Team USA Soccer

Well Team USA Soccer was eliminated in their match with Ghana today. Everything was stacked up right for them so that if they beat Ghana and Italy won then the USA would advance to the round of 16 in World Cup competition. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

Lack of Intensity on Offense

It seems like an ongoing theme for the USA team since I started watching world cup competition is a lack of explosiveness on offense. They didn't explode on the ball and just bring the heat on the competitors until late in the second half when they got their best chances and almost scored. No fast break attempts and when they had an opportunity to take it to Ghana they slowed it down and passed around. Many of the comentators talked about how you didn't see alot from McBride or Donovan and its true that you didn't hear about them because they weren't making it happen. Beasley didn't just take it down their throats like he did 4 years ago. These guys weren't living up to their abilities this world cup. 1 goal in three matches.

World Cup Referees made bad calls

Right when team USA ties it up the Referee makes a horrible foul call inside the box on Cherundolo that resulted in a penalty kick and a score for Ghana. There was absolutely no foul on that play and it cost Team USA a goal.

In addition the red cards given out to Eddie Pope and Pablo Mastroeni in the match against Italy were completely uncalled for. The call on Mastroeni was complete garbage and FIFA seriously needs to review the tight calls.(Yellow Cards Given out in Record numbers this year.) The result of these calls put Team USA two men down against Italy and they still pulled off the tie. Great effort but the refs changed the match. Not fair.

The world cup has been great fun. I'm looking forward to watching the round of 16. I really want to see the dark horse Ghana taking on Brazil. Should be one hell of a match. There've been alot of shake ups this year with teams like Australia and Ghana exploding on the world stage. This might be the year of upsets all around. Cool Soccer article on the upsets and teams making an impact.