USA
Germany 2006 was the USA's fifth consecutive World Cup finals appearance, and they are clearly not a minor football nation any more, but a force to be reckoned with.
The USA topped the Concacaf qualifying group for the first time ever, and easily secured qualification with games to spare.
USA World Cup profile continues below
The manager, Bruce Arena, has done a great job improving the squad. He took over after the USA crashed out of the 1998 World Cup in France.
Since then he has combined youth such as Bobby Convey, Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley with the experience of Brian McBride and Claudio Reyna.
In 2002, the USA caused a major upset in Japan and South Korea when they got to the quarter finals, especially after they lost their first group match to Poland.
Going into the 2006 World Cup finals the USA were ranked 8th in the world, one place ahead of England. However they got off to a poor start losing 3-0 to the Czech Republic. The USA's second game saw a much more determined display, where having had two men sent off to Italy's one man - they held on to a 1-1 draw.
However, they lost to Ghana 2-1 and exited the World Cup with just one point.
USA World Cup profile by Ben Rosenbaum
USA World Cup 2006 Squad:
Goalkeepers: Kasey Keller (Borussia Moenchengladbach, Germany), Tim Howard (Manchester United, England), Marcus Hahnemann (Reading, England)
Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham, England), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96, Germany), Jimmy Conrad (Kansas City Wizards), Cory Gibbs (ADO Den Haag, Holland), Chris Albright (LA Galaxy), Eddie Lewis (Leeds Utd, England), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard Liege, Belgium), Eddie Pope (Real Salt Lake)
Midfielders: DaMarcus Beasley (PSV Eindhoven, Holland), Bobby Convey (Reading, England), Clint Dempsey (New England Revolution), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Pablo Mastroeni (Colorado Rapids), John O'Brien (Chivas USA), Ben Olsen (DC United), Claudio Reyna (Manchester City, England)
Attackers: Eddie Johnson (Kansas City Wizards), Brian McBride (Fulham, England), Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo), Josh Wolff (Kansas City Wizards)
