Survivor: Guatemala

A shrug of the shoulders and a hearty "eh" to the U.S.'s 0-0 draw in Guatemala on Wednesday night. ESPN2 was showing a Mets-Braves game that ran long, so the game cut in at the 23rd minute, which was a bit irritating but I guess understandable (the Mets-Braves game at least had potential playoff ramifications, while the U.S. has, of course, already clinched).

Anyway, we didn't miss much. Starting an entirely different 11 from the squad that took on Mexico (in fact, the only starters who had even played in Columbus were Pablo Mastroeni, Santino Quaranta, and Jeff Cunningham, who were the U.S.'s three subs in that game), the Americans looked for most of the game like they were playing for the 0-0 draw they ended up getting - lazy long passes, not much attacking, concerned mostly with keeping Guatemala off the board. Late in the game things started to pick up a bit, especially when Eddie Johnson came on in the 57th minute and Landon Donovan in the 64th, and the U.S. did blow a few opportunities right in front of the Guatemalan goal, in particular a 3-on-2 break that concluded with Johnson knocking a header well wide to the right of the net. But Donovan probably should have just blasted a finisher there rather than offering it up; the other U.S. problem for most of the night was simply too much passing and not enough shooting. It was like the U.S. team wanted Guatemala to have a point and decided they weren't going to shoot unless they were already inside the six-yard box.

At least the defensive effort wasn't bad, putting up a clean sheet with a second-string team at Guatemala, a place the U.S. has apparently never won, against a team that wanted the game a lot more. Yeah, there were some lapses here and there, but again, considering that this wasn't the first team, I'll take a little luck if things worked out overall, which they did. It's too bad we couldn't ever bury a winner, but sometimes that's how these things go.

The U.S. is now tied atop the group with Mexico on 19 points. We should own the tiebreaker, holding the edge in goal differential (+1 to -1) in the two games. I'm not sure it matters much, though. We're talking about the World Cup here - even if a protected seed does exist, you're pretty much always going to end up in a group with some world power. Look at 2002 - we drew Portugal and the host South Koreans, Mexico drew Italy and 1998 third-place finishers Croatia, and Costa Rica - which led CONCACAF in points - drew Brazil and eventual third-place finishers Turkey! (Needless to say, they were the only CONCACAF team of the three not to advance to the knockout rounds.) So maybe finishing second would actually be better. I suspect that's what will happen; we finish with Panama at home, likely a win even with second-teamers, but the game at Costa Rica could well be a loss, as they'll be playing to seal their ticket to Germany and it's in San José. (We lost that game 2-0 in the qualifying for the 2002 Cup.) I say 22, max 23 points; meanwhile, Mexico host Guatemala and play at Trinidad and Tobago, both games they should win even if they choose to field a secondary squad. (Personally, I get the feeling that the Mexicans will want to take top of the group as if to show the U.S. that they are still the #1 team in the region, and that they may continue to play most of their top players as a result. More power to them if that's the case; I'll take a healthier team over a meaningless first place.)