Team USA slides down in FIFA ranking

From http://www.fifa.com/en/index.html

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ITALY 2-0 GHANA
USA 0-3 CZECH REPUBLIC
AUSTRALIA 3-1 JAPAN

oh crud. From what i can find, historically only one team has lost their first game of World Cup play and continued to the quarter finals (Turkey 2002). This does not bode well.

Team USA had been 4th & Mexico had been 6th. Because of Mexico's win yesterday and Team USA's loss today, now the US is tied with Spain for 5th and Mexico is 4th. Brazil sits at the number one spot with a huge lead over 2nd place Czech Republic.

You can track the standings here http://www.fifa.com/en/mens/statistics/index/0,2548,All-May-2006,00.html

Just once every four years I pay attention to sports. (Aren't you glad you get to be here for my quadrannual rant :-) I've been so busy that this kind of snuck up on me - I hadn't yet bought any jerseys for this round. More later.