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DEL.ICIO.USA miracle point
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AP / Brian McBride and the U.S. -- bloodied, but still alive
Down a man, after having a man advantage, and still pulling out a 1-1 draw with Italy. The U.S. team is still alive after an incredibly dramatic encounter in Kaiserslautern, coupled with Ghana’s shock 2-0 win over the Czech Republic earlier Saturday.
A miracle point, that’s what it is. Everybody else in the Americans’ group has three points. The U.S., which has one, must win against Ghana Thursday in Nuremberg or go home. But given their reduction to nine men after a red card frenzy, this one feels like a win.
A French-owned East Cobb bar was Off the Ball’s the vantage point for this draining epic. The French patrons watched on, bemusedly, smoking and in some cases rooting for Italy. There were a few Scottish brogues thrown in, and plenty of exasperation all around.
And that was before the full effect of the cold glasses of Stella Artois kicked in.
“They all look freaked out!” shouted one of Off the Ball’s amigos as the Americans listened to their national anthem. But this game would be different than Monday’s debacle against the Czechs.
Once the game kicked off, it was like a night at La Scala. After Italy went from a man down to a man up, the Italians went down like there were snipers positioned on the roof of the Fritz-Walter Stadion. When they weren’t going down due to ill-advised tackles by the U.S., they were diving and wailing like Pavarotti. This one had more twists and turns than La Boheme, and was every bit as melodramatic.
The gyrations started when referee Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay red-carded Daniele De Rossi of Italy in the 28th minute for an elbow to the face of Brian McBride, who was bleeding heavily. That came just after Christian Zaccardo’s own-goal tied up the game at 1-1.
It was ugly, rough and out of control most of the time, but the U.S. is still alive. Red cards to Pablo Mastroeni right before halftime and Eddie Pope right after the second half started were senseless, given the way Larrionda was calling the match. And both will be unavailable Thursday, giving Bruce Arena some serious defensive headaches to sort out.
Kasey Keller saved the U.S. in the final minutes, after late sub DaMarcus Beasley appeared to have scored the game-winner, only to have McBride whistled for offside.
A win was there for the taking — for either side. But thanks to some resolute defending by the Americans and some shockingly inept attacking by Italy, the U.S. is alive.
The odds are still a bit long — the best case scenario is that the Yanks and Italy both win. Given what just transpired today, Off the Ball isn’t holding her breath. But at least she can breathe — if even just a little.
Comments
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By Red, White, & Blue
June 17, 2006 10:37 PM | Link to this
If the US can do beat Ghana and Italy can beat the Czechs then the game today will go down in the history books for the US as one of the hardest fought games. If the US does not win and the Czechs beat Italy than the US will have played an integral part in keeping Italy from advancing to round 2. Not bad considering most of the European analysts gave the US no shot at playing a European team to the wire.
Regardless of what happens on Thursday the ref today should never be allowed to ref again(including U-6 pee-wees).
Lets start hoping for a miracle on Thursday!!! U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A
By Rutuger
June 18, 2006 3:17 AM | Link to this
Unbelievable. Rutuger may have had a sip or two too much of grandpa’s old cough medicine this evening, but I’ll be giddy-got-dayumed if that worthless ref didn’t sabatoge Team USA. Intentional elbow to the face is the equivalent of late slide tackle? Unacceptable. Ref has previous sanctions for being so bad. Rutuger not happy but USA got tie and will play for big win on Thurs., so Rutuger will skip work. He anticipates flu-like symptoms.
Team USA played like a real team, which was non-existent Monday. Rutuger types in third person because he sees other posters do same and can be funny, so everybody wins.
Convey showed something. Gooch stepped up. Grandpa Keller made enormous saves. Landon created plays that others then botched.
Rutuger wonders if Italian team comprised solely of little girls due to constant diving and long greasy hair. Italy girls offsides more times than instances of June roadwork on West Peachtree.
USA real team but didn’t show up Monday which may cost us. Could have competed with Czech but didn’t.
US fans making louder presence than Italians on international television make Rutuger very proud. Well done folks.
By potvox
June 18, 2006 5:52 AM | Link to this
After seeing Italy play twice, I do believe that I saw less diving at the last summer olympics! That has to have been the worst officiating I’ve ever seen in soccer…I wouldn’t let that ref work a ymca league!
By Henry
June 18, 2006 8:19 AM | Link to this
Kasey Keller is back, he showed what he can do and that is a good thing. As a retired national referee myself, after 25 years of officiating on all levels, I am appalled that FIFA even selected this guy. He was suspended in Urugay for misconduct and was not sellected to officate 2002. This was by far the worst officiating in decades. The first yellow to Pope was incredible, the man played the ball, period. The direct red card to Mastoani was also stupid, it was ment to even out the team side. Smells to me that the Italians got to this caracter before the game. All in all playing against 12 men, then even and lastly agains 11 with 9 men the us played very hard and soccer luck was on their side. Just to confirm my assumption with this horrendous referee, I watched the game again at ESPNCL and it was worth than the first time around. The man called everthing aginst us even when the opposing player was not touched and let most of the lesser contact and charges from behind against us. FIFA worries about racism they should be more concerened with their official being biggoted and against other countries. Sad, Sad, Sad,…..
