With the 2014 World Cup set to kick off Thursday in Brazil, the U.S. men’s national soccer team is preparing for a showdown in the dreaded Group of Death, which includes the home country’s Seleção, Germany and Ghana.
Even as the U.S. men’s team mounts its long-shot bid to win the world’s most popular tournament, the organization that controls the squad, the United States Soccer Federation, is among those feeling the impact of a leadership controversy involving professional and amateur soccer’s worldwide governing body, the Zurich-based Federation Internationale de Football Association.
