GO FOR 2

WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED.  ??

For those of you who weren’t watching a soccer match from South Africa in the middle of the day, the United States just beat Spain, the number 1 ranked team in the world. This is a Spanish team that had won 35 straight games, was a favorite not only to win the Confederations Cup but also the World Cup, and is widely considered one of the most technically skilled teams in the world.

So what happened here? The United States played with the same fire and passion that they did in their 3-0 rout of Egypt, but that’s not all that happened. The most skilled players on the U.S. team actually decided to, you know, use their skills? Clint Dempsey, who has been playing awful at the Confederations Cup, finally showed up and scored in the 74th minute off yet another botched Landon Donovan shot/pass. Dempsey did an amazing job just getting to the ball which was passed behind him, but then he made an amazing twisting shot past a defender and buried it in the back of the net. 

Jozy Altidore also stepped up, and simply out-willed the entire Spanish backline on the way to an brilliant goal in the 27th minute. Altidore is arguably the best player on the U.S. squad, and plays for the most accomplished international club of any American, Villarreal in Spain’s La Liga. While Altidore is only 19, coach Bob Bradley and the entire U.S. team have been waiting for his fast, aggressive play to show through in international competition.

So, does completely shutting down the best team in the world show that the United States deserved to advance out of the group stage? I’m saying no, but that’s because the U.S. didn’t NEED to show they deserved to advance. A lot of American sports writers, journalists, and loud, bald guys (Good job, Kornheiser) have been saying that Italy and not the United States should have advanced to the semifinals because they had the head-to-head win. Well, too bad. The point differential system has been the tie-breaker in international soccer for decades, and just because American sportswriters don’t like it doesn’t matter. The United States did what they had to do, won the tie-breaker, and deserved to advance.

Sure, the domination of Spain provides a nice, big plate of crow for the ignorant writers who wasted their time arguing that the rules are wrong and Italy deserved to advance. However, the United States didn’t need  to prove anything to a bunch of whiny guys who don’t really understand or follow the beautiful game. What the U.S. did need to do was prove to the other national teams that they weren’t a pushover team that just got lucky, and that they deserve to be taken seriously. The win may or may not have positive repurcussions for the team back home, but it absolutely will have an effect when they show up to the World Cup next year and people actually show them respect.