaranteeing their advancement to the next round of qualification. Sitting in such a favorable position with two matches to go, Bob Bradley has already made steps to ensure these remaining fixtures are as interesting as possible, even if the result is a foregone conclusion. And how has he done that? Well, swallow your Adderrall and I’ll eventually get around to telling you…

Since we’ve already been through this once before, here is an abbreviated list of additional fun facts about Cuba:

-Was the site of a CIA covert program called Operation Mongoose. The objective was, essentially, to assassinate beard enthusiast Fidel Castro with the help of the Mafia (which doesn’t exist, by the way…). So how did that end up? Well, the Mob happily took the CIA’s money, weapons, equipment, and information then basically made no attempt to kill Castro and they might have even sold said weapons, equipment, and information to the Cuban government for even more money. In the end, Fidel Castro is still kind of alive and all the top mob guys the CIA teamed with turned up dead in ways similar to how people die in CIA movies. Isn’t it nice when everybody comes out a winner?

-Pelicans:

As for the Cuban national team, well, they’re just a shade under being a complete embarrassment. They have lost all three of their matches and scored only two goals while giving up eight. But being terrible won’t be their biggest problem this weekend. No, their biggest problem will be making sure everyone is on the truck/boat for the ride home. When their U-23 team came to the US for the Gold Cup earlier this year, seven players decided to stay. Seven. So if the team can make it back to Cuba with anything less than a 10-0 loss and half their starting XI in tact, I think they’re going to consider it a moral victory.

On the American side, Bob Bradley has compiled perhaps the most impressive roster we’ve seen under his reign. Freddy Adu, Kenny Cooper, Jozy Altidore, Charlie Davies — just about every talented young player that US fans have been clamoring for is included in this side. We even got the surprise addition of highly touted midfield munchkin Jose Francisco Torres, who chose his birth country over Mexico at the last minute.

Now, the question is whether Bob will send out the kids or opt to start with his veterans like Hejduk, Beasley, Ching, and ohmygodI’malreadybored. The good news is, he almost has to give the new guys significant time, since he called them in from clubs all over the world for this match. And what’s more cruel than making a guy take a nine hour flight just to sit on the bench in a craphole like RFK Stadium?

Prediction: USA 4-0 Cuba
Defections: 6

And if you’d like to read a preview that wasn’t written with one eye on the Phillies/Dodgers game, check out Jeff Carlisle’s on Soccernet.

But before we dive ass first into a very undetailed (no, that’s not a word) analysis of Team T&T, here are a few fun facts about The Republic of Trinidad AND Tobago:

-It consists of the islands of Trinidad, Tobago, and a bunch of smaller ones that apparently aren’t worth mentioning.

-Gained its independence from the United Kingdom in August 1962, the same month that Marylin Monroe died. (Coincidence or not? You decide.)

-Birthplace of the limbo, which has led to nightmare fuel such as this:

-Still uses the cat o’ nine tails to flog prisoners. If that sounds oddly menacing and vaguely erotic, it is. According to my sources at Wikipedia, Trinidad and Tobago uses a version made of “nine knotted thongs of cotton cord about 2½ feet or 76 cm long designed to lacerate the skin and cause intense pain.”

As for the Soca Warriors themselves, well, they currently sit second in the group (behind the USA, natch) after a 3-1 win over Cuba and a 1-1 draw against Guatemala. Keon Daniel scored three of those four goals, with Cornell Glenn coming up with the other.

This is a team that is currently ranked 80th in the world according to FIFA and they’re coming off their first ever World Cup appearance in 2006, where they finished last in their group with a draw and two losses.

For Wednesday’s match, they will be without Dwight Yorke, former Man United standout and impregnator of British “glamour model” Jordan. Yorke was pressured to skip the match by his manager at Sunderland, Roy Keane, a man who will fight you just because it’s Tuesday.

Shawn Kemp sez: “Plant the baby seed and run, fool!”

In addition to Yorke, T&T will also be without the suspended duo of midfielder Khaleem Hyland and left back Avery John. And if that’s not bad enough, they will also be missing injured team captain Aurtis Whitely.

So, yeah, they’re going to be playing without half their team and the US is finally in friendly surroundings at the Chicago Fire’s Toyota Park. I’d say another win is imminent, but even if it is another patented Bob Bradley snoozer, its in America, so there’s always the chance of some more of this.

