What would a writer who grew up in the 80's be without his hard rock references? Furthermore, what would a World Cup be without a "Battle of Wits" between two opposing managers? Much, much more boring, that's what!

The question is, which coach is Wallace Shawn's weaselly know-it-all Vizzini and which is Cary Elwes as the Dread Pirate Robert? (If you don't get any of the above references, check here.)

I can't claim full credit for thinking that all of the injury reports out of the Czech camp this past week have been a bit of gamesmanship on the part of manager Karel Brückner, Ives Galarcep suggested it in his blog entry on the North Jersey Herald News site: (Another Czech Is Hurt. This Time It's Baros) . Jere Longman at the NY Times also did a good number on the perceived frailty of the "aged" Czech side, (Time Is the Czechs' Lurking Enemy) , but how about we take a further peek into the details referenced?

First off, the age issue. The Longman piece mentions the fact that 9 of the 23 players on the roster are 30 or older, but 7 of the 23 on the US roster can say the same, and each of those respective numbers is made up of 2 goalkeepers (Tim Howard and Petr Cech being the lone youngsters manning the nets). So you've got 5 and 7 field players over 30. Take out one from the Czech number for losing 33-year-old midfielder Vladimir Smicer, and you're down to 5 vs. 6. Of them, how many are likely starters in that first game?

I will admit to not really being familiar enough with the Czechs to be too authoritative on their behalf, so I'll rely on a couple of my handy-dandy World Cup previews available on the newsstand. Hopefully they're a little more reliable when it comes to the Czechs than the US, most of which listed Freddy Adu as being on our roster due to the joys of magazine publishing lead times.^*

Now back to the matter at hand. World Soccer's theoretical Czech starting 11 features only 4 players over 30: midfielders Tomas Galasek (33, nursing a knee injury), Karel Poborsky (34), and former European Player of the Year Pavel Nedved (33), plus hulking striker Jan Koller (33, also recovering from a knee injury).

The US on the other hand will likely start five of its seven 30-something players, though a 36-year-old in goal is rarely considered a handicap (Kasey Keller is no Fabien Barthez). Keller is joined on the Over-30 team by central defender Eddie Pope (32), likely left wing back Eddie Lewis (32), and midfielder and captain Claudio Reyna (32, and as always nursing a whole variety of ailments and potential ailments), plus target man up top Brian McBride (turns 34 June 19, 2 days after the Italy game).

One of the reasons why older players can be a liability is that they don't generally have the same energy level or recovery ability of younger players, thus the steroid suspicion directed at baseball players like Barry Bonds over his strange career arc the last several years. So maybe the older Czech players are in more competitive situations, and thus could be considered liabilities?

Wrong! Three of the four Czechs play top-flight ball in Europe: Galasek for Ajax in the Netherlands, Nedved for Juventus in Italy and Koller for Dortmund in Germany (Monaco in France next year (Striker Koller Joins Monaco) , while Poborsky has returned to the lower divisions of Ceske Budejovice in the Czech Republic. Similarly for the five American "old hands", 3 are playing for first division European sides: Reyna and McBride in England for Manchester City and Fulham respectively, with Keller at Germany's Müchengladbach, while Lewis is a step-below playing for Leeds in the English Championship. Only Eddie Pope has a significantly lower level of competition with MLS's ReAL Salt Lake.

So the so-called age difference adds up to a whole lot of nothing in my book.

But what about all of those injuries? It really was a blow for the Czechs to lose Smicer, much more so than the US losing defenders Frankie Hejduk and Cory Gibbs, though both provided sorely lacking depth to the American wing back positions. Otherwise the Czechs don't seem that much more banged up than their American counterparts. Apart from the previously mentioned injuries and recoveries, only forward and Euro 2004 leading scorer Milan Baros and new Arsenal-signee Tomas Rosicky have documented knocks, and they both appear to be on track to be in the starting lineup next Monday (F Baros Latest Injured Czech Player) .

Other than Reyna and O'Brien, there aren't any known injuries to the rest of the American team. Yes, 2 of the 4 forwards, Eddie Johnson and Brian Ching, are both coming off lengthy rehabs from last season, but Ching appears to have recovered his form, at least to an MLS-level of play, though Johnson remains a real question mark, despite not too long ago being a virtual shoo-in to partner McBride on the forward line. The lack of other known injuries may just be the result of Coach Arena's stated desire to not have as many players on the roster travelling with previously known liabilities as he went to Korea in 2002 with: (United States Interview Coach - Bruce Arena) .

So it's not completely inconceivable that there are mind games going on, but if so I think it's fairly safe to ignore them and assume that noone has drunk the Iocaine (or maybe Arena and Brückner have both built up his respective immunity to it).

What's harder to ignore is the constant media drumbeat surrounding midfielder/forward DaMarcus Beasley's possible spot in the US lineup: (US Roster Questions, Irritates Beasley) . Actually, having read the article, it leads me to believe that it's all of the questions from the media that is responsible for the "irritat[ion]" Beasley is experiencing. Arena has run his team the way he has for almost 8 years now, so if any regular player had a problem with his lineup announcement policies, they would have long ago been resolved by either their dismissal from the program or more likely, getting over it.

Yanks getting the high-gloss love this go-round:

• Everybody loves Bobby Convey these days (what's not to love about a fearless winger running at defenses all day long?): Ronald Blum of the Associated Press (Another Hamburg mop-top: Convey could get start)
• Clint Dempsey is another one of the un-intimidated wünderkind the US is sending, and gets not only a profile from Steven Goff of the Washington Post (Caprice Is A Feature Of Dempsey's Game) , but has launched his own website with the support of Nike and its Joga Bonito campaign (Clint Dempsey Launches His Own Website) . Here's the video he did with the late Texas rapper Big Hawk: Google Video.
• Joe Curley of the Ventura County Star shines the spotlight on late call-up Greg Berhalter: (Happiest place on earth is Germany for Berhalter) .
• And Brian Ching has blogs on both Houston Dynamo hometown paper the Houston Chronicle, and his own hometown Honolulu Star Bulletin: (Time off a good way to re-energize) .

^* - Actually, I am only going to be able to use (World Soccer), for a variety of reasons. (Striker Magazine), "America's Ultimate Soccer Magazine" manages to condense the actual preview portion of its "collectible" World Cup preview edition into 6 pages of the 88 page mag. As my friend and sometime editor/writer Jeff Hill pointed out, the entirety of the magazine appears to have been bought out by Nike, including the interviews, which only feature Nike sponsored players. Ultimate indeed. My other soccer-only magazines ((Soccer America), 4-4-2, Shoot, When Saturday Comes, etc.) either don't venture a guess, or are currently at my other office, and hence inaccessible, but I'm sure you can trek on down to your local bookstore and find them pretty easily to compare notes.