I am amused yet oddly proprietary about the World Cup and this Group of Death meme.

Has to be one. At every World Cup. A Group of Death. It’s the law. And it’s silly. Cliche, vaguely morbid, overstates the importance of soccer, but it’s what we do.

(And according to the link, above, the first grupo de la muerta was so named by Mexican journalists ahead of the 1970 World Cup.)

If we are going to insist on having a Group of Death, and we do, let’s get it right, shall we?

For Brazil 2014, it is a very easy call, but I have seen suggestions (from Fifa.com) that Group B (Spain, Netherlands, Chile, Australia) is the Group of Death and (from England) that Group D (Uruguay, Italy, England, Costa Rica) is the GoD.

When any sensible person knows the answer to this.

Here is a hint: It begins with “G”.

As in Group G — Germany, Portugal, Ghana and the United States.

Two reasons for this.

1. No other group is guaranteed to lose two good teams in in the first round. Australia isn’t very good at all, so that eliminates B from GoD contention, and I like Costa Rica as much as the next Concacaf honk, but the Ticos are ranked No. 31 in the world and have gotten out of the first round once, in 1990. So that removes D from consideration. That’s the thing about a Group of Death. None of the teams getting to the round of 16 should be a surprise.

(And the ultimate GoD would leave no one surprised if any one team did not advance; in this case, however, Germany is going to go forward. We all know it. But that second team? Could be any of the three.)

2. Fifa rankings are a flawed metric, but they have more than a little correlation with reality, and by current world rankings the G group is the toughest.

Group G, with Germany (ranked No. 2), Portugal (5), the U.S. (14) and Ghana (24) yields an average ranking of 10.8

Here are the other seven groups, listed in order of their average world ranking.

Group D: Uruguay (6), Italy (7), England (13), Costa Rica (31). Average: 14.2

Group C: Colombia (4), Greece (12), Ivory Coast (17), Japan (48). Average: 20.3

Group B: Spain (1), Netherlands (9), Chile (15), Australia (59). Average: 21.0.

Group E. Switzerland (8), France (19), Ecuador (23), Honduras (41). Average: 22.8

Group A: Brazil (10), Croatia (16), Mexico (20), Cameroon (51). Average: 24.1

Group F: Argentina (3), Bosnia (21), Nigeria (36), Iran (45). Average: 26.3

Group H: Belgium (11), Russia (22), Algeria (26), South Korea (54). Average: 28.3

The killer for the U.S. is that the World Cup draw, today, came down to the Yanks going to one of two groups — Group G, where they landed, or Group H, where the Koreans plopped down. It was a 50-50 deal. Could have been the other way round. And if the U.S. had a schedule of Belgium, Russia and Algeria (which would have made for an average ranking of 18.3), pundits would accord the Yanks a much greater chance of surviving to the final 16 for the fourth time in six World Cups, going back to 1994.

So, consider the GoD case closed.

Nate Silver, who compiles stats for fun and profit, estimates the U.S. chances of advancing at 39.4 percent, just behind Portugal’s 40.3 percent. Germany has a 91.6 percent chance, Silver estimates, and Ghana is at 28.6 percent.

Thus, the U.S. chances of advancing to the knockout phase next year almost certainly will pivot on their first game, against Ghana, on June 16, in Natal.

Yes, Ghana ended the World Cup for the U.S. in both 2006 (group play) and 2010 (round of 16), but the Yanks certainly cannot lose to Ghana and figure on advancing by beating Germany and Portugal.

Also, losing your first match is nearly always World Cup death.

Since the field expanded to 32 nations, in 1998, 46 teams have lost their first game, and only four bounced back to make the round of 16. The most successful being the most recent — Spain, which lost to Switzerland at South Africa 2010, then ran off six consecutive victories to win the championship. However, the other nine first-game losers didn’t survive.

With a win over Ghana, the U.S. can be careful against Portugal, in Game 2, and a draw would be fine, and then they would hope to keep it close against Germany while Portugal doesn’t win too heavily over Ghana. (Assuming Ghana has lost to the Germans.)

So, this was the first World Cup draw I didn’t see live since 1986. It went down while I was at 36,000 feet, over India.

First thing I did, upon returning to the Abu Dhabi apartment, was to fire up the laptop and see quite clearly that the Yanks had been drawn … into the Group of Death.