The United States lost to Ghana over a week ago at this point and the loss had me so gutted that I haven’t been able to post about it until now. Long story short: we should have won the game.
If you watched the match, it was obvious that we were the better team and we should have won, but that also we did not deserve to win. We had about twelve good scoring chances and scored on one – Ghana had about three good scoring chances and scored on two. The fact is, the Americans have never had, aside from maybe Brian McBride and even then he’s no Ronaldo, a great forward who reliably can put the ball in the back of the net. It’s that simple. I’m hopeful, but not that hopeful, that somehow this will change over the next four years and that a real striker appears (this means you have to up your game Mr. Jozy Altidore). Only time will tell.
In other footie news, the story of the tournament is how Europe has rebounded from their initial dismal showing to put three teams in the final four. While South America was looking incredibly strong, Brazil and Argentina shockingly just fell apart against the Dutch and the Germans and now the semis are featuring three European teams with only one non-Euro team, Uruguay, appearing and arguably Uruguay shouldn’t even be there (cue the “soccer should have some sort of basketball’s goal tending rule” debate because of the way that an intentional hand ball saved a goal towards the end of overtime).
The three teams that I support are the Ameriks, the English and the Dutch so I’m hopeful that this is the year that the Dutch finally get their brand of “total football” to the top of the global footie heap. Considering that m y second child – another daughter – was nice enough to be born this past Saturday, I’ll be working from home over the next two weeks which means I get to watch both semi matches from home in HD glory. Lovely.