Two and Up!

The United States men's soccer team did for only the second consecutive time (and the fourth time overall) in the past 24 years what only this nation's women's soccer team has been able to do on a consistent basis - get out of the group stage.  They did this with a win, a tie, and loss with a better goal differential than Portugal and Ghana,  although they did not win the group - Germany, whom they lost to, did.  And the U.S. coach is German.  But the team is slowly improving and becoming more than just respectable.  And it's a far cry from where they used to be.

Nineteen ninety-eight.  In France.  Oh, I remember 1998.  That team was the worst World Cup team this great land of ours has ever fielded.  Dead last in the standings, all three games lost, and they couldn't even beat the Iranians, who were celebrating that game's outcome as a triumph like it was the seizure of the U.S.  Embassy all over again. The next year, 1999, the women's team when their championship, once again leaving our gals to save our sporting reputation after our guys trashed it.  A disaster.  A blow to American manhood, that.  The team's performance in the World Cup has been uneven since, though it did feature an eighth-place showing in 2002, four short years after the debacle in France.  And after some frustration in 2006 and 2010 . . . this year they beat Ghana! :-D

The U.S. plays Belgium tomorrow, and quite frankly, I think the red, white and blue's winning streak may end there.  It's not because the U.S. is no good; it's simply because the Belgian team is better.  It won its group, not losing a single match, and it's a younger and sprightlier squad than the Americans.  If the U.S. team goes home after tomorrow, though, it will have done so only after the English, Italian, Greek, and the formerly defending world champion Spanish teams, among others, have all been sent packing.  That's some illustrious company there, and the U.S. has outlasted all of them.  Though, if they can get beyond eighth place - still their best showing since their third-place finish in the first World Cup in 1930. Good grief, this is the seventh straight World Cup in which the U.S. has played.  That has to count for something! 

The Netherlands eliminated Olympic champion Mexico, and Costa Rica, the team from out of nowhere that could actually win this tournament, knocked out Greece.  Me, I'll be rooting for whomever can stop Brazil. :-p