The game will be broadcast Wednesday at 8 pm ET on ESPN2 and we will be liveblogging it right here, so be sure to check back before game time.

And, of course, if you’d like to read a preview that wasn’t forced out while trying to suppress the memory of the above David Hasselhoff video, check out what ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle has to say.

Before we delve into the opposing side itself, here are a few fun facts about Cuba:

-It’s a socialist republic (read: commieland where natives feast on American souls).

-It was the site of a revolution led by beard-grower Fidel Castro and human t-shirt logo Che Guevara.

-Ernest Hemingway once made his home there and later blew his face off with a shotgun. (Coincidence or not? You decide.)

-Birthplace of famous pelican enthusiast Tony Montana.

-New president Raul Castro recently lifted a ban on the purchase of computers, DVD players, and microwaves, finally allowing Cubans access all three kinds of porn: internet, home video, and microwavable.

As for the Cuban national soccer team, well, like most CONCACAF teams they’re not particularly good at this soccer business. Currently ranked 92nd in the world according to FIFA, Cuba has appeared in the World Cup just once way back in 1938. Laugh if you want, but they did beat a European team (Romania) in Europe, which is something a certain other country can’t say (hint: starts with a U, ends with a hockey mom).

But yeah, Cuba hasn’t had a ton of success — something that shouldn’t be terribly surprising when every time the team comes to the U.S. for the Gold Cup, a few players decide to not go home. And not in the “Oh, I need a few more days to eat McGriddles and wade in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese” way, but the “Screw you, Fidel, I’m never coming back” way. In fact, since 2002 they have lost 12 players to defection, including seven members of their U-23 squad in 2007. (How can that happen? When half the team doesn’t get back on the bus after the match, don’t you realize something is up and send out the dudes with the giant butterfly nets?)

Cuban national team travels to an away match

Cuba does still have a few quality players left, though. For example, my sources at Wikipedia tell me that striker Reynier Alcantara has 10 goals in 16 matches for the national side. But those defections have taken their toll on Cuba’s defense. They lost 3-1 to Trinidad & Tabago in Havana a couple weeks ago to start their qualifying campaign and if the dynamite attack of T&T (see what I did there?) can carve up their back line then I think the U.S. can, too.

At least, I hope.

Bottom line: If the U.S. can’t get a result in Cuba then the Castro brothers have my permission to keep Bob’s boys and put them to work in a cigar factory or donkey show, or whatever it is they do to failed athletes down there.

And if you’d like to read a preview of tomorrow night’s match (8 pm ET on ESPN Classic) that wasn’t dashed off quickly while on a caffeine high, check out Jeff Carlisle’s piece or the fantastic Grant Wahl blog, who is down in Cuba to cover the action first hand.

The men’s national team faces Guatemala tomorrow in the semifinal round of qaulifying for World Cup 2010. As the senior squad looks to help us forget about the embarrassment that was the Olympic campaign with a Kenny Cooper-less side (though, DaMarcus Beasley was a late addition), I must say I have a hard time getting excited about this step on the road to South Africa. I mean, it’s Guatemala. A walk-over should be a given — and if it’s not, then we have a problem.

Led by LA Galaxy’s Carlos Ruiz, Guatemala is currently 100th in the FIFA rankings and has never qualified for the World Cup. They did win the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 1967, but I’m pretty sure none of those guys are still on the team.

Other fun facts about Guatemala: They have the lowest literacy rate in Central America; 1.5% of their population is Mormon; their currency is named after an indigenous bird (the quetzal), whose feathers were used as money by ancient Mayans; and they are among the 10 poorest countries in Latin America.

Guatemalan national team trains with help from Canadians

The one troublesome fact about this fixture is that it’s in Guatemala and the U.S. is 1-4-4 all-time there, with the only victory coming in 1988. Then again, the U.S. has never lost to them in World Cup qaulifying (4-0-4).

So what do you think, is this one a given or is it worth putting a few quetzals on the underdog?

(P.S. The match is Wednesday night at 10 pm ET and on ESPN2 here in the states. Also, there might be some live blog action in these here parts, so be sure to check back tomorrow night.)