Primitive Information

U.S. just sent out against Ghana.

And now we’re able to pencil in Ghana for that second slot, likely against Brazil. I’m not going to rant about another horrible call, bottom line is, the U.S. needed to find more scoring. In tribute to my favorite World Cup announcer, here’s a thumbnail analysis:

“You’re the U.S., you’ve got to push the ball forward, you’ve got to get some bodies moving in space, you’ve got to take some chances and make something happen. You got a bad break on the penalty kick, a nice effort after that, but not enough quality touches in the box for the American squad…”

Although as I mentioned the other day, I wasn’t expecting much, it still hurts. And it hurts to lose like this. But this has been the story of the World Cup so far. U.S. isn’t the only team to have legitimate complaint about officiating — just ask Zidane. Looking ahead, I do think there was some promise (straining to see the silver lining here; I am a Cancer so have a bit of a negative streak) with Convey and Johnson at the top of the deck. Obviously, the U.S. needs to find offense somewhere. Atrocious penalty aside, Onyewu looks to be the back of the future. They’ve got good athleticism and team speed, really there’s no excuse for not being more dangerous on the attack. U.S. soccer will wait a respectful amount of time before giving the boot to Bruce Arena, who couldn’t have looked less into it on the sidelines, and bringing in someone who’s right for this team. They’ll faze out aging stars like Donovan and Reyna (whose giveaway would’ve been the story if not for the ref) and find guys to plug those midfield slots. Olsen looked pretty good back there, actually.

Tina and I took a break to go swimming yesterday, and while I’m tempted to once again go the narcissistic route and pop in an image of myself churning away in the pool, instead I’ve got to go with this one of Tina. Now if I can just get her onto the hood of my car…

As for the rest of the games yesterday: as Tina said, blah humbug. We saw nothing from Argentina or the Dutch, while Mexico continued to look shaky when they had a golden opportunity for at least a draw. Oscar Bravo, why couldn’t you have taken that PK for Ghana?

Tags: World Cup 2006 //