A whole nation rejoiced when this picture was broadcast earlier today. Wayne Rooney has been declared fit and will play in Germany, though his status for Saturday's opener versus Paraguay is still up in the air. With Rooney's return England must be considered among the favorites to win the World Cup. My predictions will be […]

I must apologize since I have been busy the past few days I was not able to fully research Group H completely enough to be comfortable to do a full preview. However I do like the Ukraine and Spain to advance with Tunisia possibly giving an out of form and somewhat erratic Spanish squad run […]

While Fox Soccer Channel won't be broadcasting any of the World Cup matches, the soccer network is busy providing coverage to you. On TV, the channel debuts a new program starting Thursday, June 8th at 8pm ET (and broadcasting each night throughout the tournament at that same time). Ticket To Germany will provide daily news, […]

Germany – Lukas Podolski By The Scout This player is an obvious but a very necessary choice. Having just turned 21 recently, Lukas is now set to star for Germany at this year's World Cup. He spent last season at FC Cologne but after they were relegated from the Bundesliga, he was sold to Bayern […]

The Guardian newspaper ran an interesting article about America and the World Cup yesterday. In it, reporter Steven Wells revealed the interesting split between those die-hard soccer fans and the mainstream. Interestingly, I wrote a similar piece for EPL Talk Magazine (which was just released last night and is a free download). If you live […]

ALL GAMES AVAILIBLE IN HD FRIDAY JUNE 9TH 11:55 am Germany vs Costa Rica ESPN 2 Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa 2:55 pm Poland vs Ecuador ESPN2 Adrian Healey and Tommy Smith SATURDAY JUNE 10TH 9 am England vs Pargauay ABC Dave O'Brien and Mareclo Balboa 11:30 am Trinidad vs Sweden ABC JP Dellacamera and […]

In an ironic move, former U.S. National Team defender and current LA Galaxy GM, Alexi Lalas fired his former U.S. Men's National Team Coach, Steve Sampson. I guess winning the MLS Cup last year wasn't enough for Sampson. Yes, the Galaxy are struggling this year but this move smacks of a personal vendetta against Sampson […]

Yahoo Sports has a good feature on Eddie Johnson. How do you beat Brazil? SI's Gabrielle Marcotti has some answers.

In interesting news, Graham Bell and Gazza Richards from The 2 G's have launched their own new soccer radio channel entitled Champions Soccer Radio Network. The 24/7 station is available as a streaming broadcast over the Internet at http://www.the2gs.com The network is currently airing The 2 G's, The Treble and select EPL Talk podcasts. […]

France has experienced opposite extremes in the past two World Cup finals. In 1998 the French did double, both hosting the event and winning it. Two years later this the greatest generation of French Soccer won the European Championships. France entered the 2002 finals as a co-favorite but instead provided no offensive punch and embarrassing […]

If you blinked, you may have missed it, but this past weekend ABC showed two World Cup shows to get Americans excited about the World Cup. The first, "American Soccer's Ten Greatest Moments," might sound like a joke to most readers outside the US, but much of the content was focused on the US women's […]

The tenth episode of the EPL Talk Podcast is now live featuring an interesting interview with soccer podcast-aficionado Phil McThomas from Soccer Shout. Phil, and his co-host Tony, have been making a lot of progress recently and have even been featured in the Sunday Times of London and on BBC Radio's Five Live. Interestingly, Phil […]

Brazil is the only South American nation to have won a World Cup outside of the Americas with wins in 1958 and 2002. With World Champion coach Carlos Alberto Parreira back at the helm after stints in Major League Soccer and Saudi Arabia, the Selecao look set to go the distance yet again. But the […]

If you're visiting this blog from the link at the BBC's web site (so far, that's 36% of you), welcome aboard. While the focus of the EPL Talk blog is on the English Premiership League, we'll also be covering the World Cup this summer. Let me take this opportunity to also introduce you to the […]

Will the USA advance or will we take a step back to our 1998 World Cup form? This question has troubled all of us since the draw was announced in December 2005, and we realized that the USA were to be placed in a group with two of the top squads in the world as […]