Jun 21 2009
The USA Advanced? Unbelievable!
I was totally blown away today when I found out that our much maligned US Men’s National team had managed one of the all time great escapes today. After losing 3-1 to Italy and then getting embarassed by Brazil 3-0 there was basically no chance that the Red, White, and Blue was going to make the semifinal round of the Confederations Cup. After all, it would take a win by 3 goals against Egypt and Brazil pummelling Italy. We had only scored 1 goal so far, Egypt looked very good, and Italy almost never gets pummelled by anyone.
Who would have ever thought Sunday’s final pool play round would see these scores:
Brazil 3 – Italy 0
USA 3 – Egpyt 0
That left Italy, Egypt and the US all on 3 points (1-2 records). Italy and the USA both had -2 goal differentials (-3 for Egypt), but los Americanos advanced as the second place team by virtue of having scored more goals than Italy (4 to 3). Amazing!
Next stop, the first semifinal on Wednesday for a date with Spain. They’re just on a 15 matching record winning streak. We played them pretty close a year or two back in Spain, though, so it might not be a complete blowout.
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