They're surrounded by the tightest security, quizzed about lukewarm support back home and constantly questioned over whether they can reprise a surprisingly successful run in the last World Cup.
Must be the Americans, still strangers in the land of soccer and hoping to prove that Yanks can hang in the world's No. 1 sport.
"Everyone is anxious," United States captain Claudio Reyna said on Sunday after arriving in the city where they were to play their first game yesterday. "It's that time, really. It's what everyone has been waiting for for the last four years."
The United States made it to the quarterfinals at the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan before losing 1-0 to Germany, its most successful World Cup since 1930.
Since then, midfielder Landon Donovan's hair has thinned and winger Eddie Lewis speaks with a decidedly British accent now that he's played for English clubs the past six years.
There is one constant, though: security.
Whenever the Americans leave their hotel in Essen, a convoy of police, US State Department officials and private guards encircle them. The US bus is also the only one among the 32 teams' that doesn't display the country's name.
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