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And like that, the United States run in the 2006 World Cup is over. Four years of hard work is down the drain as the US Men's National Team scored only one goal in their three-game German experience. Ghana eliminated the United States in group play today by defeating them 2-1 and Italy defeated the Czech Republic 2-0. The lone American goal of the tournament was scored by Clint Dempsey in the 43rd minute of today's game. The game was filled with fouls (nearly 50 for both teams, but Ghana by a 2:1 ratio), including a controversial one towards the end of the first half which resulted in a penalty kick goal for Ghana. The penalty kick proved to be the deciding goal in the US loss.
With Italy's defeat of the Czech Republic in the other Group E game, the Czech Republic was also eliminated in group play. The elimination of the Czech Republic is a huge shock as few expected Ghana to advance out of the Group E, especially with the highly ranked Czechs (#2 in the world) and Americans (#5) as well as the storied Italian team (#13). But as we all learn, FIFA's rankings mean nothing when it comes down to how a team will perform in the World Cup.
Ghana's reward for advancing? A probable Round of 16 game against Brazil.
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Did anyone actually expect them to advance?!!?!??!
At least they scored one goal this entire WC. (The one against Italy doesnt count since it was an own goal)
But way too many fouls and Yellow cards given by the Refs this time around. Not just for this game but for the entire World Cup.
I expected them to give Czech a run and to beat Ghana, but they under-performed. It was a really hard group this year, but there was no excuse for this bad level of play.
Shocking? No.
Expected? Yes.
Overhyped? Yes.
First skiing, now soccer...
Can NIKE destroy another sport?
How can the US lose to Ghana? GHANA??!!!!!! where the hell is that place? I heard they only have one urinal for the entire country and they don't even have indoor plumbing! GHANA!!!!
The US had a chance this game and blew it.
Good luck to Ghana vs. Brazil.
Well technically, you don't need indoor plumbing to be good at soccer.
And also, Rico Starr: Adidas is the official Sponsor of the World Cup.
well done USA.... not in the game against the Czechs, fantastic against the Italians, and real unlucky against the Ghanian's. A really crappy referee performance, compounded by shocking diving from the Ghanian team.
You Yanks should be proud of your team, not knocking it endlessly because they didn't win. No-one outside of the US media really expected them to even get a point from this group!
papercut ninja...
it was nike commercials that hyped the us team. they played quite often on tv.
This was different from past world cup follies.
Today the US team has millionaire stars. We have our own league. We have a fan base that played the game in high school and we know that --- when you are constantly defending corner kicks, your team is SCREWING up.
The team wins against Mexico seduced us. The crazy FIFA rankings made us think we were better than we were.
We learned something, perhaps. We learned that we want to do better than this. We were outplayed and outcoached. (and we got screwed by the refs), and there's a base of fans who are pissed.
In the past no one cared. No one knew enough about the game to tell, or cared enough to complain.
That's not true anymore.
No one expected us to beat Brazil or even Germany, but they did expect a better performance of the team and the coach than they got this year.
i hope that ghana has to play against brazil now.
it will be interesting to see how their neverending technique of "laying on the ground faking an injury for three minutes every time you get touched by another player" goes.
and i thought the italians were drama queens!
that said, the americans had their chances. they just didn't play so great today.
First of all, Jo Mamm, you're an idiot. Ghana is in Africa, check out a map. Second of all, it may be third world, but just so happens they're better at "real" sports down there than us, you know sports that require the most intense fitness of your life (they run an anverage of 8 miles during a game) and can dribble circles round your mama! Props to the US for scoring (2) goals in the hardest group of the World Cup.
get over the "group of death"!!!!! given the US performance, group e was far from what it was made out to be (and, no, the u.s. performance just plain sucked and was not because of the "competition"). as many commentators here realize, the fifa rankings mean doodly squat when it comes to true, gritty world cup competition. the only thing that has any bearing to a minimal extent is past world cup history, but, again, even that is minimal. in any case, look at brazil, germany, france, the netherlands, portugal, spain, argentina, mexico, italy, etc., etc.. the u.s. is not a soccer/fussball/futbol powerhouse, and that's that. yes, improvement needs to be made, and i am glad many readers realize it. bruce arena has got to go, and a younger, more skilled crop of players that makes a real TEAM is needed.
jo mamm-- whadya mean where's ghana, you fool? it just so happens that the team from ghana has 2 of the best players in the world right now in essien and appiah. NO ONE on the u.s. team comes close to the best players from ghana. so take your ugly american head out of your self centered ass and recognize. ghana won because they were the better team. and how about all those missed opportunities from landon donovan? a farce.