With No USMNT, Who Should You Root for in the 2018 World Cup?

Great guys, now what excuse do we have to drink at 7 am this summer?

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

I'm 30, and I know that's not actually old in the grand scheme of things, but once you start typing that "3" instead of a "2" every time you enter your age, you start to feel a little bit old.

Then something happens for the first time in your lifetime, and you feel like a young whippersnapper again.

For me, that happened last night, when the US Men's National Soccer Team didn't qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1986.

Now, let's put all the misery behind us. We already know that the US only needed a draw against lowly Trinidad & Tobago (the worst team in the damn group, who was playing for nothing) to punch a ticket to Russia, and that the USA is wasting a valuable summer of world-class competition for wunderkind Christian Pulisic.

And, of course, the US is one of the largest and richest countries on Earth, yet we still suck at this footy ball game, blah, blah blah. I don't want to talk about any of that because, frankly, it's depressing.

What I do want to talk about is who I, and you, should be cheering for in this summer's World Cup, because if you think I'm going to spend an entire summer not waking up at 7 am to day-drink while watching a game I barely understand, you are sadly mistaken.

USA vs Argentina: A Pivotal Moment for US Soccer

For the first time since their friendly on March 26th, 2011, The United States and Argentina will lock horns with a berth in the Copa America Centenario final at stake.

By Justin Sherman (@JShermOfficial)

Face it, we’ve been spoiled these past few weeks.

An NBA finals that looked all but over at 3-1 was turned on its head. We witnessed a player get suspended for a low blow after being the recipient of a LeBron James tea-bag, the league MVP threw his mouthpiece at a fan, his wife tweeted that the NBA was rigged in pushing the series to a 7th game for more money, and the Cavs completing history by becoming the first NBA team to ever come back from that series deficit to win the title.

The 2016 Euro Cup hasn’t been too shabby either, supplying an amazing amount of drama, with over 31% of the tournaments goals coming after the 88th minute of play. In addition, we’ve seen flares light up the pitch and explode in a collector's face, Russian and English fans duke it out in the streets of Marseille, with Heineken bottles as their weapons of choice, and the smallest country in the tournament (Iceland) stun Hungary and Portugal with draws.

But under the radar, something else has been just as exciting and worthy of our attention -- the Copa America Centenario.

To many American fans, the Copa America is a foreign entity.

America's Sweetbitter Match with Portugal and Remembering Jack Lanzillotti

By Bob Lobel (@boblobel)

Bittersweet doesn’t really cover it. 

Try sweetbitter. Now we're onto something.

With the largest American television audience ever for a soccer game watching, and happily being captives to unfolding history, the USA stumbled into infamy. At least we think they did.