Fair but USA-Ghana raked in 14.9M viewers. Not bad and more than the population of many nations playing, including Ghana.

Russians are not better than the Canadians in hockey even though they get their start playing over frozen lakes and ponds. Hell Kobe did not grow up playing street ball.

Um, I’m Canadian and most of us did grow up playing on ponds (or iced over tennis courts). Ice time is expensive and at a youth level you play anywhere, anytime you can. that means 5am starts if necessary. and road hockey when there’s no ice time (year round, in any parking lot or alley you can find). side-bar: there are fantastic European hockey players now and Canadians no longer dominate the sport, Olympic Gold not withstanding.

////rolls eyes

Russians are not better than the Canadians in hockey even though they get their start playing over frozen lakes and ponds. Hell Kobe did not grow up playing street ball.

The US team this year was basically a 1.0 version of the pre-2010 German soccer team. The Germans until this WC used to be the 4.0 version where they were amazingly fit, proficient, focussed, cohesive, and organized where their sum was much bigger than their individual selves. The US team has no individual brilliance, whatsoever. Donavon will go to Man City because of the lucrative North American market and not because of his Messi lite skills. Look at all the US goals at this World Cup. Every single goal was a hustle goal or a result of the players sticking to the game plan and coming to the rights spots to take advantage of rebounds and crosses.

Both the Ghana goals were skill goals (especially the one from the very desi looking Prince). The US had at least 6-7 similar chances and did not even come close to scoring a goal. The US just does not score skill goals or goals requiring individual brilliance (like the Tavez goal from yesterday) Bradley hit a ridiculous shot when he only had the goalie to beat. WTF!

Anyway, well done USA. I am proud of the team and even though it’s a cliche, they did leave everything on the field and out hustled almost all every team they played.

In 20-25 years, the US can hope to become a 4.0 Germany be a real contender.

As for the US performance, let’s be honest – they got lucky to get this far. They are hard working players but they lack that x-factor that separates hard-working from magnificent. Jurgen Klinsman on ESPN said this missing ingredient comes from soccer players who grow up poor, playing for the love of the game (which he said was true of basketball in the US). He contrasted this to the US where parents pay for kids to play and thus the kids seldom hunger to win or just enjoy the beauty of the sport. I’m not sure I agree but have a slightly different take: I think brilliant soccer players are made when they play street football… narrow alleys where they must learn to think quickly and be creative since there’s little room to manouver and little time to think before you’re mobbed by the opposing team. If all you’ve ever played on are wide open fields you never learn that skill and that’s what’s missing from US soccer.

(sorry for tangent above; hat tip to Gulati for managing an impressive organization and putting in place a worthy squad)

I saw this kind of liberal western guilt all over the web/facebook this weekend. A particularly elitist subset believe that if they subversively rooted for Ghana over the U.S. (despite being U.S. citizens and having grown up in the U.S.) it would somehow make up for colonialism or other injustices that one can feel righteous about.

Fair??? Good grief……

As for US soccer, there needs to be better effort to reach out to poorer youths around that nation and select the best and put them thru extensive training programs (ideally, overseas). Our current set-up needs revamping, imo. Still props to Gulati (I still say Bradley made terrible player selection this last game) for solid work done. It’s a shame Davies had that accident and that Owenyu (sp?) was never fit for this WC. Also, currses to Giuseppe Rossi!!!!

They did not win their group in 2002 but I did correct the post because it was misleading.

In 2002 they were in the Quarter Finals and lost to Germany… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIFA_World_Cup

There’s gotta be a middle ground between the endless stoppages in our sports and the ridiculous delay tactics in soccer to bleed time.