Two small, lightweight soccer nations....

I care only marginally more about the soccer World Cup than I do about the rugby World Cup (bring on the Composers' World Cup, I say!), but I have to laugh at this comment from Stuart Dye in the NZ Herald. In his list of eight off-field highlights from the opening week of the World Cup, he includes the following:

The Wall Street Journal's pre-match analysis of the All Whites:

"Does anyone in South Africa really want to go see 22 white, unknown players from a couple of small, lightweight soccer nations on a Tuesday afternoon in Rustenberg - a small town best known for its platinum mine and Sun City casinos? The New Zealand - Slovakia game...is looking like this World Cup's biggest dud."

Slovenia has 4.5 million new fans for its upcoming game against the US.

I haven't been able to trace the origin of this quote, but let's hope the author is eating his hat by now. And just remind me....the USA - a great soccer nation, non?