By Horn Guy Dos
June 18, 2006 8:55 AM | Link to this
Knew it, just knew this would happen. You can blame the ref for one red card MAYBE, but he overreacted seeing McBride’s blood.
Listen, when you jump, it’s impossible to keep your arms at your side. Am I the only person who realizes this?
Actually, it’s Arena who should be getting the heat, but he won’t because he has some sort of “2-0” shield.
What the hell was he doing, with 10 men, NOT SUBBING EDDIE POPE AT THE HALF? Pope was terrible all game and carried a yellow into halftime. As my brother said, you have a defender for REAL SALT LAKE trying to defend world-class players. It doesn’t work.
AND WHERE WERE THE SUBS? Arena used one. ONE. You’d think that with only 9 men, 8 of them chasing, that more than one would tire. Kept waiting and waiting for Eddie Johnson but he had as much chance of playing as Freddy Adu.
By Tee
June 18, 2006 11:48 AM | Link to this
I can across this…..thought I would share it.
Secret Italian Training Video
By Nicholas Irwin
June 18, 2006 3:07 PM | Link to this
I think, in some ways, with all the other stuff floating around about the ref and such, it’s being overlooked what an amazing performance our guys put out there yesterday. We were playing with nine men for an entire half against Italy and didn’t give up a goal. In fact, we carried the run of play up until about five minutes left. There have been some people saying that yesterday’s game was the best result in American soccer history, and I’m going to have to say that I agree. Any number of games can be argued for, let’s take a look at them starting at the beginning, shall we?
Def. England 1-0, 1950 World Cup: This actually probably is the best result, but no one remembers it at this point. It’s the stuff of corny movies and sepia-toned historical accounts. I don’t think the game is even available on video of any kind. It’s just kind of there and you almost forget that it even happened. Difficult to say this is better than a game people actually saw.
Def. Trinidad & Tobago 1-0, clinched spot in 1990 World Cup: I realize that this is probably the victory that started it all, and I fully appreciate that, but please…it came in World Cup qualifying against Trinidad & Tobago. Should we ever actually win the World Cup, are you still gonna say that win over Trinidad & Tobago was bigger because “we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that”? That game that got us into the World Cup was gonna happen sooner or later. When it does, you’re glad it happens and then you move on to bigger things.
Def. Colombia 2-1, 1994 World Cup: A decent argument can be made for this on some levels, as it was our first modern era World Cup win and came completely unexpectedly. At the time it definitely was our biggest result ever (other than the England game). This might also have been the biggest result in terms of building soccer in the U.S. However, Colombia wasn’t exactly a world-class team (they were about where we are now, I would say) and there was the whole Escobar getting murdered thing that kind of put a damper on it.
Def. Mexico 2-0, 2001 World Cup qualifying: I’ve seen several people claim it was this, and I frankly don’t get it. The people who do say something like “This is the game where we showed Mexico that we weren’t gonna be pushed around on our home soil any longer.” I mean…I guess. We had definitely gotten results at home against Mexico before. Maybe this was the game where it started to get into Mexico’s head a little bit, but that doesn’t make it the best result of all-time.
Def. Portugal 3-2, 2002 World Cup: Again, at the time it was the greatest result we had ever gotten (again, save for the England result which, as mentioned above, should really be put in a different category. Alright, I’m gonna stop mentioning the England match now.). It was against a world-class, highly-respected European team at a World Cup. What makes it slightly less important than yesterday though is that a)it turned out that Portugal flat-out bombed, b)while highly respected, they weren’t as highly respected as Italy and c)we had a full compliment of players in this game and d)didn’t have to play against the referee, too. Plus, the Italy game didn’t feature the comedy stylings of Jeff Agoos.
Def. Mexico 2-0, 2002 World Cup: Certainly on the short list, but really only because it came in a World Cup round of 16. This game wasn’t as great a hurdle as most people seem to think. We were playing our archrival, after all. We knew them, we knew what they were going to do and we knew how to beat them. That we beat Mexico wasn’t actually all that large of a feat in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, it was in a World Cup round of 16, so it is in the top three, probably (this one and the Colombia game fight for the third spot).
Lossed to Germany 1-0, 2002 World Cup: I’ve seen this mentioned too, but unless I’m missing something here, we lost the game. That’s not exactly a good result. I guess it showed we could play with the big boys or something, but didn’t we already show that against Portugal? I’m not buying this one.
Another thing about the Italy result is that it came after a completely terrible performance and it looked like the team was falling apart. The only other one of these that came after a terrible performance was the Mexico ‘02 World Cup game, and that was in slightly different circumstances, as it was in an entirely different round. I don’t think anybody, in their heart of hearts, actually expected for us to not lose that game yesterday. Also, it can’t be overlooked that we held out against a world-class opponent for an entire half with only nine men, and in fact could have won very easily. We had not yet shown that we could get into a slugfest and with a world-class opponent and do anything but wilt. We showed that yesterday. That is why it was, in my opinion, the biggest result in U.S. soccer history.
By Andrew
June 18, 2006 3:47 PM | Link to this
Congratulations! One of the best performances by any national or club American team in any sport. But guess what? I was listening to ESPN radio and it only merited third billing behind golf and baseball! You dont deserve your athletes Andrew England