USA Played Its Heart Out

I'm going to backtrack on most of my criticism of the US team, after their gutsy, heroic game against Italy yesterday. These guys played an awesome game of soccer. With the exception of one huge mistake of trying to play an onside trap in the box on a free kick, they outplayed the Azzurri, outhustled and out muscled them. It's a damn shame this team didn't come out against the Czech Republic, because as Ghana showed in their victory, the Czechs are not as invincible as we made them appear.

And a word on the refereeing. Yes, that was the worst performance by a referee in a World Cup game so far. De Rossi's sending off was appropriate, as I think even the Italians concede. The red given Mastroeni was absurd at best, a yellow card at worst. Eddie Pope was tossed 2 minutes into the 2nd half, without even a warning. yes, he was playing physical defense. A professional ref who cares about the quality of the game talks to the player and warns him that the next foul is his sending off.

Nonetheless, the US played heroically 9 men to 10 for much of the match. And with Ghana's win the group is wide open again and we still have a shot to pull through to the next round. We're going to need to win and win big against Ghana on Thursday.

Great match this morning between Japan and Croatia. It was like watching two welterweight boxers go back and forth, trading punches, seeking but never finding the knock-out blow. These teams left everything on the field.

Oh, and a big thanks to Serbia for making everybody forget the USA's lousy opening game. Even though Argentina's scoreline was inflated by Serbia's disinterest in playing, this team looks terrific. They seem to be peaking and could be overtaking Brazil as tournament favorite.