Not Ghana happen

If the draw with Italy had potential to become one of the seminal moments in American soccer history, the loss to Ghana took that potential out back and shot it, Old Yeller-style. With advancement to the second round within their grasp, the Americans laid their second egg of the World Cup, crashing out with just a single point and quite possibly setting national soccer back five years. The Italy game, so inspiring five days ago, will ultimately be a historical footnote, the one point the Americans managed to get on European soil - but the only one they could get in an embarrassing early exit at the tournament that was supposed to be US Soccer's coming-out party.

So what happened? Unsurprisingly, the team's failure can be blamed on a convergence of a multitude of factors, each as damning as the next.

One of the biggest and most immediately obvious was the Americans' lack of aggressiveness. Though they may well not have beaten the Czechs even if they were able to run with them offensively, the U.S. struggled mightily to get anything going against a Czech defense that had been relatively porous in qualifying despite starting arguably the world's best goalkeeper. The Czechs ended up conceding a total of four goals to Ghana and Italy in two losses that sent them packing as well. Certainly the Czechs played their game of the tournament in the first game; there was some speculation that the U.S. would have preferred to face an aging Czech team later in group play, and this may have been borne out by the actual results. Nonetheless, the U.S. never got anything going.

This wasn't an isolated incident, either. Against both Italy and Ghana, the Americans significantly upped the midfield intensity they had failed to display in the first game, but routinely stopped charging once they approached the 18-yard box; you'd have thought every opposing penalty area was mined the way they avoided it. Clint Dempsey's 43rd-minute goal against Ghana, off a nice feed from DaMarcus Beasley, was not only the only American-scored goal of the tournament, but one of the very few good chances the U.S. got out of the run of play. More often they seemed content to wait for the perfect spot or a setpiece, hoping the chances would come to them rather than making chances for themselves. In the second half of the Ghana game, down 2-1 and needing a win to advance, the Americans played with a startling lack of urgency, mostly content to bang it around the midfield. Even the introduction of Eddie Johnson proved fruitless, as the explosive striker rarely saw the ball.

With the possible exception of France, no non-minnow looked as woeful on offense in the group stages as did the U.S. side. The midfielders had a terrible time linking up with the strikers (in particular, McBride was almost completely marginalized throughout the tournament, his most noteworthy moment being his failure to get out of Beasley's way, denying the Americans the win over Italy), and nobody took quality shots from distance, an offensive feature of pretty much every other team in the world. The Americans appear to be a side built around defense first and attacking only when necessary, which is a hard habit to break when you find yourself going behind in every game.

Which brings us to the next problem: the shocking defensive breakdowns. It wasn't just that the U.S. made far too many horrible gaffes deep in its own half, it was that they managed to make them in such a way that they were nearly always punished for them. Of the six goals conceded over three games, fully four were at least partially the result of either a hideous mistake at the back or simply the exposure of a U.S. defensive weakness. The Jan Koller goal which, one might argue, set the tone for the entire tournament was largely the result of poor marking; Koller may have been tall enough to get to the ball first, but his unimpeded progress to the goal mouth was inexcusable. Tomas Rosicky's second goal was a botched offsides trap; so was Italy's goal, allowed when Eddie Pope decided to stop marking his man in the hopes he would be called offsides. Sadly, Pope forgot to inform his teammates of his plan, and Gilardino coasted towards the net unmarked. Ghana's opening goal was not so much a defensive breakdown as a mental mistake; Claudio Reyna should have known better than trying to dribble out of the back like that, and what's worse the play caused the injury that ended up pulling him from the game. A fit Reyna in the second half might have made a difference.

Of course, you can't discuss the U.S. getting bounced without some discussion of the officiating. I don't think it should be a crutch - the Americans made plenty of mistakes on their own - but you can't say it didn't have any effect. Would the Italy game have been different if it had been 11-on-10 U.S. in the second half instead of 9-on-10? Almost certainly. Would the Ghana game have been different if the U.S. had gone into halftime with all the momentum instead of being forced to play a dispirited catchup for the final 45? Quite possibly. That said, the Americans had 45 minutes to, at the very least, score one goal and save some face, even if they didn't advance, and they rarely threatened. I don't think you can discount the mental blow that the penalty kick was, coming so soon after the tying goal, and especially being one of the worst calls for a penalty kick you've ever seen in your life - but if you're going to be a top five team in the world, you can't shut down when a couple calls don't go your way. The U.S. didn't do that in the Italy game, but in the Ghana game, they seemed to have one foot on the plane in the second half.

