A tale of two halves

USA 2-2 Slovenia

The way I felt at the end of each half in this game really mirrored the way I felt at the end of the USA's first two games in 2006.

At the end of the first half I was morose, deflated, angry at the team for conceding goals so easily, trying desperately to think of a silver lining - much like I was at the end of the 3-0 defeat to the Czech Republic that opened the 2006 Cup.

At the end of the second half I was drained, exhilarated, thrilled to have a point but furious at the officials for stealing two more - much like I was at the end of the 1-1 draw with Italy.

It's obviously the main part of the story, so let's get the officiating out of the way first. First of all: it was a goal. Of course it was a goal. Unlike DaMarcus Beasley's "game-winning goal" in the Italy game, which was called back for a tough but legitimate offsides on Brian McBride, there is simply no way to defend the whistle blowing in this situation. This wasn't even a case of a guy being too quick to call a foul; any foul was quite clearly on Slovenia. The ref - Koman Coulibaly of Mali, officiating his first ever World Cup game - wasn't trigger-happy, he was incompetent. Or crooked. Given that he didn't even blow the full-time whistle properly, I lean toward the former, but an awful lot of questionable calls went against the US in the first half (including a ludicrous yellow card on Robbie Findley for having the temerity to take a ball off the face in the Slovenian box, though this does spare us having to watch Findley refuse to shoot from five yards out in the Algeria game, for which he's now suspended). It's ironic that we'd spent the first week of the tournament talking about how good the officiating had been - with the red card on Tim Cahill in the Germany/Australia game the only really poor decision of note - and then we got, in one day, Alberto Undiano Mallenco doing his best impersonation of Valentin Ivanov (and potentially submarining Germany's tournament in the process) and Coulibaly's performance, one of the worst from an all-around standpoint that I can remember seeing in a football game. Even Graham Poll's three-yellow-card game (Croatia/Australia 2006) wasn't as bad back to front as this one was.

But with that out of the way, let's face it: we can say what we want about Coulibaly - and I have - but he didn't cost the US the win. Bad refereeing decisions, sadly, are part of football - part of sports - and they're just going to happen. The trick is not to put yourself in a position where they can cost you a game. And by going down 2-0 in the first half thanks to yet more shoddy defending, the Americans put themselves in a position where Coulibaly's decision could cost them the game. Leaving Valter Birsa unchallenged from 24 yards in the thirteenth minute cost them a win. Letting Zlatan Ljubljankic get completely behind the defense in the 42nd minute cost them a win. Coulibaly's awful call cost them the win, yes. They were absolutely cheated. But ultimately, what they could control were those two goals, neither of which should have been given away as easily as they were. And if they don't give those goals away, the bad call never gets a chance to matter.

And really, that's what the US need to focus on going forward. You can't fix the refereeing going into the next game (though I would figure it couldn't be this bad). But you can at least try to fix your own poor defense (more so in first halves) and inability to keep from conceding in the first fifteen minutes of games. We're all mad about the call, but that's not going to solve anything. They've got to go forward and figure out how to beat Algeria, without worrying about what the refs might do. Play well enough and you don't give the refs a chance to ruin it.

In some ways, I'm glad the US didn't get the win here. A win basically vindicates their propensity for going behind - well, hey, you can never count the Americans out! - even though their recent results prove that it need not be that way. I don't want to see the team that showed up in this first half against Algeria. I want to see the team that needed to beat Egypt 3-0 to advance in the Confederations Cup and did. I want to see the team that beat Spain 2-0, or that jumped out to a 2-0 lead on Brazil after 27 minutes. That's the team that needs to show up, and that's the team that had better show up. Because here's a prediction I will make for you: if the US trail Algeria 2-0 at halftime on Wednesday, their tournament will be over.

Serbia 1-0 Germany

Weird game. Germany never looked like the side that showed up to stomp Australia until after a few soft yellow cards (apparently any foul from behind deserved a card?) that culminated in Miroslav Klose being sent off and Serbia putting in a goal just two minutes later. Even down a man, Germany looked the better side for much of the second half - gaining a penalty that could have tied it only to see Lukas Podolski miss - and I found myself, bizarrely, rooting for the Germans to find an equalizer simply because I felt it was no less than they deserved. It wasn't to be, which is a shame, but on the other hand it blows Group D wide open and makes tomorrow's Ghana-Australia tilt a lot more fascinating.

England 0-0 Algeria

You really wonder what the final day of Group C - Wednesday the 23rd - has in store for us. When discussing the scenarios that could see the US advance, I had always assumed England beating Algeria as a given. Now things are all screwed up. I didn't see this game, but from what I've heard England looked pretty awful offensively, thanks in part to a stout Algerian defense. That kind of terrifies me for Wednesday, but hey - we only need one goal. (Just so long as we don't freaking give up any.)

The most amazing thing about this result is it means it is entirely possible - though of course you would not want to count on this - that the US can advance to the second round simply by drawing Algeria, which would make them the first team to advance to the second round of the World Cup without getting a win since Chile in 1998. Here are the possible scenarios:

US defeat Algeria
Obviously preferable. A win over Algeria advances the US automatically. If it comes along with a draw in England/Slovenia, the US and Slovenia advance, with the US coming first in the group if they win by two goals or more, or win by one goal but score more total goals than Slovenia. If Slovenia win, they top the group and the US come second. If England win, the US and England advance, with first place in the group determined by who won by more goals; if they won by the same number of goals, it's reasonably likely that the US would win the second tiebreaker as they currently have a two-goal edge on England in total goals scored in the group.

US draw Algeria
This would be annoying, and yet if England don't win (which looks more possible by the second) it would almost certainly advance the US anyway. If the US and Algeria draw, that gives the US three points and Algeria two; an England loss to Slovenia would leave the English on two points, and the Americans would advance in second place. An England/Slovenia draw would also see Slovenia win the group, with the US and England tied for second, but the US come into Wednesday with a two-goal advantage in total goals scored, which presumably would be difficult for England to overturn - if the US drew 1-1, England would have to draw 3-3 just to force the next tiebreaker, an unlikely result. However, if that did happen, advancement would be determined by the drawing of lots. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

US lose to Algeria
Obviously the US are out if this happens. Amazingly, Algeria are still in with a pretty good shout - if they win and England don't, Algeria advance. Pray this doesn't happen.