Half a minute.\u00a0 That’s all that stood between the U.S. team and progression into the Round of 16.\u00a0 They just needed to keep Portugal out for another thirty seconds…<\/p>\n
I probably watched the replay of that closing sequence in Manaus twenty times last night.\u00a0 When the ball comes to Bradley near the half-way line, all he really needs to do is hoof it up the field, or into the stands.\u00a0 Instead, he takes a heavy first touch, the ball squirts away from him, and he’s muscled off of it by one of the four Portuguese midfielders swarming around him.\u00a0 Once that happens, everything else seems inevitable:\u00a0 the ball being sprayed out wide to Ronaldo, the inch-perfect cross flying into the box, Varela’s header flying past a helpless Tim Howard.\u00a0 And then it was over.<\/p>\n
So how’s a U.S. fan supposed to feel after two games in Brazil?\u00a0 Confused, I think, because our boys have somehow found a way to disappoint us while playing better (and getting better results) than most of us expected.\u00a0 The Ghana match was a throwback to gritty American performances from past tournaments:\u00a0 very little possession, desperate defending, a goal from a set piece,\u00a0straight out of the underdog’s playbook.\u00a0 The Portugal game was a different story.\u00a0 Here was the evolution we’d been promised.\u00a0 We kept the ball, passed it around well, created chances.\u00a0 Of course, we benefited from the fact that Portugal was missing a couple of first-choice players, and Christiano Ronaldo was operating at less than 100%.\u00a0 Even a diminished Portugual side, though, is stuffed with experienced players from Europe’s top leagues, and we’ve not fared well historically against European opposition.\u00a0\u00a0Outplaying them meant something.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, moral victories aren’t much good in the standings, so here we sit with four points.\u00a0 And that honestly seems about right (for as much as we might feel like we deserved to beat Portugal, Ghana will feel like they deserved a draw against us).\u00a0 Will it be good enough to see us through to the next round, though?\u00a0 Well… there’s always a chance, right?\u00a0 We’ll park the bus against Germany, and if we can keep it 0-0 into the second half, maybe they’ll back off and take the draw that gets both of us through.\u00a0 My gut tells me that’s not gonna happen, though.\u00a0 I think Germany will score, and we’ll need to put at least one in the net.\u00a0 I also think that Ghana will beat Portugal by more than one goal, so we can’t count on that tiebreaker.\u00a0 In the end, though, I’m gonna choose to believe:<\/p>\n
Predictions for Thursday:<\/p>\n
Ghana beats Portugal 3-0.<\/p>\n
U.S. draws with Germany 1-1 (Germany scores early, U.S. scores late).<\/p>\n
Germany and the U.S. go through!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Half a minute. That’s all that stood between the U.S. team and progression into the Round of 16. They just needed to keep Portugal out for another thirty seconds… I probably watched the replay of that closing sequence in Manaus twenty times last night. When the ball comes to Bradley near the half-way line, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2014"],"yoast_head":"\n