ESPN Classic will be replaying the game at 5pm.
Much more in the extended...
Behind a penalty kick goal from Appiah at the end of the first half, Ghana eliminated the United States 2-1, from the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Arggghhhh!!! USA dominated but got jobbed by a phantom penalty kick call during stoppage at the end of the first half. If it had been 1-1 at half with the momentum we had...a totally different game. Unfortunately, woulda's, coulda's, and shoulda's only gets the team a one way ticket back to the States.
The game started with two early cards. Essien, one of the world's best midfielders, was carded for a sliding tackle that seemed to have caught ball but that also took down Reyna. Reyna grabbed his back and the ref grabbed his card. Eddie Lewis was carded for the Americans with a hand ball in midfield that was deemed deliberate by the ref.
Both goals by Ghana were a joke. Claudio Reyna, captain of the Americans, busted his knee on the first goal sequence while attempting to tackle the ball through a Ghana attacker. The Ghana sttacker stripped the ball and ran in on Kasey Keller unmolested. Of course, not expecting Reyna to cough up the ball, American defenders were not in support of Captain America.
The Reyna injury also forced the hand of USA head coach Bruce Arena. With Pablo Mastroeni out due to red card suspension from the Italy game, Reyna was substituted for Ben Olsen, a workaholic midfielder that won championships with Arena at UVA and DC United. But Olsen has mediocre technical skills and very little international experience.
The second Ghana goal came on the converted penalty kick by Appiah. The call came when Gooch Onyewu, an imposing defender with linebacker size at 6'4" 210 lbs., backed into the Ghana attacker while trying to clear an errant Carlos Bocanegra clearance. Onyewu wasn't illegally using his arms; there was just body to body contact as both players were tracking the flight of the ball. Onyewu won the header but the deflating penalty was called. The 2-1 halftime score stood up as the final score.
The man that refereed the game is one of the best in the world and he doesn't normally give soft penalty kicks. But he's not always going to call a perfect game, you just hope his mistakes aren't game changing.
Hell, the USA was even able to break down the Ghana defense when Ghana had all of their men sitting back during the second half, the USA just couldn't put the ball into the net. Brian McBride missed on a diving header attempt. Onyewu put a header off of a corner kick just over the bar.
Bottom line: if the team had beaten the Czech Republic (the old Czechs broke down during our game and could barely run up and down the field for their second two games; that first goal four minutes into the tournament was an absolute killer), this game wouldn't have mattered. The USA is not a great team but it is one of the world's better teams and the Americans are certainly better than Ghana. Realize though, even if the USA had won, the team would most likely be playing Brazil in the first round of the playoffs. I think our team impressed a ton of people--in soccer, no one looks forward to playing the USA anymore--and American soccer players, and possibly the coaches, are going to get some Fat Joe-like European contracts.
Onyewu is going from Belgium to either Manchester United or Middlesborough in England. Dempsey, the best American player this world cup, will soon leave New England for Europe, probably England also. Eddie Johnson, a quick and young attacker that, surprisingly, didn't see much playing time during the World Cup, won't be with Dallas much longer. If he ever decides to leave MLS, Landon Donovan could play anywhere he wants, he just needs to learn to shoot. Even though I hope he doesn't leave the Men's National Team, Bruce Arena could coach in England if he wanted to.
The USA has some great young players coming through the pipeline but American soccer must develop a world class striker to continue to progress. The soccer handlers also must learn how to teach the young American players how to make the jump from MLS to international soccer and our players must in turn become much more aggressive, much like European basketball players that don't grow up playing the game on the playground have to adjust when the get to the NBA. If US soccer can do that, the USA will look to make the jump to elite status in 2010.
For more information, Robert Wagman provides great analysis for the Soccer Times and Grant Wahl writes well for Sports Illustrated. The Sam's Army, the cheering section for USA soccer, has a website that is another good depot for US Soccer information. And finally, the US Soccer Federation has put together a daily video blog called Studio 90 and a print blog that has covered the team in Germany.
BTW, screw Isiah Thomas. Watching him run the Knicks is like watching President Bush run our country.
Ok, thanks. I needed to get that off of my chest.