Did that really just happen?
Did we really see the U.S. in a must-win match nearly give another early goal away almost immediately only to be rescued by the crossbar, have yet another goal disallowed and countless chances go begging, nearly give the game away at the end only for Landon Donovan to lead the counter one last time self-assuredly slot home a rebound that secured his place in American sports lore and completed his World Cup redemption story?
[Gasp.]
[Gasp, again.]
(And I even managed to slip into a ten-minute press conference with Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld, too. He started at the 70th minute, said very little, as expected, and was done by the 80th minute.)
Some thoughts:
Was that a tipping point? If the disallowed goal against Slovenia made soccer the sports talk topic du jour for all the wrong reasons, will today’s match do it for all the right reasons? If nothing else, it seems to have blown up Twitter and the Internet.
The U.S. continues to cause heavenly heart attacks. A first-half comeback against England. A second-half comeback from two goals down against Slovenia. A go-for-broke attitude late in the second half against Algeria. If only the rest of the teams in the World Cup would play that way. It would make for a much more exciting tournament. As for the U.S., there is something different about the belief among this group that hasn’t been there before. Maybe it’s because of Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley and Tim Howard, who all carry themselves like they are deserving members of soccer’s elite. And the fact that they do it as the U.S. has its back against the wall is even more impressive. But the point here is, this is new territory.
Hello, nice draw. Looking past the Round of 16 would be a huge mistake. But the prospect of Uruguay or South Korea in the quarterfinals is hugely tantalizing.
Will we see Oguchi Onyewu again? Jay DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra held down the fort nicely against the Algerians, but the bigger question is what happened to Gooch? Did he get pulled because of performance or because his knee/fitness/form really aren’t up for this big of a stage this soon in his recovery?
U.S. head coach Bob Bradley still didn’t get it right at the start. The Jonathan Bornstein selection didn’t prove to hurt the U.S., but starting Herculez Gomez did, as his finishing and spacing were both off. No team goes into a match planning to make changes at halftime. Bradley has done it in every match. It’s an implicit admission that whatever the starting eleven was, it wasn’t working, and Edson Buddle nearly helped create a goal the first time he got the ball.
The way this World Cup is shaping up, the sky is the limit for the U.S. That’s the best part about the unknown that comes next.
