Doomed from the start
NUREMBERG, Germany -- What more fitting place than the Franken-Stadion for a team to come back from the dead? The United States soccer team, consigned to the grave after one bad day, was on the verge of a remarkable resuscitation here yesterday afternoon. Their Italian friends were beating the Czechs in Hamburg and the Yanks were tied with Ghana just before halftime. All they had to do was win and they'd be on to a second-round date with five-time champion Brazil.
Now, they're 6 feet under for good and there isn't a set of electrodes in this whole castle-filled country big enough to jolt them back to life. Maybe if German referee Markus Merk hadn't awarded the Ghanaians a dubious penalty, it all would have been different. ``To have to chase the game on that call is kind of remarkable at this level," observed coach Bruce Arena, after the US had gone three-and-out at the World Cup for the third time in five visits. ``It's a tough one to deal with."
The problem, of course, wasn't one call and one match. The problem was that the US was chasing the tournament from the fifth minute of the first game. There are two cardinal rules in the World Cup: Don't lose the opener and don't fall behind. The Americans lost their opener to the Czechs by three goals and fell behind in every game. Their record in Cup history when they give up the first goal: 0-15-2.
Maybe if the US had played in an easier group like Mexico's, it could have gone through. But theirs legitimately was the Group of Death. The Czechs, in golden position with 3 points and a plus-3 goal differential after one match, couldn't survive it. What were the odds for the Americans, with 1 bloody point and a minus-3 after two matches? ``There wasn't a lot of room for error, and we made too many errors," acknowledged Arena.
And yet, things were going their way after 43 minutes yesterday. Clint Dempsey, the pride of the Revolution, had just evened the match with a dagger stroke from the right side. Italy was up a goal and the Czechs were down a man. Then Oguchi Onyewu bumped Razak Pimpong in the area, Merk pointed to the spot, Stephen Appiah knocked in the penalty, and it was 2-1.
``Going into halftime 1-1 would have been great for us," said US captain Claudio Reyna. ``The penalty really changed the game. You could see the boys were deflated by the decision. They felt it was unjust."
Still, the Americans had 45 minutes to make up for it. Even if Merk had ignored the bump, they still needed another goal. It never came. Brian McBride put a header off the left post in the 66th minute. Onyewu put a header over the crossbar a minute later. Landon Donovan's free kick from 18 yards in the 81st sailed long and high. ``In the end, we didn't make the plays we needed to make," said goalkeeper Kasey Keller, who has been to four Cups and never played in a winning match. ``It's as simple as that."
From the beginning, when the Yanks conceded Jan Koller a point-blank goal, they were playing from behind. It took all the energy and grit they could manage, playing with nine men, to bleed a point out of the Italians. When Haminu Draman , who hadn't played a minute in the tournament until yesterday, stripped Reyna of the ball and blasted it past Keller in the 22d minute, the US found itself chasing again.
That, not the penalty, was the real killer for the Americans. They gave up an unfortunate goal (Reyna acknowledged he should have cleared the ball upfield) and their captain strained his knee on the play and had to come out before halftime. So it went for all three of their matches. The early goal to the Czechs. The two red cards against the Italians. The penalty yesterday. Always, the US was chasing the game, chasing the tournament halfway to Poland.
Fact is, the Americans had more than their share of good fortune here. An Italian defender kicked the ball into his own goal to hand them a draw. And when Ghana beat the Czechs, it forced the Italians to play to win yesterday to make sure they topped the group and avoided the Brazilians. All the US had to do yesterday was get 3 points and they could not. Uncle Sam's nephews are going home because they weren't good enough to stay. In this global carnival, 1 point gets you a kewpie doll.
Three-and-out is no novelty for the US. That's how it was in 1990, that's how it was in 1998, and that's how it easily could have been last time, when the Americans survived only because the Koreans, who merely needed a draw, beat the Portuguese, 1-0. ``The thing everybody forgets is that we squeaked into the second round in 2002," said midfielder Pablo Mastroeni . ``And all of a sudden, we were the best thing since 1950."
The last team went to the quarterfinals, the best US showing in 72 years. Maybe this one could have knocked off Brazil, maybe not. One thing, though, is certain. When you score one goal with your own feet in 270 minutes, you're on the early plane back to Newark. In this company, you can't play if you don't win.
CORNER KICKS Check out our World Cup blog at www.boston.com/worldcup for updates and insights from John Powers and Frank Dell'Apa in Germany. 