Photo by Phil Cole/Getty Images 
 
 This morning's World Cup draw could have gone worse for the American squad—but perhaps not by much. 
 
 Josh Voorhees Josh Voorhees is a Slate senior writer. He lives in Iowa City. 
 
 When the U.S. team heads to Brazil next summer they'll square off in the opening round robin with two traditional powerhouses—Germany and Portugal—and an African team, Ghana, that has proved to be something of a bogeyman for the U.S. men's team. I imagine the early reaction in all three of those nations as they saw their team's draw went something like this: "Well, at least we have the Americans." 
 
 
 
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 Germany is currently ranked no. 2 in FIFA's (far-from-perfect) world rankings, and Portugal is no. 5. Ghana, ranked no. 24, is the only squad in the group with a worse ranking than the no. 14 Americans, although the Black Stars have eliminated the U.S. team in each of the past two World Cups. 
 
 
 
 The U.S. squad will kick things off against Ghana on June 16 in a game that they can't afford to lose. They then face Portugal on June 22, and finish up group play against Germany on June 26. 
 
 
 
 Only two teams in each group advance out of pool play, so that means the Americans, as red hot as they've been this year, will need to send either the Germans or the Portuguese home early. In case that wasn't daunting enough, the Americans will also have the worst travel schedule of any team in the competition. (No, really, like 9,000-miles bad.) 
 
 
 
 I was all ready to post this under the headline "USA Eliminated From 2014 World Cup in Today's Draw" but then I saw that the number crunchers are actually giving the Americans a better-than-expected chance of escaping the group—according to the Nate Silver-led Soccer Power Index, Germany has a 91.8-percent chance of moving on, Portugal a 40.2-percent chance, the USMNT a 39.3-percent chance, and Ghana a 28.8-percent chance. Those numbers aside, I tend to share the pessimism of ESPN's Roger Bennett: "Brightside for US Team: Their players will be able to swap jerseys with some world superstars after the games." 
 
 
 
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 The best-case draw for the U.S. team would have looked something like this: Switzerland, widely considered to be by far the weakest of the eight seeded teams in Pot 1; Croatia, currently no. 16 in the FIFA rankings; and Algeria, no. 26. According to Silver and the SPI, that draw would have given the Americans a 73-percent chance of surviving group play. 
 
 
 
 The worst-case scenario, meanwhile, would have seen the Americans draw defending World Cup champions Spain, no. 15-ranked Chile, and no. 19 France. The way Silver saw things, that combination would have given the U.S. only a 15-percent chance of playing into the elimination rounds. 
 
 
 
 ***Follow @JoshVoorhees and the rest of the @slatest team on Twitter.*** ||||| The graphic you see above, inspired by this tweet from Chris Bunn, lays out the scenarios whereby the USMNT gets a spot in the Round of 16. If the Americans beat or draw Germany, they're through. The second-clearest path to qualification is a Portugal-Ghana draw. We're at four points, the same as Germany, and those other two teams sit at one apiece. A draw would leave them both with two points. 
 
 The convoluted scenarios begin when we look at what happens if the U.S. lose to Germany and either Portugal or Ghana win. That's when the tiebreakers enter the picture. The first tiebreaker is goal difference; the second, goals scored; then third, head-to-head play; the last, drawing lots. Right now, the U.S. have a goal difference of of +1, Ghana are at -1, and Portugal are at -4. 
 
 Let's look at the two scenarios: 
 
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 U.S. lose; Ghana win: This is the greatest threat to our prospects of advancing. If the U.S. lose and Ghana win by anything more than one goal, Ghana go through at our expense. If we lose by one and Ghana win by one, it'll come down to goals scored. Right now, the U.S. have scored four goals to Ghana's three; a 1-0 U.S. loss and a 1-0 Ghana victory would still put the Americans through, via the head-to-head tiebreaker. 
 
 U.S. lose; Portugal win: Portugal, in light of their -4 goal difference, have a much steeper hill to climb. They need to beat Ghana by a couple goals and hope Germany beat us by a similar margin—something the Germans are in no way incentivized to do, given that any victory over the Americans puts them on top of the group. (Well, that's if you overlook sticking it to their old manager, Jürgen Klinsmann.) In all, Portugal need a five-goal swing to make up the goal difference. As you can see from the graphic above, there are also a few scenarios in which goal difference would end up deciding the Americans' fate in the event of a Portugal win and a U.S. loss. And if Portugal win 2-1 and the U.S. lose 4-0, we'd draw lots. 
 
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 FiveThirtyEight puts our chances of advancing at 76 percent, and that might be a little low given that both the U.S. and Germany have a strong incentive to play to a draw. American fans, your rooting interests are clear: if not a victory, then boring, low-scoring soccer, all around. 
 
 Chart by Reuben Fischer-Baum
– When the US takes the field against Ghana Saturday afternoon in the next round of the World Cup, it'll be a toss-up on whether they'll advance. So says stats guru Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight, who crunches numbers with ESPN on a Soccer Power Index. It's true that USA has a higher power ranking (it's now 14) than Ghana (33), but Ghana gets the "home continent" advantage from the odds-makers. Without that, USA would be 60-40 favorites. In a more tangible area, Ghana has a solid defense to counter USA's stronger offense. In short, "it's not easy to beat Ghana in a World Cup played in Africa," Silver adds, "and it's certainly not easy to beat a team playing as well as Uruguay should we get them in the quarterfinal. But these are the kinds of matches we'll have to start winning, and with some consistency, if we're going to progress into the next tier of international football. "