World Cup Recap: Foreign player most American's could root for

A couple of observations;

The foreign player that the uninformed American football fan could root for: Uruguayan defensive midfielder, Diego Perez. Tireless work ethic, in-your-face defensive style, no frills, lets get on with this game. You want to sell the game in America.......... stock teams full of players like Diego Perez and Joe SixPack will start watching soccer. Most true American football fans don't revere the offensive stars as much as the tough defensive generals, the middle linebackers, the tough, eat grass, come, cross that scrimmage line and you'll pay big time..... Lawrence Taylor, Mike Curtis, Mike Ditka, Ray Lewis (sorry, I have a Baltimore bias). In soccer, Diego Perez fits the mold.

The game for third place (Uruguay vs Germany) was the entertaining game. In the final, it was slow going until the extra 30 minutes. Tactically, the Netherlands had to shut down Spain's elegant short passing game. How to do that? Aggressive clattering foul after another. Slow the Spanish down to a crawl and hope for a lightening strike, which Robben almost delivered twice. However, if you accumulate enough yellows, eventually someone gets another and you are down to 10 men. That happened in extra time and Spain's finesse prevailed.

For the U.S.A, we will hold onto the late inning strike against Algeria that sent us out of the group. A compilation video of how this goal played around the country

I was the dude from Arkansas, except I didn't have my wife to hop over to, arms upstretched, only my puzzled three legged dog.

Ghana 2, USA 1; World Cup

Ghana showed what you can do with world class strikers who can fight off two defenders and blast the ball over the hands of the keeper. For some reason, USA doesn't develop world class strikers and this has always handicapped us when we go against the good teams (Landon Donovan played an attacking midfield role in this World Cup). A lot of our attacks depend on that cute last pass in the box which most top teams have no issue in denying.

Coach Bob Bradley went with two players in the lineup, Findley and Clark, who hadn't done much in previous matches and failed spectacularly this game. To correct this glaring mistake, Bradley used two early subs to get back to the side that played well at the end of the Algeria match. This left him with few options at the end to get some fresh legs when the game went into extra time.

Still, major improvement from 2006.

World Cup; USA 1, Algeria 0

I took leave of work to watch this at home. F..king unbelievable! With the Yanks, the skill may sometimes be lacking but the heart is always out there.

I turned on the TV 4 minutes in. Immediately, USA back Jay DeMerit whiffed on a ball inside the box, the Algerian collected and clanged a zinger off the top bar. Whew! Double Whew! At the 20 minutes mark, there was Dempsey sneaking up the back post to put in a brilliant goal.... Wait! Offsides! Not another goal disallowed! Friggin unbelievable! And the frenetic pace of Red, White, and Blue all during the second half when it was known that England had the one goal lead over Slovenia. Dempsey, wide open, another clanger off the far post and he collected the rebound only to knock it wide.........groan, Altidore, Buddle, almost as one on a header right to the hands of the Algerian keeper........AArgh!!!!, Michael Bradley on a free kick, zinging around the wall right into the hands of the keeper...Sh..t!!!!, Dempsey, another swerver punched away by the keeper...my left arm punching the air only to be withdrawn.. another disappointment.... Altidore, parked in front of the goal, knocks one over the top.... Groan.. Jozy...Jozy., face in hands, curses..........

And when all seemed lost; 1 minute into injury time, USA keeper Howard heaves the ball up to midfield for Donovan, to Altidore on the wing, to Dempsey in front of the keeper, Dempsey crashing a redirect into the desperate keeper who could only punch it away to a sprinting Donovan who, zap, exclamation point!, zing, punched it in for the winner..Exclamation point!!!!! Me, some kook all alone, hands up, sprinting around the TV room, hooting and hollering while, Sammy, my old canine buddy looks on, puzzled.

2 and half minutes left, 90 minutes finished, only injury time remaining, tie Algeria and you go home, bye bye, board that flight back to the USA.... and they get it! they finally close the deal, they get the f...king goal that puts them through.....

F...king unbelievable!!!!!

Yanks of the match.

Forget the morons of the media who are always looking for the goal scorers......

Clint Dempsey, amazing workrate, took an elbow, bleeding from the nose at the end of the match, always pressing, always probing... if he hadn't pressured keeper Rais Ouheb Mbouli on that last goal sequence, Landon wouldn't had the rebound. Dave Kelly, Mr. Fulham, this ones for you......

and

Jay DeMerit - excepting his miscue at 4 minutes, he stepped up the rest of the game. A physical, no nonsense presence on D, settled in to deny Algeria many opportunities, and when we subbed in strikers for D in the second half we needed our three backs to be there and they were. We all know, when it comes down to championships, big D, defense is the key.

Ghana next.....

Vamos USA....

Vamos USA

"America the Beautiful" sung at one of the men's urinal's at the World Cup......