The mental game is another aspect. For all the praise lavished upon this team and its toughness after the Italy game, the players were shockingly fragile during both the Czech Republic and Ghana matches. Everyone curled into a ball after Koller's goal, and shocking though it may have been, it's clear in retrospect that that Czech team was not so good as it was the Americans who were bad. It took Ghana's second goal to do the same in the last match, and while, again, it was a shocking goal - and, unlike Koller's, a blatant bad call as opposed to an American mistake - that's no excuse for closing up shop in what, really, was, or should have been, the game of many of these players' lives.

Some of this should be traced back to the coach. For all of Bruce Arena's success over the past eight years - much of it, it must be noted, in a relatively weak CONCACAF - and his track record as a developer of young players, if this World Cup proved anything about him it was that he is not a master tactician or motivator. Too long he kept his foot on the brake in the team's alignment even as it was obvious that the Americans needed goals, and it's hard to argue that he knows how to drive a team when you look at the uninspired second half against Ghana, only the most important 45 minutes of American soccer in history. Some of this may be the personnel, however. Arena picked the team and deserves some of the blame if his guys played flat, but still - should soccer players need a master motivator to get them up for the World Cup? It's the World Cup!

The list of supposed U.S. soccer saviors who came up bust in this tournament is far longer than it should be. Landon Donovan, a breakout star in 2002 and the man who everyone thought could and should carry the U.S. to greater glory in Germany, was virtually nowhere to be seen in three games, showing up in the Italy game only after so much new space was created by the dismissal of three players. That's all well and good, but if you can't find the holes when it's 11-on-11, you're not going to be much help in most games. DaMarcus Beasley got the only U.S. assist of the World Cup, but apart from that and his disallowed goal in the Italy game, he was comfortably anonymous - so much so against the Czechs that he was ripped into by Arena and benched to start the Italy game. (Whined Beasley after Arena's now-infamous "We got nothing out of Beasley" barb, "I don't know what he wants me to do. I was back there defending the whole time." Which is nice, unless you're an attacking midfielder and your team needs goals.) Brian McBride, who scored twice in 2002, was only moderately threatening, though if you're a striker who scores a lot of goals on headballs and rebounds, it can be pretty hard to rack up the goals when no one is putting the ball in the box. Kasey Keller had a couple big saves against Italy, and none of the goals allowed were his fault, but he hardly lived up to the pre-tournament hype - is it starting to fall into place why he's the goalie for a middling Bundesliga team and not, say, Manchester United?

The question is, where do we go from here? Unthinkable though it may be to some, I think one of the first steps may be to move on from Arena. I think he's already brought US Soccer about as far as he's capable of taking it - and he should be commended for that, but you don't hang on to a guy who has clearly passed his peak and is only heading downward. I don't know who you bring in - I've never been the biggest fan of the mercenary style of international coaching, but there's something to be said for the success of guys like Guus Hiddink (even with his bizarre goalie selection today) and Big Phil Scolari. Does the United States need a manager of that type to be successful? It's hard to say. Is there an obvious candidate to come in next? I don't know. But I do think that we've reached the end of the line for Arena, one way or the other. The 2006 World Cup proved that the United States has a much longer way to go than we thought to be competitive at the major international level; there's a next step to be taken, but Arena's lack of tactical creativity or risk suggests that he isn't the guy to take it.

Who is? That's up for US Soccer to decide, I suppose. And maybe it's helpful that the World Cup likely won't be back in Europe for another 12 years. But there's pretty much nowhere to go but up from here, and the Americans shouldn't have a dearth of talent anytime soon. Heck, by the next World Cup maybe Freddy Adu will have come of age. Whoever comes in, I hope they inject a little more offensive life into this team. You don't have to play like Brazil to be successful at the World Cup... but clearly it helps.