Southernman, I saw the last 35 minutes of the game(same-day tape, unfortunately) and you're right; I haven't seen the American squad play that kind of soccer (i.e. football) since.......only twice have they as well as they did today(at least the portion of the game I saw...): 2002, when they made it to the quarterfinal round, and back to 1994, when we Americans were the host country(I think we made the quarters that time as well)....Southernman wrote:A nine man USA team had a draw against a ten man Italy in a strange match.The Italians looked to be full of nerves and the US seemed to play like their lives depended on winning this match. If the niggles that occured at the start of this match happened in rugby union the ref would of called the captain aside and told to calm his players down.
Italy scored the first goal and conceded a strange own goal. Just after that the Italians were down to ten men after a elbow got put into as US players face.Automatic red card was deserved. That happened halfway through the first half. Near the end of the first half a US player got an automatic for a dangerous tackle on an Italian player. Just after half time A US player got sent of after getting a second yellow card.
The Uraguay ref didn't have the best of games.![]()
The final standings in this group could be decided by what players are available for the last group matches.
I'm still in shock over the fact that the Yanks had nine players and the Italians had ten and we still squeaked out a draw.


If I'm not mistaken, the current order in Group E is Italy, Czech Rep., Ghana and the U.S. Hopefully, two things will happen.........Italy gives the Czechs a shellacking similar to the one the Czechs gave us, and the United States wins over Ghana........if that happens(and someone correct me if I'm wrong), the two teams to the knockout rounds from the group should be.....Italy and the United States......I think.


