Most people in the United States wouldn’t envy the English for much: our former colonial controllers have a struggling higher education system, rising alcoholism and a decreasing role on the world political stage. One thing we should envy the Englishmen for, however, is their 2006 World Cup draw.

    As one of eight seeded teams, England was basically guaranteed that it would not have to play another of the world’s traditional powerhouses. And when all of the miniature soccer balls had been drawn by legends like Pele, Lothar Matthaus and Johan Cruyff, things went very well for England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side.

    Common sentiment around England is that this is the best team, on paper, that England has fielded in a very long time. They can start a world-class player at every position. Just imagine this lineup: Rooney and Owen up top, Gerrard and Lampard in the middle with Beckham and Joe Cole on the flanks, Ferdinand, Campbell, Ashley Cole and Terry in the back. You would be hard-pressed to find a squad this side of Brazil with more big-name talents.

    I talked to a couple of Englishmen in a pub Friday night after the draw was completed, and they were absolutely thrilled: Group B contains England, Paraguay, Sweden and World Cup newcomer Trinidad & Tobago. The Swedes could give England a run for its money for the group title, but those two teams should have little difficulty advancing to the second round.

    Football fans in England have very high expectations for their team this coming June: one said that he would be satisfied with nothing less than an appearance in the final match, and gave the team an honest shot at walking away with the hardware when all is said and done.

    The United States, on the other hand, had incredibly slim World Cup championship hopes before Friday’s draw, but anyone who was holding out hope would be foolish to think that way now. There were two non-seeded teams that nobody wanted to face: the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, ranked numbers 2 and 3, respectively, in the most recent FIFA world rankings. (Since World Cup seeds are based on a combination of the FIFA rankings and performance in the 2 most recent World Cups, those teams were left unseeded. Neither the Czech Republic nor the Netherlands qualified for World Cup 2002.)

    It was just Bruce Arena’s luck, though, that he would be drawn into one of two “groups of death:” Italy, the Czech Republic and Ghana (perhaps the best African team in the tournament) were all slotted into Group E, making the USA’s chances of advancing to the round of 8, as it did in 2002, slim. What’s more, if Landon Donovan and company could manage to sneak into the second round by taking second place in group E (the most likely scenario for advancement), their likely second-round opponent would be, you guessed it, world number one Brazil.

    It’s a shame that the draw fell out the way it did, not only for the US team’s chances, but for the overall good of soccer in the United States. The unexpected World Cup success in Korea and Japan in 2002 led to increased coverage for the Men’s National Team, including a Sports Illustrated cover and numerous appearances on major media outlets.

    The typical uninformed American sports fan, however, wants success and success only. It’s not worth getting into soccer if we aren’t going to be “world champions” at it, like we claim our league champions to be in basketball, baseball and football. Failure to advance to the second round of the upcoming World Cup will be seen as another reason to avoid learning more about soccer; the US team had momentum building after the run in 2002, but a loss will change that quickly.

    Sadly, though, most Americans will not take the time to realize that, while not the world’s preeminent soccer nation, the United States is a side on the rise, and by 2010 may be considered a challenger for the World Cup hardware. But that is another four years from now, four years for football, baseball and (most recently) lacrosse to glean athletes from the world’s most popular sport.

    It’s too bad we’re not England.