Very disappointing World Cup for the Americans

Well, I woke up this morning and turned on the U.S. v. Ghana game; a game that the U.S. absolutely had to win to advance out of the group. I probably should have stayed in bed...

After an uncharacteristic mistake from American team captain Claudio Reyna, the Black Stars scored first. Drew and I were celebrating like crazy when Clint Dempsey scored an awesome goal just a few minutes before half. But that elation was quickly defeated when the ref called a cheap foul on American defender Onyewu in the penalty box. Ghana drilled it and the score was 2-1 at half. The Americans had a few chances in the second half, but I essentially knew they didn't have it in them by about the 60th minute (15 min. into the second half). The game ended 2-1 for Ghana.

All in all, a really disappointing showing by the U.S. in this World Cup. To be sure, there were high expectations coming in. The U.S. looked pretty good in qualifying, they had beaten some quality teams, and they had climbed to fifth (I think that's accurate) in the FIFA world rankings. And what did they do in Germany? How did the Americans capitalize on their momentum and show the world that their run to the quarterfinals in 2002 wasn't a fluke? They got embarrassed by the Czech Republic; they fought to a draw with the Italians, and they couldn't win the big game when it counted (against Ghana).

One of the things that is especially disheartening is that the U.S. can't seem to score goals. They only scored ONE goal in three games (their other goal was an own-goal by Italy). In their defense, they played against two of the world's best goalkeepers (C.R. and Italy), but the U.S. didn't even really get that many great chances (i.e. near-misses, hit posts, great saves against them etc...).

I thought Landon Donovan - supposedly America's best young player - disappeared in almost all of the World Cup. If I had to pick my three favorite American players of this World Cup it would probably be Kasey Keller, Pablo Mastroeni (didn't play against Ghana - a big loss), and Oguchi Onyewu. A close fourth and fifth would probably be Brian McBride and Steve Cherundolo, who I thought both played pretty well.

I'll still keep watching the games, but I have to say that my interest will wane significantly now that the Americans are gone. Very disappointing that they will be coming away from this World Cup with only one point. I wonder if this means we won't see Bruce Arena on the bench in 2010.


Good World Cup blog here.