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Weezer's Rivers Cuomo Channels U.S. Team's 'Swagger' For World Cup Song

Soccer super-fan predicts U.S. will beat Algeria to advance to the next round.

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo grew up a soccer fan, and his support for the U.S. men's team is already well-documented. That's why, though he'd previously written an [article id="1536119"]anthem for the 2006 World Cup team[/article] -- a group that rather famously underachieved -- he decided to pen another one for the 2010 squad. Because this time, things were different.

"I tried to make a soccer anthem back in 2006, but it was right after we got knocked out [of the World Cup] in pretty humiliating fashion in the first round, so it came out really kind of sad," Cuomo told MTV Radio. "And this time around, I was just feeling super optimistic and kind of badass after our performance in the Confederations Cup last year, and especially around this player [Clint] Dempsey, who seems to have this badass attitude and ability to step up and put the ball in the back of the net, even when we're playing against the giants. So I wrote a song, which hopefully captures some of that confidence and swagger in the face of pretty daunting odds."

The song he ended up writing -- the [article id="1641349"]fist-pumping "Represent,"[/article] which premiered last week on Weezer's A.P.E Radio station -- most certainly captures that swag. Shoot, in some small way, it probably helped the U.S. team battle to a tie with heavily favored England in its opening match.

"After we premiered it, I heard from the U.S. soccer Twitter," he beamed. "They tweeted at me and said they downloaded the song and put it in the playlist for the pre-game listen, before the U.S./England match."

With that match -- and a hard-fought draw with Slovenia -- behind them, the U.S. team now stands on the precipice of advancing to the knockout stage of the World Cup, a place they haven't been since 2002. All they need to do is beat Algeria on Wednesday morning (if they tie, there are a host of other scenarios in which they can still advance, most of which involve stuff like goal differentials). And, though he's not exactly the cocky sort, if pressed, Cuomo believes that the U.S. team won't need to worry about differentials or tiebreakers. The way he sees it, they'll beat Algeria outright.

"I'm not good at making predictions, because you never know what's going to happen; anything can happen in soccer," he laughed. "But I guess if I had to bet, I'd say the U.S. is going to win 2-0 and advance to the next round."

What do you think of Rivers' prediction and his World Cup anthem? Let us know in the comments!

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