World Cup Heartbreak!

As a lifelong player of the "beautiful game," that's soccer to Americans and football to most of the rest of the world. It's been frustrating to watch the slow embrace of the sport by my country, and often equally frustrating to watch the US National team's slow but steady progression into the top twenty of the FIFA rankings. But this World Cup promised to be the coming out party for the US team, while certainly not Brazil-like in it's talent pool, this US team had, seemingly, most of the tools to make a deep run into the tournament. Sadly, that run ended today with a 2-1, round-of-16 extra-time defeat to Ghana, the African nation that has now dumped the US out of two straight World Cups! Not Ghana! Not again!!

For the first time in its history the US had topped its group in the initial, round-robin stage of the tournament. First, a nail-biting, some might say fortunate 1-1 draw with England, then a gutsy, come from behind 2-2 draw with Slovenia, that arguably should have been a victory due to a goal being disallowed because of a mystery foul. To be concluded by a heart-stopping 1-0 win over Algeria on Landon Donovan's 91st minute goal.

But defensive frailties were exposed in its opening matches, the penchant to concede early goals seemingly impossible to shake. Another weakness evident was the inability of US strikers, like Jozy Altidore, Robbie Findley, and Edson Buddle to maintain composure in front of goal and put away chances. In each of its matches the US team created chances to win games, especially so in its last two group games, but wasteful finishing led to the need for late heroics. Would the team be able to learn from these group match weaknesses and get it right in the knock-out round? Frustratingly, the answer was no.

It is hard to imagine that the US could have played a worse 1st half against Ghana. That this occurred in a World Cup round of 16 match is even more infuriating. The team looked tentative, stretched over the field and not working together to close down the spaces available to Ghana, which looked the much better side. This was easily the worst half played by the US at this World Cup. While coach Bob Bradley can overall be proud of the US effort and progression in this tournament, he still needs to answer some tough questions. 1) Why start Ricardo Clark in mid-field after Maurice Edu had clearly demonstrated his better form in the two prior games. Indeed, why would Bradley tinker with the line-up that had defeated Algeria? Why, oh why?? While Clark can add steel to a mid-field with strong tackling and ball winning, he is not gifted with the dribbling skills of a Robinho, or even the USA's Benny Feilhaber. The game was not 6 minutes old when Clark inexplicably tried to beat his opposite number off the dribble in the middle of the park, at the half-way line. I wouldn't even try such a thing in a recreational match, with the score 3-0 in our favor! Clark was easily dispossessed of the ball, springing a Ghanaian counterattack that ended with a sublime, low, left-footed strike inside Tim Howard's near post by Kevin-Prince Boateng. The same Boateng who ended ersthwhile German captain Michael Ballack's World Cup with a wild tackle in the FA cup final while playing for his English club team Portsmouth. Incredibly, the US found itself down again early, but now in a knockout round match, with no tomorrow for the loser.

Clark remained ineffective for his remaining time on the pitch, and to be fair, so did most of the rest of the US squad. He proceeded to then pick up a booking for a careless, sliding tackle, and basically left Bradley with no choice but to sub him out for Maurice Edu after 30 minutes. While Bradley had made some good tactical moves in prior games, he seems to have gotten his tactics all wrong in the first half, and with everything on the line! Bob Bradley, why now?? Now was clearly not the time to tinker with what was working. To make matters worse he now had only two substitutions left with 60 minutes to play. Poor coaching Mr. Bradley.

As badly as the US played, Ghana was not exactly peppering the US goal, so with the half-time whistle coming and the US down only 1-0, it was clear that there was still time to find a goal, and indeed, they would have to play better, because it would not be possible to play worse. But this has to be question one for the whole US squad, how could the team put in such a tentative 1st-half effort with so much at stake in a World Cup round-of-16 match?!

It was a tale of 2 halves. As badly as the US played in the first half, they played that much better in the 2nd, but again, as in prior games they made enough chances to arguably win the match, but could not finish them when it counted most. Feilhaber was inserted at half-time and had an instant impact, why he did not start must be known only to Bob Bradley. Feilhaber provides the quality on the ball that the US team so desperately needed in the first half, and he almost equalized not 5 minutes into the 2nd half, denied only be a sliding save from Ghana's keeper Richard Kingson. Donovan, Dempsey and Altidore were starting to find the ball in dangerous positions, and it was no surprise, with Ghana on the back foot, that Dempsey finally won a penalty, that was converted by Landon Donovan to tie the match 1-1. Surely now, the US would ride this momentum to a 2nd goal and a berth in the quarterfinals? Agonizingly, the US could again not finish some good chances as the 2nd half wore on. Altidore in particular, after a powerful run into the box could not find the net, he may have had a fair penalty claim, but with the US already profiting from a spot-kick the referee waved play on. Full-time came with the teams tied 1-1, and it was on to extra-time. Kingson was huge for Ghana in the 2nd half, arguably making several saves that kept Ghana from going down.

Again, the US was undone by inattentive defending shortly after the extra-time kick-off. Central defenders Jay Demerit and Carlos Bocanegra giving way to much space to Ghanaian striker Asamoah Gyan, arguably Ghana's sole threat at this stage of the match, who collected a long ball, and coolly finished with a thumping left-footed volley past a stranded Tim Howard. The US could not find a way back, yet again. Game over. Heartbreak.