I had to go somewhere today and got back with 10 minutes left to the game seeing England ahead and the US game at 0-0 with under 10 min to go. The England game just finished and Slovakia was in for about 30 seconds when Donovan scored on the rebound.
One important thing to point out, the goal would not have been possible if the US Goalie at the other end (Howard) didn’t make the save and wasted no time throwing the ball forward to start the break. That will not likely be remembered but it should be.
Yeah it’s soccer but it’s US Soccer!
Update: This is consistent with what I wrote before:
Asked about the earlier disallowed goal, a glory-drenched Donovan responded, and I paraphrase: “We embody what Americans are all about. We can moan about or we can keep going.
Does that sound conservative or what?
Update 2: Cripes Stacy is so excited that he has TWO posts on the subject.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 
[…] on Grass.” Why? Because we’re red-blooded Americans, that’s why!UPDATE II: Da Tech Guy is a red-blooded American, too. var addthis_append_data='false';var addthis_language='en';var addthis_options='twitter, digg, […]
[…] encouragement: Have faith Joy, after all that’s what the World Cup announcers were saying at the 90th minute of today’s […]
I am also an American. But come on. This team has no expectations what so ever. Since the World Cup started in 1930 the US has only advanced to the 2nd round 4 times. FOUR times!
In that same amount of time, Brazil has won it 5 times in 7 finals, Italy 4 times in 6 finals, Germany 3 times in 7 finals, Argentina 2 times in 4 finals.
But hooray for the mighty US who for the 4th time since 1930 (in 80 years & 18 WC) advanced to the second round!
Americans like to stand for winning. Thats why we love the Lakers, Celtics, Yankees (except in MA), Tiger Woods, the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patiots, USA men’s basketball, women’s olympic hockey/softball, etc. and hate the Montreal Canadiens. See the common thread? All those teams win and win consistently. They dominate. We can beat our chests and say to the world ‘We are better then you!’ Heck we even like Nadal and Federer because they dominate tennis, and they aren’t even Americans.
Americans are fair weather front running fans.
This team has the best of both worlds. They made the final of last years confederations cup but then lost as expected to Brazil. It was an unbelievable run, people cared for about a week and then that was it. We expected carryover into the World Cup and here’s what we get. Two ties and a win in extra time of the third game and barely advance past the group stage. No matter where they finish no one will care. They aren’t expected to win it all so it doesn’t matter. We’ll watch again in four years if they advance out of CONCACAF to the World Cup in Brazil.
All the media is talking about (besides how great the American soccer players, they won 1 game! ha) is that the refs are against us, blah blah blah. There must be some kind of collusion against the US because look at all these goals that get taken away due to fouls against the US or because the team is clearly offsides. While of course failing to mention that fouls are called all the time throughout the game on both sides.
How about since soccer isn’t a major American sport, our players may be inferior to the other teams, lack depth at the skill positions, not be as good and have flaws in the style which causes poor technique and a reason for fouls to be called on this team. Its not like we have top notch American coaches who were part of an ‘Advanced to the 2nd round of the World Cup’ team.
How about if this country won a match or two for a change and dominated the tournament people would really care, young adults would play soccer, we’d eventually get really good, and dominate every four years like we do in the Olympics.
Just how popular is soccer in America you ask.
I played varsity soccer in high school, for two years! How did I make the varisty team you ask? Well, there was so little interest from the entire school body that they didn’t have enough people/exchange students to field a team. So a friend of mine (and team captain) asked me to join up and I did. I showed off my lack of skill in the first practice and was named a starting midfielder.